I don’t even know where to begin because Friday November 15th was more eventful that I planned it to be. My plan: go horseback riding then sleep the rest of the day. What actually happened: go horseback riding, fall off the horse, go to the hospital, have medicine injected into you, then go home. Now before you freak out, please read on for a detailed description of how my entire day played out.
The act of waking up at 7 am on a Friday to go horseback riding was horrible, but then we sat on a train which followed the coastline as the sun was rising for over an hour which made it all worth it. I’m not going to lie, but I definitely contemplating just taking that exact train ride again because of how gorgeous it was. Seeing the ocean and the sun reflecting on it reminded me so much of Point Loma, and I was mesmerized- it felt like home. We arrived at the stables an hour and a half later, and I’ll admit that I was pretty scared to hop onto the back of a giant horse since I’ve never done it before. Overall, the ride was so much fun and way calmer than I imagined it to be! My horse was like me in every way, super slow and often paused for breaks. During the ride our group went up the mountain, around the mountain, and high enough for us to see the ocean in the distance.
Now for the falling off part… All of a sudden my horse started running, which I wasn’t too scared about until it went at a full sprint. I tried to pull it’s reigns back, but some how managed to lose balance and fall off. I don’t remember much of the fall, but it really wasn’t that bad! I was fortunate enough to land in a muddy patch rather than rocky area which was lucky because most of the path was all rock. After taking a moment to recollect myself, I got up and felt completely fine other than a slight headache and a few scratches. My main concern was my poor camera! The precious thing got a bit damaged, but it’s nothing a warranty can’t fix.
Going forward a bit, we returned to Barcelona, my program director came with me to the hospital to get checked out, and then I met with a doctor. Now I really, really didn’t feel all too bad, but getting the doctor’s OK was worth having my parents not worry. At the hospital I was actually really excited because they made me do a cat scan!! I felt so cool, like I was in a Grey’s Anatomy episode, and I just wanted to take photos of myself. Unfortunately I couldn’t because I had to put my phone away, but still if I could have, I totally would have done it. The cat scan was so calm that I almost fell asleep on the little bed thing. When the doctor got the test results she said everything was fine, but she still insisted on giving me medicine. Now here’s the weird part, the medicine was injected into me rather than just prescribing some pills to take later that day. I started to get scared since I only had a headache and decided to text some friends from Barcelona and ask if this was normal. They all replied and said it was fine, so I calmed down and waited until it was over to go home.
The biggest thing I realized after this whole mess was that I have some pretty great friends. One of my friend came to the hospital to walk me home and make sure I was all good since my roommate is out of town, and another friend was about to rush over to the hospital and find me if my phone hadn’t had died to tell her which hospital I was at. This same friend also called my residence building, called my cousin back home to see if she knew anything, and then when I did get in contact with her, made me Skype her to make sure I really was alive. I was so overwhelmed with appreciation, because how is it that a girl I just met a few months ago could care this much!! It’s so nice to know that I have people to rely on in times of trouble.
This type of situation may have made me freak out had it happened a few years ago, but not anymore. Now I feel so much more at peace. I think that studying abroad has taught me to put all my faith, trust, and cast my worries upon the Lord. When I fell, I was calm and even told God thank you, because it could have been much worse. I could have broken a bone or fallen into a concussion, but I didn’t. So rather than get mad at God and ask why he would let this happen to me, I said thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do something really fun, and even though it ended badly, I’m still healthy and safe. Later that night after the hospital, I prayed another prayer of thanks. I told God thank you for putting caring people into my life. Thank you for allowing me to have friends who I’ve only known for a few months, yet care so much about me. As I grow up I believe more and more that everything happens for God’s reason. So even though my first time riding a horse ended up in my first time falling off a horse, I learned so much more than that. Adios!