Mi Vida en España: Glimpses of my life in Spain: Finals week

Monday was a full day for me. I had grammar final from 9-11 in the morning and then met Grace on my way home to pick up some final grocery items for our Thank You spaghetti lunch we were making for Rosario. We decided to make spaghetti, garlic bread and caesar salad for Rosario and even picked up a pastry for dessert. Rosario was so cute when we told her we wanted to do this for her. Her response was "Sure...but I didn't think you two could cook." :) HA HA! I guess that's what happens when she was making all our meals for us. The meal turned out really well and Rosario liked it!! Grace and I were a little worried - of course we wanted to impress her and wanted her to like it...and she did! The salad was probably the most different thing for her because they don't generally use salad dressing in Spain. We did the whole bit with the salad - caesar dressing and croutons. We of course did everything including the cleaning and washing of dishes - it was really fun to try to keep Rosario from doing anything! I know she appreciated it.
After lunch I had to head out right away to walk to school with Lindsey as we had our finals at the same time. We planned to do a little studying at the school before hand. This was my history final. Something that is different for studying for exams that are in Spanish is that not only do you need to know the material, but you need to know the words in Spanish to explain the material. Thankfully we were allowed to have a dictionary with us for the exam, but you still needed to know most of the words because you didn't always have the time to look up many words.
It felt so good to be done with both my finals in that one day and I believe they went well. :) That night some of my friends and I went out for tapas -a place that had been on some peoples list.

Tuesday was a beach day for me. Juanlu, my language partner, has a beach house/apartment as many Sevillianas do to escape the heat during the summer. We had talked about going for the whole semester and finally found this day that worked for me. It was a lot of fun - the waves were amazing and the beach he had us go to was a smaller, beautiful beach. It was near where I had ridden horses along the beach back in March.

Wednesday was quite an exciting day for me. I woke up in the morning to begin packing up my things (this was not the exciting part - and quite sad/emotional....my shuffle play on iTunes also seemed to reflect this as it kept playing sad songs!) Late morning I had to leave to go to the school to turn in my cell phone and internet. After that I headed to the apartment where my family would be staying to get the key and check them in as they were going to be getting in late that night. I don't think I fully realized that my family was actually going to be in Spain until I finally saw them there! :)

There was more packing and such before the evening when I met my friends for ice cream at another favorite place called Nice Cream. You can't go wrong with a place called "Nice Cream" :) After the ice cream we headed to the school for the goodbye partying that the school was hosting. Sadly I could only stay for the first ten minutes because my family's flight was coming in at that time as well. Juanlu was kind enough to drive me to the airport so that I could have those ten minutes at the party to say goodbye to friends and then he also helped get my family to the apartment so we only had to take one taxi. When Juanlu dropped me off at the airport to park, I was walking to the door of the airport and suddenly heard "TERESA!" and my brain hardly had a second to comprehend what was going on as Daniel leaped into my arms with one of his great big hugs! That was the BEST feeling ever!! Jessica was next with Eli following close behind - they were here! I walked over to where Mom and Dad were standing with the luggage - lots of hugs and "Bienviendos a Espana!" :) It was SOOO fun to see them, Here - with me - in Spain. Dad, Daniel and I took a taxi and Mom and the girls rode with Juanlu to the apartment. The apartment was very close to plaza/square place called the Alemeda de Hercules. It was about 10:30pm when we were settling into the apartment, but none of us had supper yet. So, we went out for tapas at a place nearby. It was quite an experience being the "expert" in these things - ordering for everyone. It seemed to work out well and everyone was happy with the food.

Thursday morning Mom, Dad, Eli and I walked to Rosario's (50 minutes - way to go family!) to pick up my things. We were going to have a snack and meet/greet with Rosario the next day when her wall was finished being fixed. Juanlu met us there with his car to help move my very heavy suitcase. Of course I had told Rosario she didn't need to do anything, that we would just stop by and grab my things...but once we got there she had to pull out of doughnuts and make some coffee. My parents and Eli were able to meet Grace quickly as well and we made plans to meet up with her later that afternoon since she would be leaving the next morning and wouldn't be able to be there when we came back to see Rosario. Grace and I were constantly translating between the family and Rosario - it was actually quite fun :)

We did some grocery shopping when we got back, Mom made lunch, and then we headed out to walk around a bit and show off a few things. I showed the family my school and we also stopped by Juanlu's hostel that he owns because it was right around the corner. We also did a little shopping for souvenirs/gifts. We had planned to go to the Cathedral that day but because of a special celebration it closed early. Right before we were going to meet with Grace it began to downpour. That was sad because it limited where we were able to go with her. We met in this one cafeteria and decided to ordered some pastries and ice cream from there. Sadly we ran into some bad costumer service and weren't able to sit down with the ice cream - so we ended up walking to our school and sitting there. It turned out to be very nice because we could sit and chat. I had to say good-bye to Grace after that - not fun, but at least she's only in Illinois and we'll be able to get together.

We headed back to the apartment after that to get ready for supper. Juanlu came over for supper that night and beforehand we played hide-and-go-seek at Daniel's request. We had to be quite creative in that small apartment, but it was fun. The family seemed to be adjusting to the time difference fairly well, but the mornings were a little harder for everyone to get going. They were all troopers though and I learned a lot about the difference of traveling with 1-2 people and changing to 6 people.

Friday after lunch Dad, Jessica, Eli, and I headed to the center to buy our train tickets for the next day to Malaga (final destination Torremolines - a town close to Malaga). After buying them we went to visit the Cathedral. This was special for Jessica because she did a project on Spain before coming and one of the things she researched was the Cathedral. We returned to the apartment after that visit to pick up Mom and Daniel. We headed to Plaza de Espana & Parque Maria Luisa because they are two of my favorite places and so beautiful. Also, a part of Star Wars was filmed in Plaza de Espana so I was sure to show him that clip later and he thought it was pretty cool to walk where the actors from the movie walked.

We took the metro to Rosario's for a "mariendo" or snack in the mid-afternoon. She had quite a spread and the table set nice. We somehow manage to all fit around the small table that generally just held Grace, Rosario and myself for so many meals before. Translating went very well for my still learning Spanish and 6 other people in the room that were all monolingual. Rosario was her perfect self - keeping up conversation, but interrupting herself to say how beautiful or cute one of my little siblings were. We were there for a couple hours and near the end we exchanged gifts. My family had brought a wide variety of things, but what Rosario loved the most was the quilt made by some of the women of our church - she absolutely loved it. She gave the family a sculpture of a flamenco (Spanish) dancer. Then it was time for goodbye. Rosario and I hugged as we both cried - we really cried. I can't explain the feeling of having her sobbing in my arms...it made my tears flow even faster. I was saying goodbye to a woman who had been my "Spanish Mom", my guardian, my friend - who had opened her home and heart to me right from the beginning - who didn't miss a beat with helping me enter into this new culture and new place --- she had been a constant for 3 1/2 months and now it was going to be an abrupt change of not seeing her at all. I must go back to Sevilla for the sole purpose of visiting her.

We met up with Juanlu on her our way back from Rosario's because we were going to walk the river at night - one of my other favorite places in Sevilla. The view of the Triana Bridge designed by Eiffel at night with the lights of the city and the bridge as they reflect off the water is breathtaking. We took a few fun pictures, enjoyed the view and walk, and then headed back to the apartment for one more game before heading to bed.

Saturday morning was a packing day and we checked out of our apartment around noon. We were able to leave our baggage there until we needed to leave for the train station. We headed to see some Roman ruins that had been discovered at a place where they had began building a structure in Sevilla. After that we found a restaurant to get some tapas to eat and finished that off with a stop at my favorite ice cream place - Rayas. The family had to experience the best ice cream before we left Sevilla. :) After the ice cream we headed back to our apartment to get a luggage and then take two taxis to the train station. We had a 5:00 train to Malaga and from there we had to take a local train to Torremolinos where our next hotel was. When we arrived there the woman from our hotel was very kind and met us at the train station so that she could show us how to arrive at the hotel from there (and she also brought her car so that she could take our luggage for us). We settled in that night and walked near the beach (about a 5 minute walk) where there were restaurants and had supper. That was about all for that night as it was late and we were tired from the traveling.