Aly's Spain Adventure

Read about what I'm doing while in Spain so you can keep up with me!

Name:
Location: Des Moines, Iowa, United States

Friday, December 29, 2006

Mon. Dec. 4-Fri. Dec. 22
So once I got back from Amsterdam, the days just kind of flew by. I had to take my final exams before I left so I had to start studying. I had two weekends left and then I left on Friday the 22nd. My last weekend we ended up having a few parties. Friday night of my last weekend we planned on going to Kapital, the biggest club in all of Madrid. So Rhea came over and we were going to meet at Carlos's place but it got so late that actually he and his friends came over and then Tere also had some of her friends over. It ended up being quite a few people, a little unplanned party. So we had to get to the club by 1am which ended up not happening. This was mainly caused by Carlos's friends getting STUCK in the elevator. Haha. It's quite an old building and so the elevator got stuck about 4 feet above where it should have stopped. After about 20 minutes, the guys managed to push enough buttons that the door opened even though the elevator was still stuck too far up; they were able to get out. We just ended up going to a different club instead which was alright. I had to get ready for the next night. I planned my going away party for Saturday night around 9 or 10. No one really got there until about midnight. It ended up being me, Joanna, Rhea, Emmanuel and a few of Joanna's friends. It wasn't huge but it was a BLAST. I made some sangria and some pizza and we just played card games all night. We taught them drinking games. haha! We partied until about 6am. It was a really great time. So the week before this on Thursday we had our presentation for Marketing and I also had a test in my photography class. I think I did very well on my photography test and I also turned in the paper I had written for that class. I was VERY proud about my presentation. Unfortunately I didn't get to do much for the presentation except for put everything onto a powerpoint. The powerpoint was just an extremely long task to do. I had to read through all the info my group mates gave me (in spanish) and then (in spanish) put it all on the presentation. So then on Thursday we had to present in front of the class. I had only a few slides to present but I did it, and did it well. To present something in another language in front of the entire class is very challenging and nerve racking but I did it! As you can tell I was very proud of myself. So Tuesday of my last week I had a test in Spanish Politics which I did well on. Then Wednesday I had a test in my film class. I was kind of upset about having this test because I thought I would only have to write a paper for this class. My friend who left the week before only had to write a paper so I assumed it would be the same for me but I did write an email to our teacher to double check. I wrote the email on Thursday and on MONDAY (2 days before Wednesday) I found out I had the test of Wednesday! So I had to study really quick and ended up botching the test (yeah I'm pretty sure). So Tuesday night I had to say goodbye to miss Rhea which was incredibly sad. She is one of the best friends I made there but luckily she is from Colorado and it's only a 10 hour drive there. Awww so sad. :-( We grabbed a few drinks from a few different places and then headed home since I had a test the next day. Wednesday night I went over to Joanna's and Emmanuel's to say goodbye to them. Carlos came too and Unai (Joanna's roommate) was hanging with us too. We just had a few drinks and chatted for a while and then I sadly said my goodbye to them. :-( Thursday night was my last night. I left at 7am on Friday morning so I really had to say goodbye to everyone Thursday night. Me and my roommates ordered some pizza and made some sangria and just sat and chatted about how much we would miss each other. We exchanged some gifts. I got a beautiful zip up sweater from Mara from Peru made of llama. We took some cute christmas photos and then Carlos came over and hung out with us until my taxi came at 4:45am! One thing I forgot to mention was trying to send swords through the mail. For christmas for Tim, mom had me buy a sword from Toledo. So I tried to send home his sword along with a very large poster of mine. After waiting in line at the post office for an hour on my last day I found out that I couldn't send swords through the mail. So then I was worried about taking his sword as well as Mike's sword on the plane (checked baggage of course). Carlos came with me to the airport just in case I couldn't take the swords with me (and also because he's a great friend). Unfortunately for both of us my flight was cancelled because of a large London Fog. So we had to wait in line for about 4 hours to get a new flight that would go through a different country. Something crazy that happened while waiting in line was right behind us in line was a girl that I know. We actually met on our way over to Spain and didn't talk or anything the whole time we were in Spain and then she ended up being in line right behind us for a few hours. It was really crazy that it happened that way but it was awesome because we just played cards with them (her friend too) in line and stuff until we finally got our new flight. Luckily I was allowed to send my swords on the plane though it did cost 80 euros!!! The lady checking my bags was nice though and didn't charge as two parcels (technically I had two and should have been charged more). Awesome! So finally at 10:00 we were able to board the plane and I had to say goodbye to my buddy Carlos. :-( So sad but so excited to get home. Woohoo! We stopped through Dublin where we actually did most of the customs stuff (the only airport in the world that does customs there no matter what instead of waiting until you are at your final destination). After about 20 hours waiting in lines and flying in planes I was home in Chicago!!! But that wasn't quite the end. Fortunately I got Tim's sword and my poster but I didn't get Mike's sword. It got left in Dublin (so they told me). So I had to wait for about an hour to get my claim all done for that so that they could try and get it to me ASAP. A week later I'm still waiting but it's supposed to come into the Chicago airport today (the 29th!)! So I saw Mike which was WONDERFUL and also a little weird to see him for the first time in 4 months. It was almost like kissing someone you don't know but of course you do. It was just so wonderful to see him and finally cuddle him again. :-) So we got all my stuff and headed to his place...

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home