semester: OVER.

well well well, i find myself blogging once again. i must admit i have been avoiding the task, and the more days that passed by the more i wished to avoid. the fact that i´m blogging is a pure testament of how little i have to do this morning!! i had to whip out the planner so i could remember all the stuff i´ve done since my last post. turns out nothing toooo exciting, but just being in spain is excitement enough.
so the last time i posted was the week of zero class. because i didnt know about it in advance, i didnt have time to plan anything cool outside of barcelona, so we all tried to make the best of being in the city when things were fairly often closed. there was also a fair bit of studying (ok lets be honest here...it was very minimal..) because i had hebrew and morfo finals the next week. i spent an actual solid chunk of time studying for my other class that didnt yet have a final (spanish of the americas) with the american friend i made in the class. that was fun cuz we´d just go to coffee shops and study, but also hang out and talk. a good combo. i invited her with us when we went to see the 3D IMAX of polar express heheh...surprisingly i enjoyed it. although the 3Dness made me a little dizzy at times. but we go to wear super awesome glasses ;) (see pictures...once i post them).
another adventure we went on was the chocolate museum, which turned out to just be a bunch of rooms with really meticulous chocolate sculptures! i took pictures of those too..some of them were amazing, like the sagrada familia in chocolate! wowie...but there was basically nothing on history, and there was no free chocolate (slight disappointment there). on saturday night me, amy, jess, and katie made it our job to make american style chocolate chip cookies because no one in spain has ever heard of such a thing! (we were shocked as well). it was really hard to find chocolate chips, and when we did they were expensive, and vanilla is also hard to come by...but we succeeded, and made really yummy cookies! and all the spaniards that tried them (amys host sister and my host mom to name a couple) so they were buenisimo! :o)
so the morfo final was grammar, aka whatever. not bad. and my hebrew final ended up being a lot of fun :) he gave me like a 5 minute oral exam, having me read stuff out loud and tell him what it meant. and at the end he was like ok fine, you know this. let´s chat instead! so we ended up chatting in spanish for 20 something minutes, about why he´s studying semitic languages, how i know hebrew, my spanish, etc...turns out (mommy you´ll find this interesting) his family has lived right next to the temple in the jewish quarter of toledo for many many generations, so he was always fascinated with the hebrew on the walls and stuff. and also he thinks that his roots on his mom´s side probably are jewish! neato. he was by far my favorite teacher. i went to hebrew class all this week even though i was done with it just cuz he was fun to listen to.
that day amy also left to go back to NY because her grandma suddenly died :( so that was extremely sad because me and tim were expecting to get to spend a few days just the 3 of us in spain. and also we didnt really get to say a good well-prepared goodbye...but i´m sure we´ll see each other again.
the next day was alex´s last night and she had a special request that some of us wander the gothic quarter with her to see the cool shops one last time. but our timing got messed up so we basically were looking at a bunch of closed shops....and after we met up with a bunch of other people and saw narnia! very cool movie, good thing i read them this summer hehe. although the movie let out at 12:05 (not that late), it was 5 minutes after the last metro ran, so i still ended up getting home really late because the stupid night bus didnt come for 30 minutes. grrr.
on friday we had a picture swap party with my closest friends where we each made a CD of our favorite pics and passe dthem around. so now i have all the best pictures of all my friend´s combined! yes! and that night we had a "dinner with the bestest of friends" (corny i know) because it would be ourl ast time eating together as they all left on sunday...:( it was a very nice dinner though so it was a good way to say goodbye (even though we saw them again). then after that we met up with the spaniards and had our goodbye night with them (of course going to bed at 7:30 am WOW).
on saturday me and tim went to our long-awaited cooking class!!! it was very fun :) we learned how to make: this yummy tomato soup, paella, tortilla española, y crema catalana. the most typical spanish dishes! the guy who ran the class was for some reason required to speak in english, and his english wasnt very good so me and tim chuckled sometimes. i sort of wish he had spoken in spanish. but whatever. the other people in the class were 2 belgiums, 1 italian, 1 german, and 1 somethin else...it was very small and cute.
for everyone else in the group that was their last night in bcn. people chose to wander the ramblas one more time and the gothic quarter, buying last minute gifts and souvenirs. we met them at 7:15 am at sans estació to accompany them to the airport. now they are all gone but me and tim!!! (and 3 andrews, but theyre kind of weird..heh)
and tomorrow...KEVIN COMES!. i´m in a state of shock. i have to get to the airport by 11 am or so, not too bad...when i go home for good my flight is at 8 am i think :( i´m gonna have to leave here at 5?? damn.
oh, so my spanish of the america final was EH. not so hot. but that class was dumb and it was impossible to study for and he did a very bad job of telling me what the test was gonna be (turned out essay questions). but it´s over. so who cares anymore. last night me and tim watched ELF to celebrate the christmas season...i think that makes 13 times now that i´ve seen it?? hehehe...
ok, i think i really have gone over these last two weeks in too much detail! but i dont know when i will next blog. maybe next time i´m in barcelona? (jan 2). until then...
sara :)