Review: 5 Months Tenerife

It's almost the end of January, which means it's almost time to fly home. In fact, next wednesday is the beginning of the two week vacation with my dad and that's it then. The adventure 'Tenerife' is coming to an end. So I wanted to use my last days to look back at the past five months and see what has happened.

First thing that comes to my mind: this whole thing most definitely did not go as expected! 

Having made the experience of being away for such a long time before, during my high school stay in Canada, I thought 'This is going to be easy'. I expected those 5 months to be full of adventures, surfing, beach and sun. Sure studying as well, but mostly fun. Of course I knew there would be obstacles along the way, bad days where nothing goes right, missing family and friends and my boyfriend. But as it turned out, the biggest problems weren't due to language barriers or homesickness. It simply was life that got in the way. My plans for my future changed, it was all really stressful and I even had to fly home for a couple of days over christmas, which had never been part of the plan in the beginning. All of this made me lose sight of the beauty around me. Tenerife and the Canaries in general are so wonderful and every place is different. But I couldn't really see it anymore, or maybe I didn't want to. I just wanted to get home and be done with it to finally start over.

In hindsight I now know that this was wrong. Maybe I should have tried harder to still enjoy my time here. Maybe I shouldn't have let this whole thing get me down so much and still have fun. Maybe I should have gone out more with all the wonderful people that always tried to cheer my up, instead of canceling most of the plans and just staying in bed. Or maybe I shouldn't even have gone away, then the whole uni changing thing would have been so much easier and I'd already be doing what I really want to do. Maybe. But I didn't. 

And I don't regret any of it. I am a strong believer that no one should ever regret anything (unless it's really morally unacceptable or illegal, but then that's a whole other story...) I think every thing we do in our lives and every decision we make is good for something. Even if it's only to learn from your mistakes and do it better next time. 

This whole experience led me to where I am today. I know now what I want in life - or at least it's a little more clear - and without that time away to think, I don't believe I would have had the courage to take this step. And even if I might have missed out on some things, I still had a pretty good time and saw some amazing things. So I guess I'm also using this post to share some of my favourite pictures I took from the places I went to and people I met during the past five months. 

And it's also a little reminder, that if you're having a bad time, no matter what you're going through, it will get better! And if you're struggling with decisions you might regret, just don't! Use them to grow, learn from your mistakes and take them for what they are: just another step on the way to the life you want to live and the person you want to be!

I hope this helped some people. Or that you at least enjoyed the pictures. If you did, be sure to head over to my instagram and tumblr, where I already uploaded a few others and there will definitely be more!

Have a wonderful day and don't forget to smile!

♡