La Última Despedida

Well, this was it! My last morning in Spain before heading off to the airport to fly home. It was sad! Raimundo wasn't home so Gloria called him for me so that I could talk to him and say goodbye. Chantel came down to say goodbye, and Sam even woke up an hour early to come see me off. I have such sweet friends.

My mamita Gloria

Sam, Me, Stefan

Sam and I

Chantel and I

 Walking to the bus stop to go to the airport (Stefan accompanied me) we had to walk past that old church that I got stalked out of... oh such fond memories.

But soon after I got onto an airplane and was headed back for the USA. I loved my study abroad experience so much and would highly recommend it to every college student anywhere. It was such a neat experience getting to travel with so many other students my age who share my same standards and beliefs, and getting to see the world not only through an educational lens but from a spiritual perspective as well. Gaining such an intimate understanding of the culture of these people through a knowledge of their language is something that can't be replicated, and I will be forever grateful for the skills and understandings that I learned here. I would like to say that I learned the 'secret' of the Spanish. But it isn't something that should be written or taught, even if it could be. It' something that has to be lived and experienced for yourself. So come to Spain with me! Come to Spain, and learn their secret - it'll change your life - it certainly changed mine.

Graduación

The 19th was our last day of the program and also the day that we graduated. Our diplomas commended us for finishing 36 hours of hard work... we all had a pretty good laugh about that one lol. The ceremony took like 15 minutes - two people gave short speeches - the leader of Alcalingua and our teacher Carlos - and then they called our names, kissed Carlos, and got our certificates. It was glorious.

After graduation we all went over to Profe's house and had a little lunch party as our final program activity before everyone was free to go their separate ways. It was a lot of fun, a little bittersweet, but fun. We played catch phrase, or basically we had come up with something that everyone on the program said a lot and then Emme read them while Dr. Laraway had to try and guess who it belonged to. Mine was "Hey guys turn around - selfie!" Dr. Laraway got it immediately. So then, we had to take a selfie ;)

But after that, the program was over! And we were set loose. It was a little sad parting ways, but it was a happy kind of sad.

Los Mormones y Los Católicos

Our last Sunday in Spain was one to remember. We went to church with the Mormons, and then that night when we were walking around we found a Corpus Cristi festival going on through the street. It was a huge celebration and really cool to witness! Stefan put me up on his shoulder so I could get a better video. Bless.

And here're the Mormons on our last day of church in Spain

Nuestro Viaje a Barcelona

For our last excursion, we took a flight to Barcelona. Bless that flight - don't get me wrong, the bus rides were fun.... but the 1 hour flight in place of the 4 hour bus drive was really nice. We got to the airport pretty early though, so Preston, Stefan, and I all decided to kill time and play around on the little jungle gym thing. We had great fun.

Once we got to Barce we took a bus ride into the city since our hotel was pretty far away from it. A lot of us went to dinner at this cute little Italian place too, it was funny though since the waiter gave us all shots at the end on the house.... needless to say we were very grateful but left them all there. We kinda felt bad, but not bad enough to break the Word of Wisdom. And let's be real... these Mormon's probably wouldn't take their alcohol well.

Anyways, the next day we just wandered around. The only official things we had to do were the Picasso Museum and La Sagrada Familia (a GORGEOUS cathedral) tours. So we were in groups and just wandered.

We got Mexican! It was so tasty. I hate to say it, but I like Mexican food more than Spanish food.

So I was not excited to go to La Sagrada Familia, but it was GORGEOUS. The cathedral was so beautiful and light, there were tons of stained glass windows in all the colors of the rainbow and the outside was carved and it's gorgeous and I just can't even. Everyone needs to go see it in real life, pictures don't do it justice. It was beautiful.

Our trip to Barcelona was awesome. On our way back while in the airport we had our most efficient McDonalds experience ever. I'm pretty sure I had all of my food in less than a minute. It was a quality experience.

In Barcelona they're super anti being part of Spain, so a lot of things are only in their native language - Catalan - and then English. There isn't usually a Spanish option, or if there is it's like it's a secondary language like Italian or Portuguese or Chinese or something they wouldn't expect people to speak around there.

We all spent a lot of time in the hotel pool too. It was a very nice break.

Barcelona was the perfect way to end the trip! I'm really glad we went, it was an awesome experience. We met a couple hard core separatists, and a couple pacifists. It's definitely a hopping city.