Last week in Valencia

Hey friends. I know I am a little late in posting this, but better late than never right? Ha! Although I have been home from Spain for 2 weeks now, I wanted to update you about my last week in Spain.

After several days in Switzerland, I came back to two days of school, a weekend filled with studying and 3 days of exams. During the last few days of school I was overflowed with work to do. I had papers, projects including designing a scrapbook for my culture and civilization class of my semester in Spain. Although it was very time consuming, I am so happy I was forced to do the project and write about my whole semester in Spain. I am very proud of the scrapbook and I will have it for the rest of my life. I also had to write a 10 page story for my impossible advanced grammar class that counted for 30 % of our grade. The only requirements other than the page amount was it had to be a children's story and we had to use words and tenses we'd learned over the semester and we had to begin the story with "once upon a time". As many of you guys know, I don't do well with blank assignments where you have to be creative. I'd much rather have the teacher just tell you what to do. So after putting much time and thought I wrote a story title "Los zapatos Navidades" or The Christmas Shoes about a girl and her family having a bad Christmas. No I did not steal the story from the the movie "The Christmas Shoes", just the title. I am very proud of it, and although it took a while to get started, I had a great time writing it. It was kinda fun to right a story in Spanish.

The weekend before exams, I studied and studied and studied. The weather didn't help much as it was rainy and cold the entire weekend. So the weather made me want to stay in bed, but I gave it my hardest and studied the entire weekend. Saturday night my friends Jess and Laine and I decided it would be a good idea to take a break from studying and go see a movie. We had heard that a movie called "A Spanish Movie" (yes the title was in English, however the movie was in Spanish) was a great comedy, so we decided on that. Apparently it is Spain's version of our Scary movies and it was probably the worst movie I have ever seen. Still can't believe we paid 8 Euro to see that movie. Oh well, you never know until you watch it.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were hard and I had exams on all of those days. The worst being Tuesday, the day of my dreaded grammar exam. After studying and studying and studying for that exam, I am happy to say that I did fine and I came out with a B in the class. A HUGE improvement from the 39 I made on the midterm. Gracias a Dios!

Wednesday night we had a mandatory graduation. It was kinda cute and lots like a high school graduation with 43 people. We received a certificate saying we had passed classes and graduated from "UVA Hispanics Program" in Valencia. Although it was sad, our academics were finally over in Spain and it was time to celebrate. So Jess and Laine and I headed to grab some dinner and then we headed to the bar to meet everyone else. Let's just say that night was awesome and we had so much fun !I realized how great all of the friends I made in Valencia were and we just had a real fun time together.

Patty, Kristin and I Wednesday night

Jess, Laine and I Wednesday night

Thursday, my friends and I headed to the mall to shop. We thought shopping would be a great way to spend our last day in Spain. We all bought something from the spanish store "Desigual" and I am so happy about my skirt purchase. Every time I put it on I think of España. After shopping, we headed to the goodbye Paella lunch which lasted 4 hours. I didn't know lunch could possibly last that long. It was good and nice to visit with everyone and say goodbye to our professors. I spent Thursday night packing and trying to fit all of my belongings of 4 months in 3 small suitcases. It was almost impossible, but somehow I did it.

Me and Laine admiring our friend Jess and her story and large picture of herself in the magazine

Friday morning I awoke excited and nervous and sad, knowing that I was leaving the place that had taught me so much but going back to the best country ever to see my family. We left Valencia, flew to Madrid and then flew from Madrid to JFK- New York. After 24 hours or so of being awake, we arrived in New York. It was then when I was forced to say goodbye to most of the people from the program including three of my good friends Jess, Laine and Kristin. I was so sad to leave them, but I know that the friendships we made and the memories we made together will last a lifetime. I am so thankful for having the opportunity to go to Spain and make such fun memories.

My madre Marite and I on Friday morning

Well needless to say, my journey home did not end Friday night December 18th, but the journey really began. As we were getting off the plane, many of my friends from DC or Virginia were learning that their flights were cancelled. Although mine was still the same at 6 AM the following day, many of my friends were not and I was worried that mine too would be cancelled. So all of us headed to the Delta desk to see what was up and found out that a winter storm in the NE was causing all of the flight cancelations and delays and that all flights leaving Saturday afternoon would be cancelled. After rescheduling flights, it was 1 AM and so I decided to stay in the airport with my friend Michelle since both of our flights left early in the morning. We decided not to sleep, because we were so scared that we wouldn't wake up so we kept each other awake by taking and walking around baggage claim.

You better believe that as soon as the checkin opened, at 4 AM, both of us were in line so we could be the first to get on our flights. Needless to say, after 40 hours of being awake and traveling, I finally made it back to the ATL. Although I spent the day exhausted, I spent that Saturday unpacking and repacking for my next vacation: Costa Rica with the entire family for Christmas. Which, will soon be the next post I write in this blog.

-Mo