It's my last morning here!

Well, it's my last morning in Central America.  I'm currently sitting on my bed in my hostel in Liberia, Costa Rica waiting until I have to head to the airport.  The past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind of emotions, and while I may have left Nicaragua on Friday, I don't think it has really hit me that I'm leaving for good until right about now.  My goodbye parties started about 2 weeks ago, and lasted for the duration of my last week of service.  I officially finished my service a week ago today, and have spent the last week traveling around Nicaragua and the northwestern Guanacaste region of Costa Rica.  But every time I've traveled over the past 2 years I've gone back to site afterwards.  The last time I was in this hostel in Costa Rica I returned back to site.  Now I'm about to get on a plane and I have no idea when I will be back.  I've been running through the moment of me getting off the plane in O'Hare tonight over and over in my head for the last week.  Sometimes I'm super happy to see my mom waiting for me, and sometimes I just get super upset that this whirlwind of a journey has come to an end.   I guess only time will tell how I feel when I get off the plane.  I then have 2 days before heading to Vietnam for 12 days to visit my sister, so I have a nice built in buffer to try and ease the process a little.  I am super excited to be home to see friends and family, but I am really super upset to be leaving all of my friends and "family" back in Nicaragua.  By the end of two years I felt like I was part of the community, and it's difficult to leave.  But, instead of rambling on, here's a short list of things that have changed in my life over the past 2 years:

• I am conversationally fluent in Spanish
• I am much more patient, and have in some instances even adopted the Latin American principle of time
• Got used to living in a house that, over the course of two years, also temporarily housed chickens, ducks, a pig, and I feel like I'm missing something there.....
• Now almost prefer using an outhouse. Still never got used to showering in super cold water, but I didn't mind showering in the backyard in a partially covered shack using water out of an oil barrel.
• I regularly gel my hair and tuck in my shirts (and usually wear collared shirts)
• I became addicted to sweet bread and also started baking a lot
• I started drinking coffee (when in Rome, right?) 
• Stopped caring about the nutritional value of my food and just eat whatever I feel like eating. Also grew to enjoy a diet that consisted mainly of red beans, rice, and corn tortillas
• I got a tattoo of the national crest of a country that I originally would have jumped at any excuse to leave without actually quitting.  
• Overall, I feel like a completely different person than I was on the morning of August 13th, 2013 when I flew off to DC for Peace Corps Staging. I'm different on personal levels I won't share on this public of a forum, as well as in many other ways I just can't think of right now.  

There are too many pictures from the last 2 weeks to post here, so I'm just putting these two.  The first is my last night in my site preparing to leave.  The second is of me ringing the bell in the Peace Corps office, symbolically finishing my Peace Corps service.  I actually officially finished it 20 minutes later with a signature from the sub-director of Peace Corps Nicaragua.