Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Home Sweet Home

It was the strangest and best feeling when we first touched down in Chicago. Even though I was still another plane ride from being home in Pennsylvania, it felt so good to be back in America. Everything was in English, I had 4G again, and the first thing I ate (and drank) was an order of buffalo wings with a Blue Moon. I was overcome with too many feelings of happiness and excitement to be sad at the same time. When I finally landed in Harrisburg, I was so happy to see my mom and Aunt Mindy who were waiting for me. Strangely enough, whenever I got home, it almost did feel as if I had never left. I never knew that four months could go so fast. Anyway, my first weekend home and the past few weeks have been really great because I’ve been able to see so many family members and friends that have been so excited to finally see me, too. Everyone has been really interested in hearing about my life in Spain along with my travels throughout Europe, and I love sharing my stories and pictures with them. It’s been wonderful to catch up with old friends, start making money again at my summer job, and enjoy some of my mom’s delicious cooking. Today was the first day since I've been home that I haven't been busy, so I was looking through all of my pictures from my time in Spain. When I was reminiscing about all of the great memories I had made this past semester, it did make me really sad. However, I uplifted my own spirits a little when I reminded myself that I was so lucky to have this opportunity and that there are so many people who would have loved to have been in my shoes. I cannot wait to go back to Europe again someday... but then I got to thinking that I’m really excited for bonfires, picnics, lifeguarding, family vacations, beach weekends with friends, and everything else that my summer has in store, in my favorite country of them all, the good old USA :)

Monday, June 3, 2013

The Final Goodbye :(

During my last week abroad, I did everything I could to enjoy every last moment of my experience. The Friday before we were scheduled to leave, Katie, Dan, and I took a train to the beach in Cadíz and stayed overnight, to have a nice relaxing weekend before the rest of our finals. Cadíz is a coastal town about an hour and a half outside of Sevilla, and this was our second visit because we had gone to Carnival in Cadíz (the big Spanish fiesta) back in February. All day on Friday we laid on the beach, relaxed, and soaked up a few too many rays (we were all fried later). The three of us cooked dinner that night in the kitchen of our huge apartment suite that I had booked for us. We made grilled chicken penne pasta with a delicious red sauce made with fresh roasted red peppers and tomatoes. Dan and I split a bottle of wine, Katie had her water (typical), and we enjoyed a nice meal altogether.

The next day, we took our time getting up in the morning since we were still pretty crispy and headed down to the beach for a few hours, before taking the train back to Sevilla at 5. Katie and I showered once we got back, got ready, and went to visit one of our favorite cervecerías near our house. (We’re popular with most of the restaurants on our block... I think you know why.) We said goodbyes to the employees there and later went over to visit our amigos at Tradevo. After they got off work, they came out with Katie, Dan, and I to hang out with us before we left. I was happy we were able to make so many Spanish friends!

On Sunday, the three of us had a very touristic day. Dan and I finally made it inside the beautiful cathedral, La Giralda, in Sevilla (Katie had gone in before with her parents during Semana Santa). We went all the way up to the top of the tower to view the lookout over the city, and we finally got to see Christopher Columbus’s tomb which is located on the ground level. In fact, all of the documents from his voyage are located in the building right next to the cathedral, in the Archivo de los Indios (the Indies Archive). Afterwards, we went inside the Alcazar, remnants of the city walls. Inside the Alcazar, there were so many beautiful gardens and pieces of Spanish history. It was so gorgeous!

Later that night, we reluctantly went to see the “corrida de toros”... a bullfight. Part of me wanted to go because I wanted to experience one of Spain’s oldest living traditions, but the other part of me wanted to stay as far away as possible from the “spectacle” that we were about to partake in. I’ve learned a lot about bullfighting throughout the semester, so going into it, I knew that it was usually an unfair fight. For example, many times, they will put vaseline on the bulls’ eyes so it makes it nearly impossible to see, and they will try to weaken the bull before facing off with the matador. One of the worst parts of the bullfight was seeing the bull charging at the poor horses because the person who was in charge of lancing it always rode on horseback through the ring. It really pained me to watch the bull being tormented; it was definitely one of the worst acts of animal cruelty that I have ever seen. We stayed for the first couple bullfights out of six, which was still too many for me. I couldn’t believe how many people think that bullfighting is such an “art”, when in reality, it’s a horrific crime! Needless to say, I won’t ever be returning to a bullfight anytime soon.

The next few days went so fast, and looking back, they were all a blur of final exams, goodbyes, and tears. I had three finals that week, along with lots of packing and last minute souvenir shopping. We took breaks in between packing and shopping to eat at two of our favorite restaurants, Tradevo and Iguanas Ranas, before we left. I welcomed the breaks, because packing my bags was such a chore. It took forever to get all of my suitcases to be within in the weight limit; in fact, I had to leave quite a few things behind in order to do so. By Thursday afternoon, we were FINALLY all packed up, and our room was so empty! We went to the city center one last time and walked through the streets for old times sake. We even went up on top of “Las Setas” to get a better view of the entire Sevilla skyline one last time. On Thursday night, we went to say goodbyes at Long Island, a favorite bar amongst our group of friends. It was so hard saying goodbye to all of my friends that I had grown so close to throughout the semester. That night might have been the first time I cried all semester. We all made promises to visit one another sometime in the near future; so hopefully I’ll be seeing my friends from Texas, Maine, and Ohio sometime soon! We took a taxi back that night and said goodbye to our favorite waiters at Tradevo who turned out to be some of our best Spanish friends. By that time it was almost 2am, and we had to leave at 7am for the airport so we headed back to our house to get a few hours of sleep before leaving. It felt like I had merely just shut my eyes when my alarm started going off... it was already time to get up. We loaded all of our bags up in the taxi and said goodbye to Encarna. Even though we didn’t always see eye to eye, it was still sad leaving her house, too. It was a sad ride to the airport, seeing the city I had fallen in love with in my rearview mirror. The past four months were hands down the best four months of my life, and although I was so excited to go home and see all of my friends and family, I was starting to miss my new home already. Sevilla will always feel like home to me, and I’m already counting down the days until I get to return.