2 week mark. Finishing Strong.

I have finished my last week of classes at school – next week is finals week. Tomorrow we have a class trip for my art class to a museum in Madrid, and two friends and I are going to see el Rey Lion (the Lion King) at a theater in Madrid. It is my last weekend in Toledo with my host family. After finals are done, I am going with my school to Zamora and Camino de Santiago from the 23^rd to the 26^th, the “graduation” ceremony at school on the 27^th, and then my flight back to the U.S. is on Thursday, the 28^th. Wow my last two weeks are going to be packed!

As may be expected, I have very mixed emotions about finishing the semester abroad and going home. I am truly excited to go home because I am excited to see everyone. I am excited for summer to come and to be outside, and to see lakes and grass. Also, of course, I am sad for leaving Toledo – this place is like nowhere else and I really do want to return someday, especially to see my host family. My host family – I have been really lucky to have gotten so close to them during this semester, especially with Carmen. Even though she gets mad at me sometimes or is a little sassy/bossy when we are playing together, I think we still have a special bond and I am going to miss her. I am also going to miss school and classes and all the program coordinators at the Fund, they are all so nice. And just walking around Toledo, oh Toledo. So am I excited to go home? Yes. Am I very sad to leave Spain? Yes. So many mixed emotions, but I know one thing for sure – I am very blessed and this has truly been a once in a lifetime experience. I also know that my journey is nowhere near finished, God has much more in store for me, more than I could ever imagine.

Here are some (definitely not all though) of the “little things” I am going to miss from my semester:

My Spanish family: eating dinner together every night; watching Disney Channel with Carmen and Carmen always getting mad at my host mom for talking while we are trying to watch; listening to Carmen practice violin and piano; playing together or playing with the rabbit with Carmen nearly every night; learning to peal oranges with a knife and still epically failing at doing it; Javi’s responses to some of the things Maria Jesús says; just listening to their conversations and trying to follow along; laughing because all of them are laughing, even though you don’t know what was funny, or the opposite, laughing at something and they look at you weirdly because you definitely misunderstood what they were saying and you are laughing at something that is not funny at all; joining them for a quick run to the bread shop or the supermarket; going on walks in the park by the apartment

My friends: speaking Spanish with each other, sometimes more like Spanglish, especially during lunch at the Fund; walks in Toledo; telling each other stories about our host families; our mutual love for café con leche; seeing each other at school every day; laughing a lot because everything seems to be funnier when told in Spanish; my intercambio and how she helps me with my Spanish and then when we switch to English forgetting she is not a native English speaker because she is so good at speaking English

The Fund: all the program coordinators always stopping to say hi and talk, but at the same time running around the building doing their job of making our experience here the absolute best; the librarian always coming into classes to fix technology problems and the way he says “nada” before he leaves; Yuki’s service learning class and Araceli’s Master Painters class; the reception guys always asking how you are when you are signing up for classes; sitting in the cafeteria doing homework with café con leche

Travels: taking a simple bus or a train ride and you are in a whole new place; trying to figure out where you are because the paper maps are either hard to read or aren’t even accurate; sitting down at a restaurant not really knowing what to expect but ready to eat anything because you are so hungry from walking around all day; seeing new things and new places; feeling very incompetent and unknowledgeable, but then again confident enough to just travel with a group of friends and experience new things together; the fun times outweighing the challenges you had to face to make those memories

TOLEDO: there are too many to name, I love this place - my favorite coffee shop; my house; my school; the streets; the natives; the buildings; the view; my home across the world