El Fin

I'm sitting in my room for the last time, and all I can hear is my little sister crying and it's breaking my heart.  I hate goodbyes..I've never been good at them.  

I have learned so much about myself here, I couldn't even begin to tell you.  I'm more confident, more independent, more adventurous and more willing to take a risk.  I've realized how much my family and friends back home mean to me and I am so excited to see them again, but I'm also leaving another family and group of friends behind.  I know when I come home I will probably experience reverse culture shock and I don't know if anyone will ever perfectly understand my experience in Spain.  I have fallen in love with Spain (well except for the food) :)  I can't believe three and a half months have passed already.  I wish it would have gone a little slower for me.  

I'm leaving tomorrow at 12:45 pm and arrive at 3:35 in Philadelphia.  At 5:55 I leave to fly into Milwaukee and will see my family and Matt at approximately 7:20.  It's going to be a long day of traveling, but all well worth it.  

I can't wait to share all of my stories with you in person.  I've had quite the adventure.  

Abrazos muy fuerte de Espana,

Amy

The Beginning of the End

Sad. Excited. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Emotional. I could go on for a quite a while about the different emotions I´m feeling during my last week in Spain. It´s awfully bittersweet. I am so excited to go home and spend time with my family and friends again and get back to SNC life, but I have learned so much about myself here. I have made new friends (many of which I´ll probably never see again) and I have made a bond with a family that now feels like my own. Ok, I need to stop writing about this or I am for sure going to cry and I´m trying to put that off for as long as possible.

So this past weekend brought a lot of food, good wine, laughs and some wonderful memories. Friday morning I had my final service learning presentation about Gitanos. We presented to some people from the community, our principal from our school, our class, and some of the other Fundación staff. It was a great experience. I was so nervous and afraid to offend the principal because what I said was a bit critical, but I got through it. Afterwards I spent some time walking around Toledo with some girls, did some last minute shopping and stopped at Döner Kebop for one last lunch. After an extensive siesta back at home, I got ready and headed back into town for a final dinner with some wonderful ladies from Notre Dame and SNC. We went to a little vegetarian restaurant called Madre Tierra (Mother Earth) and we sat for 2 hours eating pasta, drinking wine, and savoring a wonderful brownie and ice cream dessert. After that we headed out to O´Briens..the American student hangout...because the bartender speaks English. We met up with a ton of people there and just enjoyed some of our last moments together. It´s amazing how close we´ve all grown. No one will ever understand what we´ve been through except each other. Then we made our way to Círculo, which is an old church turned discoteca. We couldn´t leave Toledo without doing some dancing! So we danced until about 3 am. I took a taxi home with some other girls and called it a night at about 4.

Saturday..I slept for a long time! Spent the afternoon laying around, doing some homework and making a house for Celastro (a fish webkin) with Paula. At about 8:30 my family took me out to dinner at La Mia Pasta and I had some wonderful stuff spinach raviolis with bolognesa vegetal sauce. Divine! And my host parents and I managed to drink a whole bottle of wine. We walked home from the restaurant because it was right by our house and just hung out some more. I didn´t want the night to end, because I was having such a great time!!!

Sunday we went to Rodolfo´s sisters house to celebrate some family birthdays in Talavera. If you remember from a much earlier post, I have been to his sister´s house once already, the week I arrived. It was great to be able to go back, see some familiar faces, and show them that I really did know how to speak Spanish! We ate a bunch of food, which included these cooked bread crumbs with ham and bacon and eggs. It was actually very good! We got back to Toledo at about 6:30 and then Paula and I made funfetti cookies (Thanks Matt for sending the mix!!) After one burnt batch, we managed to perfect the rest of the cookies and are going to have a hard time not eating them all in 2 days! Then I did a bunch of homework, skyped with my family and Matt and got mentally prepared for my last week in Toledo. How sad :[

My family left this morning for 4 days in Granada, so I will be spending a few days at home by myself, packing up, cleaning my room and studying for finals. It all feels so strange...like I just got here.

Abrazos,
Amy

Magical

Hallo Readers!

My title perfectly describes my last European vacation to Rothenburg and Frankfurt, Germany.

Last Friday, Jenn and I left bright and early at 6 am for the train station and from there we took the metro, plane, train to Rothenburg.  All in all it was about 7 hours worth of traveling. :(  We got to Rothenburg around 3:30 and got settled at our hostel and began our adventure.  On the train, we met this family (Grandma, mom, and 2 kids) from New Zealand who were traveling for 2 months and had a TON of luggage, so Jenn and I helped them out transferring trains.  I feel just like my Grandma Patsy here :) 

We found our hostel really quickly and then just walked around the town taking in the sights.  There are no words to even describe just how perfectly wonderful it was.  I LOVE Christmas, so this was the perfect trip for me.  Everywhere there were Christmas decorations, Christmas music, the most WONDERFUL Christmas market and food.  We did some window shopping and grabbed a Doner Kebop for dinner.  We also found this great little stand that sold apfelwein, which is hot cider with a bit of alcohol in it.  It was absolutely delicious and warmed me right up!!  At 8 pm we took a tour with the "night watchman" and got to learn a little bit more about the town.  Afterwards we headed back to our hostel and called it an early night. 

Saturday we got up early and after a wonderful German breakfast of hard rolls, jam, fruit, and coffee we got our day started.  I took a ton of pictures and did all my shopping!  After spending a lot of money and eating a lot of more wonderful German food,  Jenn and I took the train back to Frankfurt to meet her friend Dave, who is studying in Marburg.

We got in around 5 pm, checked into our hotel for the night then walked downtown to the Christmas Market.  This consisted mostly of German food and BOY did I eat.  A cheeseburger, chocolate covered fruit, and a glass of gluwein (which was AWFUL), we met up with some of his friends and had some coffee at a cute cafe to warm up.  We continued to walk around and ended our night at an Irish pub.  Jenn and I called it an early night because we had to get up sooo early for our flight the next day.  We splurged a little on a hotel instead of a hostel and it was well worth it...great beds, a hot shower, and a bathroom to ourselves.  

We got up at 5 the next morning to get the train to the airport for our flight at 7:30.  After I went through security, I was frisked and somehow managed to lose my boarding pass in the x-ray machine.  My day was not starting off so well.  We got back to Madrid around 11 and by 12:30 I was at home, eating lunch with my host family.  I spent the rest of the day resting and doing homework.  By the time I went to bed, I had a terrible fever and felt very sick.

I am still sick, but feeling better day by day.  I've had a LOT to do this week in terms of projects and homework and presentations, but I'm chugging right along, day by day.  I can't believe I'll be home in only 11 days.  It still feels like a dream!  I honestly have no idea what to expect of my emotions in the week and a half to come.  All I know is I can't wait to be home in front of my fireplace watching Christmas movies and spending time with my family (and eating some delicious American food).  

Abrazos como siempre,

Amy