this is the last.

i haven´t had much time to write lately because the last few days in a foreign country are overwhelming and there´s a lot to get done.

the thing is, i´m happy right now. and it´s not a happy like ¨hey, i´m finally getting out of here¨ happy. it´s an i´m-satifsfied-with-life-right-now happy. it´s a strange tranquility i have right now. i thought i was going to be feeling all these regrets about things i haven´t done or seen or how i´m spending my last moments and everything, but it´s not. yes, it´s sad because i know everything i do is for the last time. but this is reality and my time here has come to an end. i have taken advantage of it and done the things i have wanted and now it is just time to move on.

i´m sad too. of course i´m sad. i know there are so many things i´m going to miss, so many things i´ll look back at. and i probably will regret things i didn´t do. but right now i´m ok with where i´m at.

the past few days, like i said, have been pretty crazy. we had our final dinner last night, an incredible closing to this trip. i just realized how well i had gotten to know the whole group and my professors and how influential everything has been for me. it was the most fancy shmancy meal i have ever eaten in my life and i thought i would be immobile for about 3 hours after i finished... good thing we all had to make speeches so i got to sit for a while. we had salads with mushrooms and fish, a slab of artichoke pastry (ugh, didn´t eat that one... that´s one thing i don´t think i´ll ever grow to like), a lamb bone huge caveman piece of meat, the best steak i have ever eaten in my life, and then home-made ice cream (vanilla-cinnamon and black licorice maybe.. they were very interesting and different) with little rice cookies. wow. so then the professors put the ball in our court and suprised us by telling us we needed to each made an impromptu speech... ok so not really a speech, but giving a memory from our time here. and that´s harder than you would think to prepare something good in another language on the spot. but i think i did alright. many people thanked everyone and said how they were glad they made such good friends and had fun, etc. some were pretty deep. i talked about how this experience has changed me so much... how i came in being a pretty dependent person, and i think now that i have overcome some fears and lived in another country, i can face change more easily. i said how we have all seen more in three months than probably in the rest of our lives and how it has been such an experience. and then i told a story about how i tried to make a joke the other day that totally backfired cuz it´s pretty hard to make a joke in another language, and you just have to be able to laugh at yourself and laugh at life because that´s the only way you make it through.

(p.s. i´ll try to explain the joke. we were in the museum of navarra with the class and our professor ana. there was a statue that ana was describing to me and kristen that was the virgin mary sitting on her mother (santa ana? not sure) and baby jesus was sitting on virgin mary. so it was a succession of the three showing the generations, and each one was small enough to fit on the others lap. it struck me as a funny idea because i imagined myself sitting on my mom and her sitting on nana and how that´s so physically impossible and would be really awkward and weird. so i wanted to express that, and in english i would have said something like ¨yea, my mom, grandma and i do that all the time too¨, but in spanish, it just came out horribly! it probably sounded like this to ana: ¨i wish i could sit on my mom and she could sit on her mom. but that would be hard!¨ kristen and i laughed out loud for like 5 minutes because it´s just so freakin weird that we can´t joke in spanish and that we sound like total jerks.

anyway, after all the students spoke, the professors did and gave out awards and i got all emotional. i feel so close with my professors... they were seriously the most supportive and best people ever. i can´t imagine this experience without them. they weren´t only being our teachers, but our parents, in a way. they were always asking how my bumps or my eye was, really concerned about me. concerned about everyone. just so caring. nelson almost always came with me every time i needed to go to the doctor, and when he was unable to, ana came instead. these things were just completely voluntary... on their own time. you just don´t find people like these every day. ana and nekane, two of the professors, came with us to the bar after the dinner last night! we were dancing with them and drinking with them. they are just so cool. i can´t even describe it. and i´m not saying cool like they are trying to be young students or anything, but i mean cool as in amazing people. incredible people who have so much heart for what they do and care so much about the students. i´m really gonna miss that feeling because i think it comes rarely in athens.

anyway, kristen, taryn, kate, and i went to the discotecas last night. those are the spanish bars that are opened from 3 to 6 in the morning and you just dance the night away... crazy. not much like that in athens, or in any city that i have been to for that matter. it´s common in spain. i hadn´t gone yet, so i went and decided to take advantage of the last spanish night. it was amazing, so much good music and i loved it! i love dancing. the spanish guys can be preeetty creepy, and when i mean creepy, i mean like that scene in the little mermaid where ariel is stuck in ursulla´s world and all those creepy things are grabbing her and trying to pull her down. cuz when we were leaving, all these guys just like stroke your arms and call you beautiful and it´s hilarious. they never try to dance with you though. never. it´s hilarious. we were discussing how spanish boys (when drunk, usually) will just be walking down the street talking normally to each other and all of a sudden they see you and say ¨ohhh guapa guapa guapa, bonita chicas¨ and then resume their conversations immediately as if nothing had happened. however, in normal bars that aren´t discotecas, boys are not very forward and people don´t intermingle with people they didn´t come with as often as it seems they do in the u.s.

anyhow, what else? i have been packing all day, i think i´m gonna fit everything, phew! most of the stuff i bought is pretty small and i made sure of it.

i had lunch with the fam today and it was pretty usual. i´m not gonna miss them all that much. today, for example, they were talking about scholarships for art students and amaia and her mom were arguing about the availability and pepe yelled at pilar for negating everything amaia said. i was just annoyed because they ignore that i´m even there most of the time and don´t even try to make a conversation that i can join and it´s like i´m just sitting there to eat for survival and i´m just not a real person. i hate that feeling and i´m ready to be done with it. i´m so ready to feel like i live with my family or my friends who really care about me and don´t just treat me like i´m a daughter but not have feelings for me like a daughter. i feel like pilar thinks she can treat me as if i need to follow everything she says, but yet, i have none of the positive benefits that you can get from that - it´s hard to explain, but when it´s just motherly but without love, it´s just the worst combination ever. it´s like the classic ¨you´re not my mom!¨ line.

i got them a tour guide of the u.s. and wrote a really nice note to them in it and highlighted all the places they should visit if they ever come. that´s about as nice as i´m gonna get because i don´t really feel all that close to them after all this time. sadly. i don´t. i´m actually excited to leave this house.

well, it´s weird to think i´m summing up my entire experience in this entry because i feel like i´m not summing much of anything up. i will probably have to go back in after i get home and write some conclusions about everything. i have a long bus ride, flight, layover, flight, drive home, etc. to worry about and then i´ll be home for a week. i´ll write again then.