Final adventures

Well, just one week left and I will be back in the states...crazy! Meanwhile, I’ve been keepin’ pretty busy in the last few days, what with going out while finding time to study and finish up all the final work. Last week was the last week of classes, in which I turned in a couple long final papers, and did my thirty-minute transatlantic presentation-which went well (it was on surrealism, with examples of Joan Miro and Salvador Dali). Other than that we’ve been going to various bars/cafes, for cards, studying, or just hanging out. On Wednesday Laura, Florette, Guy Sam and I had dinner at Florette and Guy Sam’s place, after which we headed to a nearby cafe/bar to watch the Barcelona/Chelsea game. It was actually really fun, the place was full of Spanish guys (mostly middle-aged) intently watching the game, I always enjoy watching “football” with Europeans, they get so into it. Plus the game was amazing, with a goal in the last couple minutes to tie up the game and allow Barcelona to continue. After that, Laura and I headed over to Crechas, where we checked out the live music they have every Wednesday. It’s so great, I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it, but it’s this little place in the Old Zone, and in the downstairs they have a small area with live music. This band, the best one, plays Irish music, and is always great. Complete with a couple violins, the Galician version of bagpipes, drums, tambourine, etc...I love that place. On Thursday, Laura and I went out on a mission...a piercing mission. This was the second or third time we had attempted to find a place, but everything was always closed. However, we finally had success, and after waiting around for a while Laura got her nose pierced, and I got my eyebrow pierced!!! I know, many of my family member readers will probably not be pierced. But don’t worry; I really like it, just a small silver bar with a little ball on each end, very classy. Plus, I will probably get tired of it in about a year or two, and then I will just take it out and all will be well. That’s the great thing about piercings...not permanent. So yeah, that was our big adventure, Laura’s looks nose piercing looks really good as well. After some dinner at Doner Kehbab, our favorite, we headed over to Florette and Guy Sam’s place for some cards and such. When it got a little later, Laura, Florette and I went out, on the town, and had a really random/fun night in the old zone. First, we headed over to a little cafe/bar that one of my guidebooks mentioned was good, where we all got a glass of wine and chatted for a bit. After a while, a group of spanish people came in, including two short, stout guys, another guy, and two girls. One of the guys was really loud (his name was Santi), and they all approached us, wanting to know where we were from etc., and then had fun learning various English vocabulary. It was pretty amusing, and I talked to one of the girls for a while, who was really nice. Meanwhile, these three older men in there seventies were getting absolutely trashed (they were the only other people in the bar/cafe at this point), and they wandered over to us and started drunkenly joining the conversation/making constant commentary. Turns out they were all doctors, kind of ironic considering the state they were in, but they were friendly and amusing, at least for a while. Someone ordered us a couple more glasses of wine, and we hung there for a while, the three of us just kind of sitting back and reveling in the hilarity of it all. After a while, Santi wanted to take us to another bar, so we headed off. He knew the owner of the place, and they set about chatting fora while. We only stayed there for a bit though; the old men showed up and we decided it was time for a change of company, and apologized to Santi and made our escape (the ol’ “we have to get up early in the morning” excuse). We decided to stop in at Laura’s place to use the bathroom and re-group, but on our way we bumped into three Spanish guys our age, who stopped us to chat. They seemed cool, so we agreed to check out a discoteca with them, and made our way through town. Turns out they didn’t really know where it was, so Laura had to intervene, but we made it eventually. It was this really cool place (still in the old zone) that we had never discovered. We hung there for a while, getting some (free!) drinks and dancing with the guys for a while, very fun. After a while we decided to head out though, as at this point it was around 3 in the morning, and we were ready to get home. The guys seemed pretty disappointed, but we said our goodbyes and headed back. On Friday I slept in, eventually meeting up with Laura at a cafe for a study break and some cards. Not long after we got invited to Florette and Guy Sam’s place for dinner again, so we headed over there with some bread and wine. We hung out for a long time, eventually heading to our favorite place for hot chocolate, also an ideal place for sitting around and playing cards. After a while there Guy Sam and Florette headed home as they were tired, but Laura and I headed to a bar we had been meaning to check out. We stayed there for a while, eventually heading home to get some rest, as we were considering getting up early the next morning for a trip to Ourense. However, the next morning Laura wasn’t really feeling up for the trip, so she and I stayed in Santiago. We had a really great day-my roommate Leo invited us to a picnic with some of his friends, so we and my roomate Samuel tagged along. It was funny, we ran into Paul (one of the Kenyon kids on our program) on the way to Parque Alemeda, and he agreed to come along. We thought we were just going to be eating in the park, but Leo’s friends had other plans. Turned into a loooong walk, part-way up the little mountain that I climbed about a month ago. It was pretty funny, none of us were at all prepared, but we made it! The park was really nice, with a great view of the city, and a little pond that we settled by. The picnic was delicious, especially after the unexpected hike, and we all spent a long time there relaxing. I really like Leo’s friends; there were two Brazilian guys, another girl from Brazil, two German guys, a guy from Slovania, plus Leo and the rest of us. A good time was had by all, and we went to a little cafeteria they had set up to get a coffee and sit around and chat for a while longer. It was interesting, we talked a lot about the education and health systems in our various countries, which only made me realize just how much we pay for our education in the US (especially at Kenyon), not to mention the rediculous nature of our health care...Slovania seems to have a better system for Christ’s sake! But anyways, hopefully that will change. Again, it was a really fun time, everyone was super nice. After the coffe Laura, Samuel, Paul and I headed back down to town, while the rest of them did the rest of the walk up. We needed to get to the grocery store before it closed, as neither Laura nor I had any food. Eventually we split up, Laura and I stopping in at Froiz, our nieghborhood supermarket, before heading back to her place to relax for a bit. We watched some episodes of The Office on her computer, waiting for Guy Sam and Florette to get back from Oursense to join us for dinner. After dinner, we settled in for some more Bid whist (we are truly addicted to this game), and then all went off to bed, as everyone was pretty tired and didn’t really feel like going out. And that brings me to today! I’ve basically just been studying all day, with breaks for episodes of South Park in between, talking with my rooommates, and dinner at Laura’s place. Sam just got back from London today, where she had been visiting Lloyd this whole weekend, so we caught up a bit. And here I am...time to get back to studying actually, I’ve got my first Exam tomorrow. Wish me luck!
Brit

Home stretch

That's right, only a couple more weeks and I will be back in the States. I'm super excited to be home, but man there are a lot of things I'm gonna miss. For example, this weekend we hopped on a train, and an hour and a half later we were at one of the most beautiful beaches in the world...not bad. About 14 or 15 of us went this Saturday, as a break from studying and to have some fun. We woke up early and caught an 8:30am train, getting us into vigo at around 10. It was a super nice day, the weather has been incredible lately, so we picked up a map and headed out to explore. We headed down the main road, partially just to see it and partially because some of the girls wanted to locate the H&M. We then made our way to a grocery store, where we stocked up on booze and food for lunch, before we made the final trek to the ferries. We purchased tickets that would get us to the Islands, and after a bit of a wait boarded our ferry for the 20-minute ride. The islands were absolutely incredible! As it was still pretty early, the beach wasn't too crowded, so we walked a little while and found ourselves a spot, everyone immediately stripping down to there suits to get some tanning going, and burying the beer and other beverages in the sand by the water to cool. We then spent the next 6 hours or so laying around in the sun, with occasional spurts of activity, namely recovering the beer as it was nearly swept out to sea. We even went swimming, despite the cold water; it was like the Caribbean, beautiful/fine white sand, crystal clear water...I was in heaven. When our six hours of paradise were up, we headed over to wait for our ferry, grabbing some icecream while we waited. When we got back to the mainland, we went on a search for a couple Mexican restaurants we had looked up online (everyone is craving Mexican food right now), only to find that they had both shut down...tragic. Instead, we piled into a Hamburger place, and caught the beginning of the Barcelona-Madrid game before we had to catch our train, comparing the various sun burns we had obtained on the way. We got home at around 10:30 and went our separate ways...Such a great day. Laura and I couldn't believe our luck-two weekends in a row including beautiful trips to the beach! The rest of the weekend was pretty uneventful, consisting of sleeping and attempts to get some work done. Tomorrow I have a big paper and presentation due, which I can't wait to be done with. A couple nights ago Laura, Florette, Guy Sam and I learned this card game called Bid Whist that Laura used to play in high school. It's actually really popular among African Americans, and it's a really fun game. So the past few nights we've been hanging out at Guy Sam and Florette's place (she moved in there for the last month, as she was sick of living so far away from everyone, plus her two spanish roommates turned out to be very bitchy). Other than that I'm just doing work, next week is exam week so I need to be preparing for that. Wish me luck!