Friday, May 13, 2022, and it is a beautiful day in Prague. As the flowers blossom and the summer approaches, I look at a Czech family walking outside of the cafe where I am writing these words. The smile on their faces and the glow of still shy morning sunbeams distract me from what has been clouding my thoughts over the past couple of days: “How do I end a story?”

I was prompted with the challenge to write about our final week, not only in the Czech Republic but also our final week in Global. Our final week traveling the world together, our final week having surprise hikes, our final week working on a semester-long documentary, and our final week as a group. To compare this assignment to the importance of  British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s final speech at the end of World War II is rather arrogant. So, I do not take pride in the fact that this very speech is currently open on one of my web browser’s tabs as I look for inspiration. As a senior, I can say with confidence that no class, essay, or exam has prepared me for this moment. But before I start telling you the end, let us recap from the beginning. 

During our first week in Quito, Professor Sonnega, in trying to help us figure out how to find a topic that would drive our documentary, introduced a fairly simple way to frame plots in a short-pitch format. The idea is to use a structure that starts with an overview of the piece: “This is the story of…”, and proceeds to tell the purpose of the story, its challenges, and conflicts, “and what happens when…”. That being said…

This is the story of 17 college students, a faculty leader, and their spouse and what happens when they travel the world together on a semester-long program, meeting new people, new cultures, and new places while creating life-long friendships along the way.

The full and detailed development of this story and its Oscar-worthy plot can be found in my peers’ blog posts prior to this one. And now, the end:

Our last week was, by far, the busiest one. In trying to grasp and keep up with class assignments, papers, blog posts, and presentations, I also was finishing the editing process of our documentary. We have been working on this assignment since our very first week on this program, and now it was time to finish it. So it was a week filled with caffeine, late nights of editing sessions, and a little to no sleep at all. But all worth the fight. On the morning of Thursday, May 12th, we premiered the 37-minute-long project to all our peers, guests, and professors. It was a rough morning, to say the least. After getting two hours of sleep, I woke up to find out that the editing program had failed to render the final file. I took a deep breath and tried again. After 35 minutes, however, another failed attempt. My heart started racing. Now, with less than 25 minutes to our showing, the only thing left to do was to restart the computer and pray to the technology gods. So there I was, sitting on our busy train, the computer on my lap, and a very slow progress bar in front of my eyes. But finally, right after our last stop, the final file popped up, and we were ready to go.

As the occasion required, we all dressed up nicely for our red carpet, drank mimosas, and delighted in fresh-made cake and tiramisu. In the end, I looked at some of my friends who had tears in their eyes. Surprisingly, even though I knew every single frame from that movie better than I know the lines in my hands, I too had tears in my eyes. Definitely a mix of emotions. The relief of having such a significant project done; the happiness that it all worked out in the end; our pride for all working together on this; the sadness of seeing our program come to an end; vertigo for finishing my last college project… I cannot wait for a campus premier of our work!

After that, we proceeded the day of celebrations with a riverboat cruising, a good way to emulate the senior traditions while abroad. As we cruised down the Prague River, we enjoyed nice refreshments and appreciated the perfect European spring weather.

Now, in just a few minutes, we are going on our final excursion to relax at a nice spa in the small town of Karlovy Vary, just two hours away from Prague. But I decided to end my report here, as I have some sleep to catch up on. “So now what?”, you might be asking. “How will I know the details of their fun and amazing final weekend trip?”. It is a good question indeed, dear reader. But for which I offer no good answer, except maybe browsing through our social media, in a truly 2022 fashion. What I can offer you, though, are a few remarks on our farewell.

It has been a great journey so far. Which doesn’t mean that saying goodbye will be easy. Quite the opposite. What it means is that now we have good friends that we can count on for whatever comes and goes. And from this amazing trip, we will be left with the traces of tears shed in moments of sadness and emotion, the laughs we had together, the times we supported each other, when we apologized and forgave, the companionship and solidarity, the surprise hikes, the classes, the tiredness after an excursion, the shared meals, the late nights working and reading, the sense that we were there for one another.

Let us, therefore, brace ourselves for our life after Global, when we will carry the amazing experiences we had here along with us until the end of our time. The truth is that I misunderstood the assignment. I am not writing about the end, but about the beginning of our journey onwards. And being arrogant enough to borrow from Churchill’s words, I believe that when I look back on this experience a couple of decades from now, I will truly remember it as our finest hour.