Hasta luego, Spain.. :(

Well the time has come where I have to say goodbye to the 3rd home of my life.. I can't believe it has been 18 weeks and I'm not ready to go yet! There were definitely those times when I just wanted to be in my comfortable, small college town or the good 'ol QCA, but it took about 2 days for me to realize what an incredible time I was having and how there was no way I wanted to leave. Spain is really a great country. The lifestyle, the people, the shopping, the beaches, and the sites made for the perfect place for me to study abroad.

(quick break for the trip we took last friday to Tabarca, an island off of Alicante. It was beautiful!)

random beach we went to on "labor day" for Spain

some of the girls from our group on the ferry to the island

tabarca beach-super windy!

Im not even going to go in to how much I'll miss my new friends I have grown to love so much. It's never goodbye :) My flight to New York is booked and ready to go for a mini reunion this summer. The re-entry into my "normal" life will be a struggle. Going to work, having a schedule, having responsibilities for that matter, and not waking up to the mountains on one side and Mediterranean on the other will be difficult. Some of the daily lifestyle differences I'll have to adjust back to are:
--packing my sandwiches on regular loaf wheat bread in a ziplock rather than tin foil
--having a breakfast of something other than strawberry yogurt with granola
--drinking a grande starbucks coffee instead of a mini shot of espresso with a splash of milk
--not taking my favorite, hot and sweaty 24 bus every time i want to go somewhere
--buying blue moon for $3 each instead of my wine juice boxes for .35 euro cents
--taking tequila shots with a lime instead of the gross lemon they give us here
--the lack of fresh, sweet fruit for super cheap in the grocery stores
--salads with something other than olive oil and salt as dressing
And many more lovely things about life here that I have grown to love. If someone were thinking about studying abroad and didn't know where to go, I would definitely recommend somewhere in Spain. The country is so different than the rest of Europe and especially the US that it is a lot to adjust to culturally. For the complete study abroad experience, Spain has been perfect. It wasn't always easy, but neither is life, so you've got to roll with the punches and figure out how to brush the little annoyances off and move on.

A semester wasn't nearly enough. I cant imagine even only going abroad for a few weeks, because the past four months have just finally seemed like spain is my new home. And part of me wishes it was, but as my dad so conveniently reminded me, "Kate, it's time to come home." grr.... But I don't wanna! Looking back on my first few posts, I can see I wasn't overly excited about many things regarding the Spanish lifestyle at first.. Luckily that all changed and I got over my "I want the easiness of life if the US back" attitude. I've also come to enjoy not having a smartphone where everyone is always on it texting or on twitter or Facebook. None of us here have anyone to text, much less money on our sweet go-phones, so we have been able to actually enjoy each others company! Imagine that! Facebook has also become one of the most useful websites ever for study abroad kids. I have so many groups now with all my Spanish friends, CIEE kids, dorm kids, etc that it will be so much easier to keep in touch with everyone.

Cody, my first friend outside of CIEE in Spain, and Kim-two of the people I will miss the most.. Cody was the first goodbye today and I did not like it one bit.

The semester I've been waiting for since 5th grade has come and gone, and I am thankfully able to sit here and say how thankful I am for the whole thing. It really has been an experience of a lifetime and i'm never going to forget all i have learned about life by being here. I have loved every minute of being in Spain and have also been fortunate enough to make it to a total of 22 different cities in 8 countries! I'm also now a great traveler :)

Time flies when you're having fun, and I think my life is passing me by quicker than I realize.. It's time to say a few more goodbyes and savor the last few moments of the semester that has given me such a positive, new outlook on the world and what lies ahead for me. Thank you all for taking a look at my little diary now and then! This was first supposed to just be for my family, but my mom seemed a little too excited to pass the website around town, so I'm glad you could all share in my study abroad experience a little bit. I'm sure I'll be itching to share more stories as soon as I land!


Now time to get excited about finally seeing my mom, EB, and Aunt Eda in Rome on Saturday! Luckily, it's not quite over yet :) What a great life this is.


-k

The real spring break- the canary islands!

After all of the intense sight seeing and traveling we had been doing for the first half of our 17 day spring break, the next and last trip of the semester with my friends was to Tenerife, one of the canary islands! They are Spanish owned, so it was nice to be able to use our Spanish there too. 12 of us from different CIEE programs booked three apartments in a great all inclusive resort.

That ended up being the perfect option for us. Being able to eat whenever we wanted, not having to get 12 people to decide on a restaurant, and having our own apartments and agendas was so nice. For five days, we lounged inside our "compound", making it out only on two different occasions.. The pools were the perfect temperature, we had great weather, and all got really tan!

The bar opening at 11 am was obviously 

Most of the group, poolside on our first day.

taken advantage of the first day.. The other people at the somewhat family resort definitely thought we were insane, but by the weekend the stag parties started showing up so we weren't the lone rangers opening and closing the bar daily..

abby, kim, and I, the three amigos living in the dorms from our specific program

The nighttime entertainment was also a highlight of our evenings. There was this great entertainer lady who ran the shows, and they had dances all made and little skits, game shows, and bingo! I starred in the show the first night, competing against two men from England. They got way easy challenges- kissing 20 people on the cheek in a minute- and I had to jump rope 80 times in a minute!! Not fair. Wearing a mid-thigh length little sundress and sandals made that way too difficult after a few kitty cocktails...

I didn't win the contest, but I did win a bottle of champagne, so thats better than the dumb prize I would have gotten anyways :) of course..

the group of girls, plus Ryan, and Tenerife Resort man Josh

After the entertainer woman realized we were the only Americans there, she picked on us for literally every activity. Day and night... Matt, Ryan, and Morgann brought Disney to Tenerife as Mickey, Minnie, and sponge bob one day! They had to do some Spanish dance with all these little kids it was hilarious.

minnie, mickey, and spongebob, with our new Tenerife resort friend Josh.. they couldn't see and were sweating after the 10 minutes in there..

Matt also became one of the dudes from the Full Monte one night and had to strip.. (keeping those pictures off the blog..) He had never done it before (so he says..) and it was hilarious. He did a pretty good job for learning the dance a few hours earlier though. We were supposed to do this thriller dance one night and got tired of having to entertain people.. We wanted to relax since it was our vacation, and told them we were done doing that stuff..

soooo.... we sat here and bombarded the bar with our crazy drink requests. I became the best bartender they had seen, introducing everyone to our famous whiskey sours on the rocks, some good creamsicles, and other great stuff i pulled out of my bag of tricks.

Kristen, another Mizzou girl with CIEE, and I enjoying some sort of pre-dinner drink.

and Ryan, my favorite little guy. He's probably one of the coolest people on earth. not kidding.

The all-inclusive meals were a killer.. I blame all of my study abroad bad habits on these 3 weeks of traveling.. I was doing so well and eating so healthy until "spring break" happened.. So naturally, we took over the ice cream bar from the little kids and made some awesome creations. Morgann was the master, making this giant thing: 

yes, despite the excitement over ice cream, we are 21 years old..

and my yummy cone. Not quite whiteys, once again.. but it served its purpose.

So the last few days were a lot of fun too! We made it out the final day for whale watching on a catamaran. It was a little chilly but we saw some baby pilot whales! They looked like darker dolphins and we wanted to swim with them but they're protected and you can't.. Way too many pictures later we turned around and went back to the resort.

half of the group on the catamaran

whales! 

kristen and i on the side of the boat, trying to spot some dolphins or something..

and the crazy people who jumped in! it was freezing and i was not about to do that..

 Enjoying our last great meal, a few of us went out after and the rest had a nice 6:30 am flight on Sunday, so they went to bed. Abby and I had conveniently chosen the 4:30 pm flight Sunday, so we had the day to lay at the resort some more.

the pretty resort, view from our room at sunset.

 After getting in to Madrid at 8:30, there were no flights or trains back to alicante, so once again, we slept in yet another airport.. Madrid was really uncomfortable. Barcelona definitely wins the "Best Airport-Overnight" award. Knowing this before we got there obviously, we had planned and bought tickets for the earliest train back to Alicante on Monday morning.

lovely tile floor we pulled out every jacket in our bags to try to make a comfy bed.. no such luck..

Even though the last night landed us back home from our lengthy travels entirely exhausted, Tenerife was a great trip and totally worth the Madrid sleepover :) we were so sad to get back because that means the semester is almost over.. Two more weeks, then finals and the semester I have been waiting for since 5th grade is done.. So sad! I never want to leave this place! And the worst part is, no matter how many times I could come back to Spain in my life, it will never ever be the same as how the past 4 months have been.. Depressing. I'm trying to prepare myself for the departure but can't seem to wrap my mind around it yet.. Luckily I've scheduled a few trips to see all my friends already so this is not goodbye forever :)

Time to get ready for the pack-up and send-off I guess...

-k