It is 4:30 on Saturday, July 24, and I am officially done with my time here in Spain (almost). We have our graduation ceremony tonight, and then we're free to go! Not that I'm looking forward to that. Exams went better than I expected, luckily I studied the right things and got good grades on everything! Good, a GPA booster :)
On Thursday night after finals were done, we all (literally EVERY student from the Fund) went to Paraleras, the outdoor discotecas in Toledo. We had to celebrate! Of course we had some drinks before we got there, but it was a fun experience, dancing and just hanging out with the great friends I've found here. Now, let me just say that Spain doesn't EVER do things on time. The sense of time here almost doesn't exist, which at times is very frustrating, but that night was enjoyable - we didn't get there until 2! And we closed the place down at 4 :) Now for me, thats late, like super late. Usually I go to bed at 11 on weeknights, and I can't usually make it past 2 in Minneapolis! Maybe I'll have to bring this tradition back home...
After that great night we had an earlyish morning on Friday, we had decided to go to the famous Don Quijote windmills! If you didn't know, Don Quijote has to be one of the most famous works of Spanish literature ever. In the story, Don Quijote fights these "monsters" that end up being windmills. Because Consuegra (the little town where they are) is like, an hour away, we decided to venture there and visit!
Venture, by the way, is the best word to describe it. Consuegra is this tiny town of about 5,000 people, and we didn't see anyone! Definitely a ghost town. We made it up the stairs (oh my gosh, so many stairs) to the hill where the windmills were, and voila! We could've been Don Quiijote, fighting those monsters. It was SOOO hot that day, we were dying. I drank a liter and a half water bottle in about 30 minutes it was so hot. Luckily none of us got burned! We met this store owner in one of the windmills and he let us go up to the top to see in the windmill, which had a great view! Definitely built for shorter people though.
After comida and visiting the windmills, we decided to head back because there wasn't much else to do...and this is when we really discovered how sleepy of a town Consuegra was. Lets just say that we were told the bus would leave at 5:30, when we wanted to leave at 4:30...ok, so we would just find a restaurant to hang out at. However, a bus didn't roll around to 6:15! That Spanish sense of time again...Anyways, we made it back and just chilled out the rest of the day. I started to pack (sad!) and then we went out for sangria, a delicious Spanish wine concoction with fruit, another thing I'm bringing back to the States for sure!
After sangria we headed to my friend Carlye's homestay house and hung out with her host brother and his friends, who just got back from college in Madrid - haha, another fun Spanish experience! They played guitar and chatted with us all night, and it was fun to be able to actually use my spanish! Of course, that was the end-goal of coming here!
So now, after finishing all my souvenir shopping and finding out my grades, I'm relaxing, and its starting to hit me that I'm actually going to be leaving Spain in three days...THREE DAYS!??? Where did the time go!? I will miss this place, I can guarantee it. I've fallen in love with Toledo's twisty cobblestone streets, its warm people, and yes, even the Spanish sense of time, even when it drives me nuts. I've fallen in love with the church bells that wake me up every morning although I want to curse them, and I don't know what I'm going to do when there's not a bar right outside my front door that I can relax, enjoy a beer, and do homework at. How can this be happening!?? I want to come back home, definitely, but I don't want to leave here too. In spanish, the saying is "entre un pared y una espada", that's totally me right now. It means between a wall and a sword, but in english we say between a rock and a hard place...it sucks! The good thing is after Rome and Paris, I'll be back for a day and a half, but not in Toledo :( Madrid is awesome, but I love Toledo! Its the perfect town, big enough that there's always something new to explore, but small enough that you can really feel a connection with the people and feel like its home. Maybe I'm feeling this way because its so close, but wow, I will definitely need to come back here someday. Definitely.
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