Almost Home

With all this talk about how much I'm going to miss this place and this experience, I feel like I need to give Ohio some justice. Here's a list of things I'm excited to go home to:

1. Friends, family, loved ones, etc.
2. SHOWERS. Wasting water. The first thing I do when I get home will be take a 30 minute shower. I kid you not.
3. Food...there are plenty of foods from here I'll miss but for the most part I miss our normal eating schedule and (surprisingly) smaller portions of food at lunch and dinner than I have to force myself to eat here.
4. Working out/being healthy
5. Sitting on a couch watching American tv
6. Great service at restaurants..hotels...stores...everywhere
7. Making money again, not just spending like its my job
8. Biology classes- I never thought I'd say I'm excited to get back to Denison's classes but I picked biology as a major because I like it and I definitely solidified that decision after a semester of other classes.
9. People speaking English. Day to day life will be so much easier in my native tongue.
10. Never getting on a plane again. Or at least for a year or so. I can't take another weekend of traveling right now...except that I have to spend 2 days traveling home this weekend!

There are plenty more things, but I figure a list of 10 is sufficient. The picture is of the sunsetting over Granada last weekend. I now have 2 finals left and 4 days in Spain before my adventure ends so I'm going out now to make the most of it.

10 Days

I have 10 days left here, and as ready as I am to go home, I am going to miss Granada and this entire experience. I cannot believe it's been over 4 months since I left Ohio, scared and anticipating this adventure. I never pictured myself being able to understand almost everything in Spanish or being able to communicate with natives of Andalucia, where the Spanish accent is so thick it's almost impossible to understand. I could barely picture myself traveling around Europe without fear, jumping from metro to bus to train to plane without the help of my parents. I definitely never pictured myself missing certain things from home, like bowls, real showers, boneless chicken, BBQ sauce, and American TV. I've made some friends here that have helped shaped this experience in a way I never expected. It was a struggle at some times, and there were plenty of bad days with the good, but my friends here formed a support group for each other to help us through all of these strange emotions. I never expected to meet people to rely on like that in an 18 week program. I am FOR SURE goiing to miss the ice cream here, and many other foods like Spanish tortilla, schwarma, tapas, papas bravas, natilla, real bread with olive oil, and cafe con leche. I remember my first few weeks here, thinking the food was so plain and wondering how I would survive eating it all semester, and I definitely never expected to say that I'd miss it. I will miss going out for tapas and just getting a glass of wine (or two) or some tinto de verano and laughing with friends about how ridiculous we look as Americans in Spain. I will miss speaking Spanish, and I really want to go to South America now to further develop my speaking skills. The number one thing I will miss is my host mom, because she has been an amazing part of this trip and I would not have had the same experience without her.

I learned a things here that I didn't expect to learn. I expected to become more independent, and I did. I expected to learn more Spanish, and I did. I expected to be more confident in my travel abilities, and I did. I expected to learn about who I am and who I want to be, and I did. I didn't expect to learn to appreciate what I have more. I've learned my whole life that as I guest I have to say please and thank you and offer to help and obey by the rules of the house, and I've done that all semester as a guest in my host mom's house. I realized through saying thank you everytime she does my laundry, cooks my meals, and cleans my bathroom, that I barely say thank you to my own mom for doing chores like this. I never thank my mom for making me dinner or for washing my clothes. I may only live at home for a few months a year, and this may be the last summer I spend at home, but I have learned that when I go back I need to be more gracious and respectful to my parents. We may not agree about everything, but they paid for me to go to Spain for 18 weeks. They are paying for me to get a college education. They let me, for the most part, make my own decisions even if they don't agree with them. They have taught me so much and made me into this person who was capable of going to Spain for 18 weeks by herself and making the most out of it. That must've been a challenge. I will definitely take that lesson home with me.

Above is a picture from a 12 mile hike in Cabo de Gata that I did with my program last weekend. That is a view I will miss when I'm back in Ohio.

Road Trip!

Last weekend, my friends and I rented a car and took a road trip through Sevilla to Faro, Portugal. There was a festival in Sevilla called Feria, which pretty much consisted of a bunch of extravagant tents owned by restaurants or families and all of the Spaniards dressed up in flamenco outfits and ate and danced in these tents. It was a beautiful festival to see, with all the flamenco dresses and people being carted around on horse back. We then went to a bull fight in the Plaza de Toros, which was the MOST interesting experience I've had since I've been here. It was slightly disturbing at first, and I was a little shocked when they first started impaling the giant bull with little knives, but overall it was such a beautiful ceremony. It's amazing how humans can possibly battle bulls, and everytime the bull ran at the matador I would scream in terror. The audience would cheer everytime the matador did something cool, and their cheers were comparable to our football cheering. It was awesome, even though I had to close my eyes a few times.

We then drove to Faro, and I have to say that driving to Portugal was the most anticlimatic experience I've ever had. We were so ready with our passports to go through border control and get a stamp, but there was no border control. There was a sign that said "Portugal", not even "Welcome to Portugal" like American states have. Either way, we made it safely to our hotel and then spent all of Saturday at the beach. I got a little sunburned, but it was really relaxing to spend time at a beach instead of sightseeing and touring more cathedrals. We walked around the town of Faro in the evening, which took us all of 20 minutes because it is a very small, old town that we concluded is not much of a tourist trap.

On Sunday we drove back to Granada, once again happy to be back in our temporary home. Sunday was the Dia de los Cruces in Granada, or the Day of the Crosses. It was really weird to see the city flooded with thousands of tourists, but this festival also consisted of flamenco outfits so it was really pretty. Every plaza had a giant cross filled with flowers and lights, and that's about all we got out of the festival. My host mom later complained about the number of tourists in the town, which felt weird because I initially thought of myself as a tourist when I got here but now I was able to sympathize with her on the iritatance of tourism here.

The picture is of my friends and I in the Plaza de Toros right before the bull fight.