Sixth Months in Spain!

February 14th,

Sixth Months in Spain!  Half a year in a foreign country.  Half a year in a foreign language.  Half a year of incredible trips and amazing experiences.

I got up at 8:00 giving myself plenty of time to get ready for my final at 10:00am.  To illustrate the juxtaposition between those with finals and those without, as I was leaving for my exam at about 9:30, Antonio was just getting home from the night before.

All in all the exam was difficult with 20 multiple choice questions and two free response essays.  I think I did OK.  The differences between UC and Spanish University systems are most salient when it comes to final exams.  Here in Spain they expect you to know everything, even nuanced material that was not necessarily covered in class; whereas in the UC system, the final only reflects the ultimate portion of the class and the professor stays strictly to the text book or class notes.  With the quarter system's fast pace, I am more or less studying for the final exam since the first day.

Finishing my exam, I turned it in along with my 25 page paper.  I felt great and tired exiting the college as I headed back to my apartment.

Back home, I washed my clothes, cleaned my room and completed other necessary tasks that I had put off.  I wanted a "physical change" to represent the new semester and second half of the year so I decided to get a haircut.  After following a recommendation from Heiko about a good barbershop, I walked down to the River Genil.  I came across the barbershop and after waiting for a bit, the barber gave me a great haircut.  We talked about US and Spanish politics.

I quickly stopped at Mercadona to buy some groceries before coming back home to have lunch with my friend Vanessa from my program who I hadn't seen in a long time.  We had a great lunch of raviolis and fresh pasta sauce.  I really like all of the people in my program and its too bad that we're all so busy.

That afternoon, I relaxed and took a long walk with my apartment mate Antonio past the Alhambra and through an old graveyard that opened up to magnificent view of the city and snow-capped mountains.  We had some deep conversations in Spanish while sitting on the brick wall watching the sun set.

The end of first semester signifies the return of many people of my program to the US.  Tonight I wanted to meet up with some of the people who were leaving.  In the end, it became very difficult to coordinate with everyone, but eventually I was able to meet up with my friend Erika who was leaving for the US the next day.  We went to a bar in the Realejo and along the way I had ran into some of the girls from my Morocco Exchange program.  They joined too and the night turned out to be a lot of fun as I had brought together two different groups.  We hung out until the bar closed at three and then went to "Vogue" discoteca.