The End Is Near

Here I am in the Ciudadela! I found a good spot where I can see a good portion of the park and a mountain, so I’m happy. And there’s a group of dudes near me who I thought were playing fútbol, but who are actually playing American football! I could hardly believe my eyes. Anyway, it’s a beautiful day, and I FINALLY finished my newspaper article project, so now I have some free time, and it was high time I took advantage of the wonderful weather! I haven’t written in quite a while again…mostly because I’ve been trying to focus on getting my last projects done for school (when I’m not procrastinating…). But now they’re done! My only responsibility for the rest of my time here is to study for finals. Which are pretty darn scary, but it feels good to be mostly through with school.

These last two weeks have consisted of a LOT of sitting at my desk and going stir-crazy in my room, so it’s so nice to finally be doing something different! My host mom has probably been thinking, “Why doesn’t she get out?? I’m getting tired of her being underfoot.”

However, it hasn’t been all drudgery – I’ve gotten to do some pretty fun things! Let’s see…I made it back to Taconera again, which was even prettier with the gorgeous new flowers in every color. And I’ve gotten to go to a couple of parties, which were lots of fun. They were both birthday parties, incidentally, and both for people I didn’t really know very well; they were friends of friends – I was invited by a couple of friends that knew the ones having the parties, and got to meet a few more cool people, so it’s all good :-) The first was for the roommates of a friend of Lise’s and mine named Basilio. He’s from Taiwan, and a lot of the other Taiwanese students were there as well. Love those kids! Totally some of the nicest, friendliest people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. After the party wound down, we all headed to Bar Castillo, which does in fact look like a castle, with stone walls and a bunch of swords and Scottish shields inside. Kinda cool! The other party was last night, at the piso of a friend of Megan’s that I met recently. It was a lot of fun! We got all dressed up, which is always a good time, and we met lots of fun people, including a funny Spanish guy with an Antonio Banderas-esque accent who was a bit older than your usual party-goer, and a hilarious Irish guy who had the most awesome accent ever, which made him even funnier!

Before you think I’ve been partying all the time, my other main activity lately has been going to Bible study. Finally! Megan had told me about it before, and I wish I could have gone for a bigger part of the semester, but I’ve had dance class at the same time that Bible study meets, up till now, so I haven’t been able to. So it goes, I guess. Anyway, I’ve loved having the chance to go, even if just for a little while! It’s such an awesome group of people, and I felt comfortable with them right away. The brothers-and-sisters-in-Christ thing will do that for you, I daresay. The group is mostly students – a mixture of American and Spanish ones, and a few older members. It’s been so nice to have such great fellowship and a little spiritual food to chew on! God continues to bless me. I’m sad that I still seem to have an uncanny knack for finding a group of awesome Christian friends when it’s time to move on to the next place, but maybe someday I’ll get it figured out. And at least I got to know them for a little while!

Yesterday, we (the Bible study group) had an American-style barbecue at Dom’s (the leader) house. It was a blast! It was nice to be at not-a-piso, where there was actually a yard! We ate great food, played some games, sat and talked, and played with Dom’s adorable bilingual children (his wife is Spanish)! Loved it. I think my favorite part was playing with the kids – I honestly don’t remember having interacted with children since Christmas, before yesterday. I think I forgot how much I’d missed it! College students generally don’t see a lot of kids, that’s for sure – even when they’re not 4,000 miles away.

I think those are the main points from the last two weeks. The rest of the stuff is boring and I’m sure you don’t care to know :-P I have found myself in a new state of mind, though – with only three weeks before I’m home in the States again (which still seems so crazy), I feel like I’m starting to mentally prepare myself to go. I’m working on finishing up all those little things I’ve been meaning to do all semester, finishing up my last projects for my classes, and trying to imagine what it will be like to be back home. I’m failing at the latter – I mean, I can picture it, and I’m looking forward to so many things, but I have a feeling that the transition is going to be harder than I think it is. So many things that were once familiar are going to take some getting used to again. And I know I’ve changed, but I don’t think I’ll realize to what extent or in exactly what ways I’ve done so until I get home and back into normal life again. So I’ll have to ask you to bear with me until I get it all sorted out again :-) And it’ll definitely be bittersweet to leave – I know already that I’m going to miss Spain so much and it’s going to be very hard to leave, but I also know that I miss all of you back home quite desperately, and I can’t wait to see everyone again and share my stories with you!

I’m sure I’ll have a few more blog posts, as I have one more trip left (to Galway, Ireland and London, England!!! I’m more excited for this one than any other so far, I think, and there will be lots to share with you) and a few more days to chill in Pamplona before I head home, so don’t go away yet! The journey’s not quite over. But I’m so excited to see all of your beautiful faces in three weeks :-)

See you very soon!