SEVEN days until I return to the states. Funny enough my extremely long travel in the sense of time will only happen to take about four or five hours because I'm going back into time eight hours. So star trek.
I just took my first of four finals about half an hour ago; my last one is 24 hours before my flight home so the last week I get in Spain is devoted to studying and rekindling my passion for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
I had two large final papers, one of which I presented to my political communications class yesterday and during my presentation said "yada, yada, yada." I've never said this phrase in my life, so why did I think it was appropriate for its premier to be in front of an audience? After my presentation my teacher stopped class and announced that my paper was "the most distinguished of the final papers" and well written. I was that student. Gold star. Little did anyone know I wrote that "churnalism" paper ten hours before it was due, which if you know what churnalism is, is quite ironic. Success. Sidenote: the I'm gay and republican asked to dim the lights for his presentation because he was having a bad hair day.
My other paper I procrastinated a bit harder for eight hours before deadline and only picked analyzying Hillary and Bill Clinton's marriage as my topic becuase a picture of him popped up on the internet? Studious intellectual?
The procrastination is because of this weekend. I went to a little bar with my roommates down the street one night, walked home after and the kebab man opened up his closed shop for my roommate and I after 2 am becuase I'm a regular. That may be embarrassing. I wandered the streets of Bilbao and Fuencarral in and out of shops one day becuase it's the easiest place perhaps in the entire world to lose yourself and get distracted. This was my first attempt though to walk to the Christmas market in Plaza Mayor (there's apparently cute little booths in the middle of the square) but literally the streets had THOUSANDS of people in Sol and the surrounding area of Plaza Mayor, so while mosh pitting was fun for about an hour, reaching the market was unsuccessful. I've never seen so many people in my life. Neither have you, truly.
Sunday the addiction of traveling to Rastro market took over and I indulged on more scarves. My mom called and said to buy more so this Sunday will follow suit. Sunday night I met up with Stephanie, Steven, and Mike (who is a hilarious man that goes to Baylor). Stephanie finally got her belly button pierced, followed by a few Spanish curse words, and then we were all off to the Kesha concert that night. It was semi short, apparently she was so drunk she had to end the concert early? Rumor has it at least? She had a few "groupies" following her onstage like a fifteen year old entourage which was odd (I'm thinking they were either her back up dancers or current "BFFs"), but other than that I was dancing and singing like I was right onstage following her around too. The only things I lost at the concert was my stockings and socks? After the concert us four walked around and found a...surprise! an open kebab place. Seeing a trend? I'm glad I'm forced to take public transportation aka walk everywhere.
And so, this busy weekend forced me to stay awake for all but maybe nine hours of the past seventy-two.
Still keeping up my fitnesssss. I will truly miss my little gym down the street once this week commences. I ran out of membership and so the lady gave me my last two n a half weeks for free. WHAT a gem. My abdominales has kept me consistently sore, and our last class we had to do "couples' exercises." All the hombres usually have their "spot" on one side of the room and the mujeres have their place on the other. Creatures of habit. Unofficially assigned mat placements. However, our trainer man told us we had to match up with a boy, wrap our legs together and do this awkard sit up thing while looking at them. A little intimate? My chosen exercise partner was like a Ricky Martin with shaved legs. Not a terrible experience. I was a social butterfly at the gym that day. Met someone from the states after the line, "I was like wow when I saw your thighs" was presented as an opening line. Not a particularly good choice for him. Another seventy year old asked me if all Americans are as beautiful as me and he would love to go to the states. I'm not quite sure if I should be flattered or mortified from these experiences.
I was walking home the other day and the drunk guys that always hang out in our plaza kicked their soccer ball my way. Well I have skills from back in the day so I stopped it and kicked it back pretty adequately in my high heels (AND in cobblestone, mind you). I decided to take a break and played futbol with them for a bit and then they started making fun of my American accent so I left. They said (through their vodka laden breath) that I sounded like a duck who swallows my words. I said I play better futbol in high heels than they do.
What's funny is my senora was making fun of American accents maybe a month ago (the same night she trolled on Asians for like TWENTY uncomfortable minutes) and she said American's talk out of the side of their mouth and swallow their words too. I'm just fitting the mold i guess.
Senora has categorized us. Linsdey is Dona Perfecta. She is beautiful, intelligent, organized, and clean. She is so multi-faceted that she will be able to marry someday, unlike the rest of us. Every day Senora walks into our apartment, "Lindsey?" Everyday. It is true though (the multi-faceted, not the marriage situation). Lindsey is a gem. Caryn is the lucky one with red hair, like a leprechaun. We all think Senora didn't know Caryn's name until about a month and a half into the semester. Amy is the funny one and most improved player when it comes to this learning Spanish kind of thing. I LOVE Amy's sarcasm. It's one of the only things we have in common, but we get along because of it quite nicely. Katie is unclassified? I'm the guapa one that doesn't sleep and goes to the gym too much. I will never get married becuase I don't make my bed in the morning and will occassionally leave an article of clothing on the ground. Failure.
It still is hard to take in that I have been living in a foreign country for four months. The amount I have grown as an individual from exposure to cultures and different situations, people, and countries is invaluable and unattainable from any other experience. And next semester I'll be spending weekends partying in friends basements, or studying of course, instead of traveling to Prague, Amsterdam, England, Ireland, Portugal, or France?
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