It’s 9pm on a Monday night and here I am, nestled among a heap of pillows, watching Gilmore Girls for the fifth time, and making my way through a tube of Pringles. Rather than suffering from the legendary fifth week blues, I tend to struggle my way through sixth week, a chunk of awkward days floating in the abyss between the start and end of term, an unwanted reward for having survived fifth week.
It’s been a bright, crisp day, and as I walked through University Parks this morning, there was a distinct ring of spring in the air. I removed my headphones to better enjoy the twittering of the birds and the rustle of the wind in the trees. The grass was peppered with snowdrops and lilac crocuses, and the river gently swelled against the banks. And, as I’ve found so often recently, a beautiful day in Oxford made me feel sentimental; the loveliness of this historic city is never more apparent than when its golden stone is glowing in the sunshine, and the dreaming spires are silhouetted against a carpet of light blue.
I’m now in my fourth year, and as such, must grapple with the reality of my Oxford days drawing to a close. Granted, this is something that every student must contend with, and I watched on as most of my friends bade a fond farewell to this city where our friendships began when they graduated last summer. Yet there is something about the fourth year that I’m certain makes the final year even more strange: a sense of something already lost, of living in a moment that has already passed.
Speaking of moments passed, these nostalgic moods so often make me think about the year I recently spent living abroad in Spain. My camera roll from February of last year stands in stark contrast with the three or four photos I’ve taken this month: a bowl of pasta I was particularly proud of, snowdrops in the park, and a blurry capture of a library book reference on SOLO. Tonight, as Lorelai Gilmore chatters on in the background, I find myself scrolling back to last year, looking through seemingly endless pictures of bright sunny Spanish streets, beers sparkling in the Plaza Mayor, and big groups of international students smiling in the Portuguese countryside.
I didn’t take photos of the mornings when I was struggling out of bed for my 9am class on Golden Age literature, nor of the lunchtimes I spent in the canteen, failing to form sentences in Spanish. There’s no evidence of the homesickness I felt as I saw photos of my friends attending formal dinners and dressing up for bops, or the way that I missed the patchwork English countryside in early spring. Instead, the photos that I did take form a seemingly perfect grid of adventure and delight, making me long for an experience that I will never be able to relive. Now that I look back, listening to the section of my playlist which corresponds with those foreign months, I forgive the difficulties and am grateful for all that my Spanish adventure offered me – the lows, just as much as the highs.
When I miss Salamanca, it is not only the golden streets, the stunning plaza and the beautiful cathedral that come to mind: suddenly I am hearing the chatter of the Rúa Mayor, gazing at pastries piled high in the old artisan bakery I pass on the way to class in the morning, and being hit by the cool air of Mercadona. I can smell the coffee and hear the reggaeton blasting from the speakers of the clubs which stayed open through the night and into the morning; I can picture twenty-somethings singing karaoke in the Irish Theatre and drinking cherry red tinto de verano. I imagine all the conversations I had, all the people I met, and all the friendships that began in those bars and classrooms.
And funnily enough, when I miss Salamanca, I begin to miss Oxford: this place which has given me some of the best years of my life and introduced me to the friends I will always cherish. A city of unwritten essays and impossible translations, seemingly unending walks through the Lamb and Flag passageway to get to Wellington Square. Thursday nights at the Turf and quizzes in the JCR on Mondays. The top of staircase 25. Duets from the noisy neighbour and his keyboard. The quiet of the EFL at six thirty.
A place which, this time next year, will also be waiting for me as a set of smiling photos in my camera roll.
