Getting close to the end

Hola! Alright, I know that my last post was quite boring, and I have been slacking again and haven´t written anything for quite some time, so I will try to make up for it!

Last time I posted, my boyfriend had just left and I had just done all of my major travelling for spring break. Sorry that post was so lame.;)

Alright, so since then classes have ended. But before I skip to that joyous part of my life, let me bring you all to surface with the struggle I had been facing up until the last day of classes. I had two presentations to do before the last week of classes. One of them was in my art class where we had to present an art piece that we had chosen to analyze, and we were supposed to analyze it in front of the class for 10 minutes. With my super awesome last name, I was of course the 2nd one to go in the class, and I totally froze. I went up there with all of my information and just froze. I talked for maybe 3 minutes and then sat down and knew it was awful.

I talked with my professor and explained to him that I just panicked and he was really nice about it and he said that I could redo my presentation on the last day of classes, so I knew I had to make it much better since I had way more time to prepare.

There is this little café that is near the city center, and it is owned and run by these 2 guys from Canada. It´s called Canada Cupcake Café, and we go there a lot to work on homework. The guys that own it are really cool and the cupcakes are delicious, so it´s a win win. The point of this little story is that I have spent about 20 hours there in the past like 2 weeks writing my papers and doing my homework. The end of the semester struggle is real.

On May 11, 5 of us from CMU met our coordinators in the city center and we drove to a nearby city called Biar, where one of our coordinators lives. There was a festival going on for the Moros y Cristianos, so there were parades and costumes and music and just a ton of people. We spent the afternoon watching the parade and it was really cool to see all of the culture in the streets. It is just like what you see in the movies!

On May 14, we had an oral exam for our history class. We had to read 3 books before taking the exam, and I only read about 2 ½ of them because A. I am a slacker/procrastinator and B. I am not a fan of history. The oral exam was a group exam thankfully, and I think we did pretty well.

May 16-21st were absolutely the worst 5 days of my life. Sure, some good things happened here and there, but overall I don´t think I have ever been so stressed out. I mentioned earlier how I am not a fan of history, and somehow I ended up in 2 history classes here. I had a huge paper to write for one of these classes, along with a 20 minute presentation about my topic, which was the involvement of the United States in the Spanish Civil War. I won´t go into too much detail, but basically I spent more hours on this paper and presentation than I ever wanted to spend doing anything in my life. 

When Monday came around I had to redo my art presentation, and thankfully I did 100 times better than the first time. So my week was off to a good start. Luckily this was also the last week of classes, so that was helping me stay somewhat positive. I had to stay focused and practice and revise my paper all week until Wednesday night when the presentation happened.

Of course, I was the first one to present on Wednesday so I went up there, did my thing, and then it was over. I think I did pretty well, and I was so happy to be done!!! Another insanely hard thing crossed off my list. The next thing I had to do before our trip on Saturday was to dub two 3 minute videos with Amanda for our translation class. It took us FOREVER to finally get it all done. We actually didn´t even finish it until about 8:30 tonight. Talk about a struggle. I don’t think either of us have ever been so mad or frustrated in our lives, but thankfully that is now over.

All that is left for my time here is one paper to write, three finals to take, and one amazing vacation to Dublin and London and then I will be home in about 3 weeks! I have enjoyed this experience so much, and it breaks my heart that it has to come to an end so soon! I am so jealous of all of the students who are going to be coming here in the fall semester, you couldn´t have chosen a better more exciting destination! 

Sorry it has been a month!

I apologize for the lack of blogging. I didn’t realize how far behind I had gotten, and now that I look at it, it has been a month since I posted and I am overwhelmed. SO MUCH has happened over the last month and I don’t even know where to start. Let’s start with my birthday…

I turned 21 April 12! I was a little bit homesick on my birthday because I wanted to celebrate with the people I’m closest with, but it ended up being a great day anyway. I went to the beach with Ali and Amanda in the morning, had a big birthday lunch dedicated to me with a birthday cheesecake, got a homemade t shirt from my host mom, ate a giant ice cream, and then went to El Barrio to celebrate that night. It was overall a very good day!

Not to brag, but I have been going to the beach almost every day and loving every minute of it. I am so tan that my host mom told me when I go home nobody is going to recognize me! It is such a beautiful life to have the beach right down the street every day. It breaks my heart that I have to leave this place so soon!

I also had my first experience with a Spanish style field trip.  We came to campus and got on this bus and then drove to all of these sights that were around Alicante, maybe an hour or so away. Our first stop was this random field of grass and dirt. We got off the bus and started walking and climbing this hill where there were like abandoned couches and broken tvs and it was the sketchiest thing ever. We were overlooking some battle field I think, but I really have no idea. Then we got back onto the bus and drove to the next stop which was this house that we couldn’t see because there were gates all over the place…I have no idea whose house it was. The third stop was a drive by because the professor said it would take too long for us to get off and on the bus again. After that we went to this place that was near the OPEL dealership, and I don’t have a clue what that was for either. THEN we went to this little city and walked around and saw a few important buildings. THEN we went to this other little abandoned area with like a couple of houses and this bomb shelter you could go in if you wanted. THEN we thought we were done, but we had to go to this random place that looked like a rest stop and watch this movie that the professor brought with him that basically summarized everything we were looking at all day. It was a very strange day to say the least. 

The next thing I want to talk about is the processions during holy week. Holy week is the week before Easter, and every day and night in Alicante (and many other cities in Spain) there are processions. It is called La Semana Santa here, and it was just amazing to see. Thousands of people filled the streets while people wore religious costumes, played music, carried monuments and just everything was so beautiful I can’t even describe it. It was definitely something I was happy to see. My host brother played the trombone in the band during a few of the processions, and my host mom was in one of them as well in one of the outfits (sorry I don’t know what they’re called) and she was passing out candy. It was so cool to watch, I can’t even explain it!

After holy week, Ali, Amanda and I headed out for our awesome Spring break adventure. I am going to make this a summary, because if I go into detail about all of our trips it will be a 10 page post and nobody wants to read that haha. But basically, we went from Alicante to Rome, Rome to Florence, and Florence to Munich. Every single city was beautiful and full of historic sights and culture. I will tell you all my favorite part of each city, that way it is short and sweet. In Rome I got the opportunity to see the Pope speak during Good Friday at the coliseum. That is something I will never forget. There were thousands of people and it was a really special night. Definitely the highlight of Rome for me. In Florence my favorite part was our bed and breakfast. I know that sounds really dumb but seriously, that place rocked. Okay culturally though, my favorite thing in Florence was probably Il Duomo, or the dome. The dome is part of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, and you have to climb up 400 something stairs to get to the top of it. But when you do the view of the city is amazing. The only thing that sucked was the 3 ½ hour line we waited in…but oh well. It was amazing. In Munich my favorite part was the Neuschwanstein castle. This was the castle that the castle in Sleeping Beauty was based off of, but we weren't allowed to take pictures so I’m sorry but I have no interior shots to show. But wow it was beautiful and breathtaking. Hard to imagine living in a place like that.

After Munich, I separated from the group and went to meet Will, my boyfriend, in Paris. It ended up being the best trip of my life. Yes, I get to live every girl’s dream and tell everyone for the rest of my life that I got engaged on the Eiffel tower. So long story short, I am the happiest person ever. The rest of Paris was incredible, and we had the best time together.

After our few days in Paris, we flew to Alicante so I could show him around my home away from home for 6 days. We went to Tabarca Island, a small island off of the coast of Alicante, climbed the castle, ate a ton of food, went to the beach a bunch, went to the beach in another city, went to a fair, and sooooo much more! 

I have been having the best time lately, but I only have 6 weeks left and it sounds like nothing. I have one more mini vacation left (Ireland and England) and then finals and before you all know it I will be back in the USA!