As I struggled to stay awake on the Madrid metro in the not-so-wee hours of the morning this past weekend, I meditated on a quote from the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca’s poem “Floating Bridges”:

“I know there is no straight road/No straight road in this world/ Only a giant labyrinth/Of intersecting crossroads.”

Okay, I’m totally joking about meditating on the metro. If you’ve ever gone out in Madrid, you can guess that the only things on my mind on that early morning train were the pain in my feet and my intense fear of falling asleep and missing my stop. But if you’ve ever been out in Madrid, you also probably shouldn’t read this, because you’re probably much cooler than me and figured out how to do it without killing your feet and spending two hours chasing night buses around the city. (If so, call me and teach me your secrets.)

The truth is that those four Lorca lines, while not always at the forefront of my overstimulated mind during the Vassar-Wesleyan Program in Madrid, describe my abroad experience pretty accurately. And no, I don’t just mean my inept navigation of the public transport systems.

From the very relevant cliché of wondering how I got so lucky to cross paths with these people to the overwhelming challenge of balancing exploration in the city with that of other parts of Spain and of Europe, I do feel like I’m caught in a labyrinth—one in which every winding path leads to gorgeous architecture and art, endless layers of history, interesting people, huge portions of delicious food, and other such luxuries of the abroad experience. At the center of this labyrinth lies my small room in an apartment on the bustling Calle Velázquez with a bursting bookshelf of Spanish literature and a balcony overlooking the city.

The 26 of us on the program often find ourselves complaining that we have filled up all of our weekends with travel and worrying we won’t have time to get to know Madrid. Then we laugh and toss out the inevitable hashtags of “abroad problems” and “first world problems.”

Thanks to globalization, the Internet, airplanes, and all those other newfangled devices, the world has become a very small place as far as accessibility goes. But the number of things to see, do, and learn is only growing, and so far I’m pretty sure the only significant skills I’ve developed are a very fluent grasp of Spanglish and the ability to enjoy eating tomatoes.

So what it boils down to, I guess, is that Lorca, in writing about something entirely different, managed to describe the abroad experience more eloquently in four lines than I have managed to do so far in conversations I’ve had with family and friends in the States, my rambling abroad blog, or in this very article.

When it comes down to it, I have no idea how to sum up my time here so far. Do I focus on my interactions with my 68-year-old host señora, Carmen, who cooks me the biggest dinners I’ve ever eaten and whom I am currently teaching the ways of the iPad? Or on the game show we watch together daily that I’m still not totally sure I get? On my classes and their lack of assignments? On being a sophomore abroad (read: FOMO)? Or on the sandwich place near the university that makes me drool just thinking about it? Or do I focus on the unbelievable people with whom I’m sharing this experience and the intimidating beauty of the Spaniards who surround us?

I’ve been here for less than a month, but I feel like I have always been here and like I am never going to leave. I won’t lie and say that I never want to leave, but it is very hard to believe people when they tell me the time is going to fly.

There’s nothing like being in a foreign country to make you aware of the hundreds of roads surrounding you and the many experiences (both positive and negative) awaiting you at every turn. At least, that’s how it’s been for me: endless twists and turns that lead me to the right bus stop, an interesting museum, or the people and places that have started to become home to me here. I realize as I write this that in that way it is a lot like college—just bigger, scarier, and about a million times less familiar. To quote another famous Spaniard, director Pedro Almodóvar:

“Curiosity is the only thing that keeps me afloat.”

Confronted by countless museums, historic plazas, glorious end-of-winter “rebajas” (sales), and intimidating clubs, I am often tempted to stay cozily ensconced in my pretty little room, poring over old Spanish books (okay, the only one I’ve opened is the Lorca anthology—who’s surprised?) and watching the sun set over the city through my window. Turns out I’m not great at mapping out those intersecting crossroads Lorca talked about.

The one resource I can tap into, when I am overwhelmed enough to return to the comfort of my bed and my laptop, is my endless curiosity and my knowledge that, despite what I may think, I can probably believe everyone who’s done this before when they say that these four months will fly by. And hey, if I do fall asleep on the metro and miss my stop, I’ll just end up on a different adventure—and just a few Euros poorer.