My Favorite Place on Earth

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Last week had a lot of ‘lasts’: last meeting, last dinner, last group trip. Last Tuesday we had our last intercultural meeting with Veronica. We talked about reentry back to the US and what we can expect to feel. I’ve already gone through the reentry process coming back from China, but this will still be different. Last time, I was only home for three weeks, so I didn’t really have enough time to readjust completely. And it was during the holidays, so I was rushing everywhere and seeing all these people. This time, it’s the summer, I’ll be starting work again, and things will (hopefully) be less hectic and crazy. I think it will be harder too though because my study abroad experience will be completely over. I’ll be back to real life, working and going back to Central in the fall. I’ll definitely miss speaking Spanish all the time. That’s one thing I haven’t missed about Americans. None of them seem interested in other languages, and even students studying language don’t want to practice it. I’ll never have this situation where I can have conversations with my host family in Spanish, discuss literature and history in Spanish, and have Spanish friends to hang out with. Sorry everyone, but I really don’t miss the United States. I miss my family and friends, but not the country. Spain really has become my home, and I’ll miss it like crazy when I’m gone.

Last Thursday we had our goodbye dinner. The students in the language intensive program are done the 18^th, so this was the last week for us all to be together. We got all dressed up and met in the Plaza de la Trinidad, better known as bird crap plaza. (If I haven’t already told you about this, it’s a beautiful plaza full of trees, but there are hundreds of birds hanging out here, and they poop all over the place, and it smells horrible.) At the restaurant we had a whole room to ourselves. It got pretty noisy since there are almost 50 of us. The dinner was absolutely delicious! For starters we got tinto de verano to drink and bread. Next was cheese fondue and sticks of bread to dip it in. Then we had a kind of burrito wrap with meat, veggies, and cheese. I was already starting to fill up at this point, and we still hadn’t got our main course. We had to choose between salmon, ravioli, and beef. I got the salmon since I’ve hardly had any fish this semester. Courtney doesn’t like it, so we always get chicken or ham. After dinner, they brought out a plate with a brownie and scoop of ice cream, a piece of raspberry cheesecake, and a bowl of mango ice cream for every four people. We were so stuffed by now, but the desserts were so good, we had to slowly pick at them until they were gone.

This was the longest dinner I have ever been to. We got to the restaurant at about 9:30, and we didn’t leave until midnight. We were planning on all going out afterwards, but I was really tired and wasn’t expecting the dinner to last that long. I went home and went to bed. That Saturday was our group trip to Nerja. We went to the caves of Nerja first. The caves were discovered in 1959 and have indications of being inhabited from about 25,000 BC. We went through these pretty quickly then headed to the beach at noon. Nerja doesn’t have the white, powdery, sand beaches like I’m used to, but it was still nice to lie on the beach. The day got really hot though, and I had to jump in the sea to cool off. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the sun that strong. The water was absolutely freezing, and my body went numb, but it was much better than dying from the heat. Becca and I took a stroll along the beach to break up the monotony of laying in the sun for hours on end. After three hours in the sun, I had to go find some shade. It was probably a good thing because I had to read a book for my literature class and I finished it sitting in the shade. The sun really took it out of me, and I ended up falling asleep on a bench. We went back out to the sand for the last hour and a half, and I fell asleep again. That Spanish sun really takes it out of you.

We left Nerja at 6:30 and drove back to Granada. Since this was Amber and Becca’s last weekend, we were going to go out with Irene one last time. Amber’s feet got really sun burnt and swollen, but she still made it out to the botellón and Mae West. Sunday was just a lazy day to recuperate from the weekend. Monday, Courtney and I went to the gym Yo10. Our host mom’s daughter in law gave us two free day passes, so we decided to check it out. Yo10 is the nicest gym I have ever seen. It’s amazing! They have a huge room with treadmills, elliptical machines, bicycles, and free weights and machines, plus a room for spinning, and two rooms for classes. They also have a pool for laps and a spa. We didn’t do the spa, but we did a body pump class, and that was really fun. It was actually the same exact class that I do at my gym, but the facilities are so much nicer. If only I had had 80 euros every month to be a member here.

It’s my last week of classes, and I’m so ready to be done. I don’t want to leave Spain, I just don’t want to have to go to class anymore. Amber and Becca are leaving Thursday since the intensive students finish earlier, so we got together one last time yesterday at Café Futbol for some ice cream. I’m going to see Amber again since she goes to Central, but hopefully I can stay in touch with Becca. It doesn’t seem real that the semester is almost over and everyone is going home. I’m really not ready to leave Spain. Even if I come back someday, it won’t be the same. This next week is going to be so confusing: I’m going to be extremely sad that everything is ending but so excited for my family to get here and show them my favorite place on earth.

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