I'll try to give an overview of my past few weeks, which I'm thinking will take a few posts as I try to process and formulate more to express what this semester has meant to me...nonetheless...
The last few weeks have been full of quite the roller coaster of emotions that I can't even fully express or describe: the stress of five finals within three days, the relaxing but fun adventure of traveling to Ávila, the anticipation (ironically during the whole season of Advent) of arriving home, the extreme sadness of goodbyes to unforgettable people and places in my adopted family and city, the craziness & excitement of "Nochevieja Universitaria," the surprises in the airport and more.
First: the stress of finals...let's just leave it at that. Finals are finals and I'm glad they are over!
Second: day trip to Ávila. Last Saturday my friends Katie(s) & I went for a lovely day trip...unfortunately it was kinda rainy all day long but we made the most of it. What's best to do on a rainy chilly day? None other than go to a cozy cafe and get yummy rich hot chocolate! The city is surrounded by a huge "muralla" or stone wall and of course has lots of churches and pretty buildings to admire. Here's a quick glance:
Cathedral
Murallas
Katie sandwich :)
Yemas - we got this at the cafe, which are a typical yummy little treat of Ávila with lots of sugar and egg yolk.
Third: mixed feelings...the excitement of thinking about arriving home to a warm home full of loving family and beautiful Christmas decorations accompanied by the sadness of leaving the magical Salamanca. I certainly did not believe Christmas was sneaking up so quickly while I was in Spain, regardless of the lights hanging on the streets of Salamanca. I think perhaps I just wasn't so surrounded by the familiar "American" version of Christmas that I'm so used to from my entire life. Some of my friends' host families brought out some little Christmas decorations, like a manger scene, but my family didn't add any type of festive ornaments to the apartment. Coming home to Christmas music, cookies, tree, decorations and more just sounded so appealing to me. Of course I was looking forward to being with my family and friends, too!! Christmas just made it that much more exciting and dampened the sadness of goodbyes for my departure. We had a lovely going away party with the IES program, where all the students, IES staff, professors and all the señoras of those in a home stay gathered together to have one last opportunity to spend time together.
A group shot of most of the students, some professors and staff.
Me & Teresa at the party :) I promise she's super happy...I've found that many Spaniards just don't smile in photos as much as Americans.
Fourth: Salamanca's Nochevieja Universitaria (University version of New Year's Eve). Spaniards celebrate New Year's Eve by welcoming the new year with none other than grapes. 12 of them, in fact. At the 12 chimes of the bells at midnight, you are to stuff your face and attempt to eat 1 grape at each bell chime. Any left over grapes will bring you bad luck for the year to come. Students at the university usually go home to celebrate Christmas/New Year's/Epiphany so they don't get to celebrate this fun tradition together. Behold-about 7 years ago, a group of students decided to imitate this lovely grape-eating festival but instead consumed gummies at the strike of midnight before going their own ways for break. This quickly grew into a city wide party. Tens of thousands of students gather in the Plaza Mayor and many come from all over Spain to mark the end of the semester and welcome the new year together. It was quite the fiesta - crazy amount of people in the plaza, almost all wearing the santa hat that was handed out at the entrance, and many smoking and most drinking or already drunk. Nonetheless, it was an incredible lifetime experience surrounded by friends and also countless strangers, all eagerly awaiting the strike of midnight so we could scarf down the 12 gummies (grape flavored, of course) that they handed out as we entered the plaza. Here is a video (if you fast forward to 4:15 that's when everyone starts eating them): Nochevieja Universitaria. It was quite the incredible celebration & so nice of the city to throw such a large going away party for me, as I left early the next morning! In fact, I had to walk to the bus station at 6 AM and the streets were still full of people and leftover trash in the streets - living it up the Spanish way, naturally.
Katie & me with our festive Santa hats & gummies!
An attempted view of the crowd (better to get a perspective with the video link above)
Fifth: As I said, I started the journey pretty early Friday morning. Luckily, I had a travel buddy all the way from Salamanca to Rochester because Elizabeth is from Rochester AND lives on my floor in the apartment building. It was a long day of traveling, but I had some special unexpected surprises along the way. As I was sitting at my gate in the Philly airport, pretty tired as it was nearing 11 PM Salamanca time, just got off a 9 hour flight and went through the whole customs process, I look up for a split second and who do I see cruising by? None other than my beloved Uncle Eddie!! What are the chances! I also got to see Aunt Em, Katie & Rog (cousins) for a little bit before my next flight as they came to pick him up from the airport. It was so refreshing to see family and to catch up with them very briefly & knowing we'd see each other again in less than 2 weeks for Christmas festivities was comforting too :) So as I'm heading back to my gate, I spot another familiar face: Kelsey, a friend from high school who I haven't seen since graduation! She was flying home from Burlington (UVM) for break, which I love hearing about because of how much I love that city. We updated each other on our lives and as we were talking, we spotted Santa walking by. Somehow, we made eye contact with him and he walked towards us. He said to Kelsey "Stand up"...so she did. And of course it was time for a photo with Santa for us two! What a fun way to brighten up my long day of travel. To top it all off, as I got off the plane in the Rochester airport, I was greeted so lovingly by Mom, Dad, Liz and Ryan, who all had 3 huge signs welcoming me home :)
More to come on my adjustments to the US life that doesn't accommodate to Spanish-speaking and Spanish-thinking individuals and more details about my thoughts on many topics that came to my attention this semester, like religion and The Church, etc.
In the meantime, I think I'll go eat some Christmas cookies and listen to Christmas music with my family. Home sweet home! Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all and thanks for being such devoted readers!!
Abrazos a todos :)
Wonderful post, my love! I love the pic of you and Theresa, I bet she would love a copy of it too :) Cant wait to see you soon, my dear!
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