I went bowling a few weeks ago with my hometown friends. The bowling alley where we spent
summer nights as kids. The same fluorescent lights. The same grey haired man behind the counter. The same ugly clown shoes. And the same group of friends I’ve grown up with over the last decade.

While sipping my beer and throwing numerous gutter balls, I realized how much I enjoy the time I spend with these people.

Sure, I’ve made many friends while traveling, throughout college and as a “young adult.” They are, with no doubt, great people. Hilarious. Motivated. Fun.

But for some reason they don’t pinch my heart like this hometown group. Maybe because I have never wrestled them in the basement. I have never locked their arms and ran into a winter ocean. I have never snuck in or out of the house with them or carpooled to the movies in their mom’s mini van.

This all must have something to do with why the friends we make in our “adult-ish” years are never as close as the ones we make as kids. I’ve shared so many “firsts” with these people I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let them go.

We didn’t know anything as kids, but thought we knew it all. We were awkward and confused. Our emotions were fresh and we explored them with our friends.

I’ve learned a lot with these people and have many times I wish I could forget. But instead we can look at those memories today and burst out laughing, or crying, or just shake our heads at the simplest things.

They will be the ones forever smiling in pictures on my wall. Even when, years from now, a new friend will glance at the photo and have no clue who the happy faces belong to, I still want to look at them everyday.

And when we’re back in the same town together, from different cities or time zones or countries, we’ll get together over a few cases of cheap beer and waste away the night. And laugh. Because I never seem to laugh the same way with other people.

That's what I get when I see my old friends. Cheep beer, bad jokes, good memories and a sense of home. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When I first landed in Quito, my legs were shaky. The airplane was unable to touch ground due to strong winds above the city, so we flew South to Guayaquil to get fuel and sit in the runway... and wait.

At midnight on September 2nd, three hours after my scheduled arrival, I walked alone through the crowds in the Quito airport. Spanish conversations buzzed around me, but I couldn't seem to recall a single phrase I had learned in the previous weeks. I needed to take a taxi to find a hostel in La Mariscal District (A.K.A. Gringolandia), but thoughts ran through my head of dangerous cab drivers and petty crimes in the city.

A woman working the desk recommended the taxi of one older man, so I hopped in his van and trusted he would take me where I asked. While we drove through the desolate city, I sat clutching my backpack and attempting to swallow the knot that was forming in my throat. I couldn't help but question why I had chosen to move to this unfamiliar country where I had no friends and could barely speak the language. I had never felt so alone.

A combination of jet lag, frustration with my Spanish and a bit of confusion made me want to curl up in that backseat and cry. It took complete concentration to hold in the tears and convince myself that these uncomfortable situations help you to grow into a stronger person.

So, I sucked it up, checked into a hostel and fell asleep in the top bunk of a room full of strangers. $7 for a bed, a warm shower and free breakfast.

The next morning I staggered down to the dining room for toast and cereal with several other sleepy backpackers. The good thing about travelers is we are naturally curious people -- Why else would we want to see the world other than to satisfy scratching the itch of curiosity?

And quick friends are easy to make when staying in hostels. Everyone has their own unique stories to share of where they've been, what they've done and of course where they're going. So conversations at breakfast naturally flowed and initial plans for a walk in the park with some Ecuadorians also led to a trip to the outdoor market, sharing a burrito with an Australian girl, cervezas and broken Spanish around a patio table, failed attempts at salsa dancing and a secret after-party at an underground diskoteka.

Quito is a mix of the old and new cultures of Ecuador. La Mariscal district is full of young people, hostels, modern restaurants and bars, while the old town has colorful plazas, rows of old buildings and historic churches watched over by El Panecillo, the virgin angel statue.

Along the street, little boys with dirt on their faces want to shine your shoes for a quarter and young girls selling Chicklets look up at you with sad brown eyes. It's not easy saying no.

After spending a week in the capital city, I was able to get somewhat accustomed to the Ecuadorian lifestyle and also register my visa. But seven days of commotion left me eager to get to the tranquillo atmosphere of the farm.

Goodbyes always seem so dramatic in the movies. Eyes are filled with tears, men tend to run along the side of trains and the weather just happens to be dreary just like that foggy night in Casablanca with trench coats and the ever famous farewell line: “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

These scenes are never tearjerkers for me. I wouldn’t necessarily classify myself as “movie crier” at all, but the whole concept of saying goodbye is often overly portrayed as melodramatic.

I’ve been confident about my opinion on this sappy subject for years until, unfortunately, a few weeks ago.

I wiped away tears while taking the elevator down to the lobby of my apartment building. I needed to throw bags of trash into the dumpster, bags filled with a pair of my worn converse, disregarded scribbles of class notes and maps that had been pinned to my walls for months – basically anything I could trash in order to lighten my luggage.

I was focused on moving out of my flat in time to catch a flight to the South Island of New Zealand where I would be traveling for the following weeks.

As I walked into the lobby, I saw the tear-stained faces of the people I spent the last five months getting to know. The people from countries scattered around the world and all across America that were so different from me, but quickly became my best friends.

I didn’t decide to study abroad to make new friends or meet people, I wanted to see the world and become familiar with the country.

I am satisfied with my relationship with New Zealand, I immersed myself into the culture and traveled more within the country in five months than I have around the U.S. my entire life, but during the last days, it wasn’t the relationship with the country that concerned me, it was ending the relationships with the people I shared the time.

So I walked to and from the dumpster without acknowledging my emotional friends and headed back up to my flat to grab my bags, along with my composure.

It’s not easy accepting the fact that the world is a large place and you may never see these people ever again.

Yes, the Internet allows us to Skype, email and easily keep in touch, but the understanding sits in the back of our minds that the bond will never be same.

Once I was able to get my emotions under control, I joined my group of friends in the lobby for the final farewells.

Most goodbyes are awkward. No one ever knows the right words to say, but I’ve realized now that most things are better left unsaid.

That unsatisfied, incomplete feeling will always exist after a sincere goodbye and I recognize that there is nothing one can say or do to fulfill it.

So we all cried and hugged and sometimes didn’t say a word while onlookers stared at us, most not able to comprehend the situation as it is something that the majority of people have never experienced and may never will.

Leaving and losing such valuable relationships is not an experience I would recommend to others, but it is a part of traveling that one cannot avoid.

After returning home to my family and friends, I still feel a bit of emptiness and I’m only now realizing that it will never go away, but only be ignored, as the memories are more important. So far it seems easier to remember than to miss.

I was reading a book during the end of my time abroad and posted a quote from it on my wall for inspiration and would now recommend it to any other traveler who inevitably faces the final goodbye.

“So many people enter and leave your life. Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in, but it also means you have to let them go.”

-Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer