lunes, 19 de diciembre de 2011

Final Farewells

A few weeks ago, Isabel told us about when her daughter studied abroad in England. "Is your father a bull fighter?" her host parents asked her. "Is your mother a gypsy?" After her daughter said no to both of these, the mother was very surprised. Later, she showed her a telephone for what she thought was the very first time. "You can call people with this," she explained to her. "I know, I have one at home," her daughter replied.

Now, when I left for Spain, I certainly did not think that every guy was a bull fighter and every girl was a gypsy. I also did think it was a third world country, as the British family that Isabel's daughter lived with seemed to think. Still, I did not know exactly what I was getting into and there was a lot that I did not know about Spain. Here I am though, four months later and Spain seems very comfortable to me. I have learned so much about their culture and I will never forget this experience.


After our final exam on Friday, we said  our final goodbyes to all of the teachers and everyone who would not be flying on the group flight. Our class of intermediate students bought a picture frame for Ana with a picture from our dinner at her house.

Saying goodbye to Isabel was definitely one of the hardest goodbyes. She said she was not going to wake up as we left because she did not like goodbyes. Instead, she just wanted to pretend like we would see her the next day and we said "hasta luego" (until later) followed by some besitos (the cheek kisses) and thank-you's before she went to bed. I will definitely miss her and how she definitely did everything she did for us with love.

For our final night on the town, we enjoyed one last Flamenco concert before heading to bed for two hours, as we had to leave at 3:30 to walk to the airport bus stop. The sleeping did not actually happen for me, as my mind was racing with feelings of happiness yet sadness.

After a quick flight to Madrid, we had what was supposed to be a short layover before getting onto the plane bound for Chicago. After we were all ready to go and on the plane, we got the terrible news that they found a problem with the brakes. We did not have to wait too long before this was fixed, but then we had to wait another 40 minutes before we could take off because of Portugal's fly-over restrictions. After the 40 minutes were up, we thought we were good to go. Wrong. Now there was a problem with the de-icer and we waited another hour and a half before we could finally take off.
I said goodbye to this as I walked over the bridge for last time.

So, after spending over 12 hours on the plane, we finally landed back in the United States. A lot of the students missed their connecting flights because of the delay, so it was a very hectic atmosphere as we said our goodbye's.

Overall, I am sure this semester will stick out to me as I look back on my college life. I have learned a lot of Spanish and hopefully I will find opportunities to continue practicing it. I am very happy to be home right now for Christmas and I can not wait to see all of the people I missed for so long. Thanks for reading my blog!

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