C is for Cyprus

Continuing along today with the April A-Z Blog Challenge and my travel adventures. This month I am reflecting on the time I spent overseas during my teens. 

C is for Cyprus

At our school, as is common I'm sure for many schools, the senior class often took a trip together to celebrate finishing high school together. Living near London at the time left us some pretty cool options for destinations that were just a short plane ride away. After some deliberation with different ideas being tossed back and forth, we opted to head to Cyprus, an island in the Mediterranean Sea. Relatively speaking our senior class was small- only 60 students. But for our school we actually had one of their largest graduating classes. And our of that 60, most people were in and ready to go! So about 50 of us headed off in early June (just days from graduation) ready to celebrate! 

That's me on the left! Sometimes, I feel like I still look so young, like I could pass for high school. And then I see a picture from high school and realize I've changed more than I realize. And when I look back at this picture, mostly I think it's incredible my parents were on board with putting that girl on a plane to Cyprus at 17. 

But off we went! We spent a week living it up in the sunshine.  Exams were done, college and gap year decisions made. The only thing we needed to worry about was sunscreen and relaxing. 

So we spent our days by the pool, soaking up the sun and each other, knowing in just a few days we'd be going our separate ways. I know everyone feels this dichotomy of feelings as they reach the end of high school. You hold joy and sadness in the same hand. But I think in the international community we grew up in, it was intensified. So many of us were going back to our "home countries" after graduation which meant, we weren't just going to different schools but we were going to be countries and even continents apart. So those last few days together were savored. 

How we were going to live life without these people by our sides? There is something so beautiful about this season of life. The impending life changes. The feeling of being on the edge of adulthood while still holding on to your childhood.  We fried in the sun (ok maybe just me on that one), and dressed up for dinner. We toasted our years spent together and what was coming. We went out dancing. And sang karaoke. And drank slushies at Senor Frogs (you have to right?). We got gyros from a cart on our way home. We played games and told secrets and then did it all over again the next day. 

My memories from this trip are sun-soaked, sea-salty, full of music and dancing, out too late, too loud nights in hotel hallways, laughing till your sides hurt and the peaceful joy of a 17 year old whose life is just about to start. 

The day after we got home, we walked across the graduation stage together,  with hair still salty from the sea and sun kissed skin. And I framed the picture above and hung it in my dorm room that fall, holding on to the old as I stepped in to the new.