"Out there among the millers and the weavers and their wives / Through the roofs and gables I can see them / Every day they shout and scold and go about their lives / Heedless of the gift it is to be them / If I was in their skin / I'd treasure every instant Out There."
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I don't think I am going to upload anymore pictures, because 1. it takes a long time to upload/organize/caption them all (only five at a time, and then formatting them to fit properly), and 2. I come home in just three days, so those of you who rely on the blog to see pictures will see them all once I get home. There are a bunch of pictures that don't even make it on to here. That's what I get for procrastinating on putting them up, I guess. But I also just got really busy the last few weeks.
I'm still going to do a pretty big update on what's been going on the last two weeks, including how finals went, friends visiting Madrid, and of course, my trips to Rome and Paris. So get ready! This is going to be a fairly long post; in fact, I think I might have to divide it into two.
Okay, first off, finals. I always freak out and become really stressed during finals time, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. Spanish finals were no different, even though the classes have seemed fairly easy. The thing about the Spanish grading system is that they hardly evaluate you on anything you do during most of the semester, maybe a few assignments here and there, but most of it relies on the last big project or exam of the semester. The only class where this hasn't held true is my language class, and even that was still a cumulative test. This layout annoys me a lot, actually, because I felt like that I was forced to cram all of it at the last second.
Well, that being said, I actually felt most of my final exams/projects really weren't too bad. A couple of times, I'd get really nervous before one of the exams, but then once I got going, I realized that I knew a lot more than I thought. First exam I had was my language exam, a complete written final. Even though there were some parts of it that were iffy, I thought the lengua exam was fair and that I did pretty well on it. I went over literally everything in the claves, even the stuff I was sure wasn't going to be on the exam, and I studied for hours. Next came Historia. We had one big paper to do, and then one essay test. We had a couple of homework assignments throughout the semester that I'd done pretty well on, but I obviously couldn't bank on those assignments to give me a good grade. Personally, I thought my final essay was crap. Just wasn't well written at all. But thankfully, I thought the test went pretty well. I hit all the big points in the historical period that I had chosen to write about, and I wrote a lot. I know there were a few parts that I probably could have included, and I got one of the names of the Reyes wrong (stupid Alfonso XIII), but I'm actually fairly confident on that test, anyway. Hopefully that will balance out my paper, too. Then Cuento, which I had pretty much already finished anyway. My profesora had finally sent back the revisions I needed to do, so all I did was touch it up and was done. I actually liked the final product of my cuento. Maybe I'll post it at some point (it's in Spanish, though). And finally, Cine, which was one of those exams that I freaked out unnecessarily. The test was a snap -- open ended, opinionated questions are so easy to work with. Heck, my friend next to me, who writes fast and in abundance, finished in 18 minutes (I timed her, too). It was rather funny, actually. I myself took at least an hour to make sure I hit everything I wanted to say. That is the one class I'm confident I got an A in. Everything else is kind of up in the air at this point. I still haven't gotten grades yet, and I am not sure when I will get them; according to CIEE, it will be at least 10 weeks before they transfer over, but I'm still checking my Carlos III email to see if any of my profesores posted them.
So after finals were done, my friends and I at CIEE obviously had to celebrate; we'd actually been planning the celebration for over a week, and it was our motivation to get us through the week. But the celebration was for more than just finishing finals; it was kind of an early good-bye, as some people were leaving soon and we wouldn't get to see each other before that happened. Kind of sad since we said good-bye to two of our friends that night. Anyway, we went out to a different discoteca called Pacha, which is one of the most recommended places in a bunch of the guidebooks for Madrid. The place definitely had a fancy feel to it, and it had a nice display, but the music was only so-so. Regardless, we had a good time at one of our 'final' outings.
Friday rolls around, and it was the weekend that our friends from Ireland (Brad, Hannah, and Abbie) and friend from Italy (Uchenna) were coming to visit in Madrid! Robby and I went to pick them up at the airport (it was an interesting morning --- we'd been out late the night before and had been getting little sleep as a result of finals and London the week before, so in other words, we were exhausted). It was kind of a struggle to find them all, but at last, we'd gathered all of us together, pretty much reforming the Dodds Suite from last year. What a happy reunion it was, and it was especially nice since Chenna couldn't go to Ireland, so this was Hannah's, Abba's, and Brad's first time seeing her in Europe (Robby and I had seen her the week before in London, obviously). We guided them through the metro and got them to their hostel, and then took them out to lunch. We were able to find a fairly cheap restaurant, which was great because we were all starving and we got lots of food for a really good price!
After lunch was hibernation time: everyone was tired (Robby and I for the reasons already given above, and Hannah, Brad, and Abba had spent the night in the airport, and Chenna was sleepy), so we followed the Spanish culture and all went back to take a siesta. This hour and a half nap would not even come close to being long enough, but hey, when in Europe, you don't sleep. After that, it was around dinner time, and my lovely host had agreed to make dinner for my friends and me! She had to run some errands that night, but she'd prepared a bunch of food for everyone, including dozens of croquetas! Robby led them to my apartment, and we had a feast. I was a bit nervous of what they would think of the food, but it turned out that everyone loved it! I think we only left a few croquetas left over from the entire meal!
Now it was time to give them a piece of Spanish night life. I think we'd both had hyped it up a bit while we were in Ireland (and probably more after that), so I think they were ready to see what it was we were talking about. I don't want to speak for them, but from what it sounds like, they were very impressed and had a really good time! We took them to Kapital that night, and as we waited for more of a crowd to come in, we did Karaoke again. Songs that were done: "Oops I did it Again" (Hannah and Robby), "My Heart Will Go On" (Abbie and myself -- this is our theme song from last year), "It's Gonna be me" (Hannah, Chenna, and me), and the best "Never Gonna Give You Up" (Brad, Hannah, and Chenna -- they Rick Roll'd Spain!). Afterwards, we hit the dance floor and danced the rest of the evening. They were all amused by the main dance floor that played mainly techno music and had the giant cold fog machine above us (Chenna was particularly amused, which was funny because she was hesitant to dance on that floor since she doesn't care for techno music). I think we turned in earlier than we usually do, but again, we were all pretty tired as it was, but early in Spain means...well, still pretty darn early in the morning.
Next morning/midday (when we woke up), we meet up in front of the hostel, looked a few stores, and then had a quick lunch at Donor Kebab. Apparently, the Donor Kebabs in Ireland taste much different than those in Spain, because the Ireland folk really liked the kebabs in Spain! Like I said, probably the most American Spanish food there is. So yummy! Then, we took them to one of Madrid's highlights: El Palacio Real. You want to know something sad? Both Robby and I have been here for nearly four months, and neither one of us had ever been inside it until this point, the last two weeks of studying here. I guess it was nice in the sense that all of us were seeing something new, but still, you'd think that we would have seen it by now...anyway, it was a lot like the Palacio Real in Aranjuez -- awesome golden frescoes (ceilings), beautiful art, high quality architecture, and the view of the city it had was really neat as well, kind of like it was towering over everything. It was definitely very majestic, and overall very impressive! There was an exhibit that we wanted to see that was closed, but it was still a nice tour.
Our plans for the evening were kind of up in the air, since we weren't sure if we wanted to go to another discoteca due to being a bit expensive. I took the group out to dinner at a cheap tapas restaurant right by their hostal. Everyone tried some Tinto de Verano (I drank this a lot earlier in the semester, remember sugar water with wine), and everyone fell in love! I know that they'd all been kind of itching to try some Sangria, and tinto de verano is similar enough. Actually, the tinto de verano there was some of the best I've had since being in Spain. Afterwards, we tried to find a bar that we could go to, but Madrid was packed! Like, we were walking down the street towards La Puerta de Sol, and there were just thousands of people scattered around! We couldn't figure out why until someone reminded us that it was a holiday weekend so everyone was there to catch the Christmas sales. The bar we tried to go to was packed, and the streets and every where else was just so crowded. We resorted to going to the bar that was in their hostel. That turned out to be a really good idea -- drinks were cheap, wasn't crowded, and we had a good time just socializing and playing cards. We tried to scope out to see how much the other discoteca was, but it turned out to be more than what people wanted to spend, so we just chilled in the bar for a bit longer until we all separated.
Following morning, we got up early and we went to El Rastro. It's always busy, but it seemed worse this time around (once again because of the holiday weekend). We were able to catch a few good deals, though, and I think we got a little bit of Christmas present shopping done. Afterwards before lunch, we all went back to my place so they could meet/thank my host for the meal. None of them really speak Spanish except Robby obviously, so I think it was an interesting experience for them to try and communicate. But I know Susana appreciated them coming to thank her.
We hit up Donor Kebab again for lunch, and then it was sadly time for Hannah, Brad, and Abbie to depart back to Ireland (Chenna's flight was Monday, as was mine and Robby's for Paris, so she was still around). They definitely weren't ready to go back to Ireland, where finals and papers awaited them (I personally am very thankful that we got our finals out of the way early), but it's only a matter of weeks before we get back together in Harriett!
Chenna hung out at my place while Robby and I packed. We ended up taking a late metro to the airport and just crashed there until our flights -- saved us a little bit of money on taking a taxi, and with all three of us there, it wasn't...well, as awful as it could have been (Rome's airport sleepover experience was terrible, but more on that later). I will hopefully never have to sleep in the airport ever again. In fact, I think after this entire study abroad experience in general, I am kind of looking forward to not having to sit on a plane for a while. We woke up fairly early to head to our separate gates. It was kind of a funny 'bid farewell' to Chenna, only because we were going to see her in four days...
Well, the good thing about not getting much sleep before a flight is that we were completely knocked out for the entire flight to Paris. Both Robby and I didn't even make it to take-off, or hell, we didn't even make it to the safety demonstrations before both of us were out cold! And other than a few wake-ups here and there, we slept the entire time. The last week and a half definitely had taken its toll on us (London - Finals - Friends - Eurotrip) and this next week wouldn't restore our stamina by any means, but all of this was definitely worth the lack of sleep! And besides, that's what this has been for: catching up on sleep. And packing...
And this is where I am going to branch this post off into a second post...be back soon!
~LSquared
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