The Beginning of the End

---

I leave for the U.S. on June first, so I have under four weeks left in Spain. I can’t believe it’s May already! This semester has passed faster than any so far, and I’m just starting to realize that this month will fly by too. I’m looking forward to seeing family and friends from the states again, but I wish I could make time slow down until June. After getting back to Alicante on Monday, I’ve already had my first two “lasts” here.
Tuesday was Nicole and my last day at the grade school helping with the 2nd grade English class. We’ve gone there almost every week since February, and although the teacher claims we work with the two worst classes in the entire school and some of the kids are a bit crazy, I really enjoyed volunteering there. And I think I learned as much from the kids as I taught them too. I was pretty sad to see them for the last time on Tuesday, but Frese and I gave them all our addresses in the U.S. so that they could write to us if they want to in the future. I really hope some of them do.
Yesterday was my second “last”: water sports class. I technically have one more theory class to conclude things in two weeks, but next week I won’t be in town so yesterday was my last day in the water. We could choose from surfing, windsurfing, and kayaking today, and I did the first two. The waves were small though, so surfing wasn’t any good. It was my second time attempting to windsurf after that, but I failed just about as miserably with that as I did last week. Nevertheless, I enjoyed trying, and being in the water like that is great exercise. I met some other international students in that class that I really liked, and water sports is by far the coolest class I have ever taken. Too bad there aren’t any seas back home…
I leave today for a five day hike across northern Spain in El Camino de Santiago de Compostela, a pilgrimage walk to the city where the apostle James is buried. I’m going with about ten others from my group with Armando as our guide, and I’m looking forward to it. When I get back though, I only have eleven days in Alicante before spending a couple of days with Katie in Switzerland, after which I’ll only have three final days here. I get a bit sad just thinking about that because I know that those days will pass much quicker than I want them to.

---