Social Weekend at Home

Over a month ago I had booked a trip to Lagos, a beautiful beach at the southern tip of Portugal, through a student excursion company. A few other auxiliares had also booked, so we were all looking forward to going there the first weekend in May, a long weekend for us. Unfortunately, the rain in Spain does not stay mainly in the plain, as Spain and Portugal had been getting drenched for weeks and a few days before the trip, I decided it wasn’t worth it. I would have had to pay a lot of money to get down and back from Sevilla (where the group left from) and since it would be raining, I wouldn’t even get to go to the beach. I got my 40% refund on the trip, counted my losses, and tried to find something else to do for the long weekend.

Things just didn’t really come together with planning a trip, so I ended up staying in Navalmoral. Mamen and her boyfriend were heading up north to “THaragoTHA,” so I was really nervous that I would be stuck in the apartment all weekend, bored, with no one to talk to. Luckily, most everyone had that weekend off of school and work (it was Spain’s Labor Day), so people who are from Navalmoral, but don’t usually live here, came back for a few days. This meant I actually had a social life!

Over the weekend, I went out to dinner and drinks a couple of times, drove to a nearby town to see “Los Vengadores” (aka “The Avengers”…in 3D…), and hosted a game night in my apartment. We played the game where you get a piece of paper with a character on it and have to ask questions to find out who you are and Uno. I thought it was really ironic that Spanish people also have to yell “UNO!” when they have one card left...shouldn’t they have to yell “ONE!”?

Hanging out in Boulevard

Playing the "juego de papelitos"

All in all, the weekend ended up being super fun and I was really happy I didn’t end up going to Lagos. Later, I saw some pictures of the people who did go on the trip, wearing rain jackets and looking very cold in all of them. Not my type of fun.

This past week in school was really short (only worked on Wednesday) and my weekend was spent mainly on the couch. Though I did take a day trip on Saturday to Mérida, a Roman city a few hours south of me, with another auxiliar. The city was really amazing. It is very strange to think of Roman ruins existing in Spain…

Roman Amphitheatre in Mérida

Exactly four weeks from today I will be on a flight back to the USA. Really gut-wrenching to think about. Because I’ve started to freak out a bit, I’ve been trying to take as much advantage as I can of my time left. I’ve booked a weekend trip to the Canary Islands, I’m trying to get together a trip to Lisbon, and next weekend, Whitney is coming to visit and we’re going to tear up the town. Should be an awesome last month. Oh, and did I mention that for my last night in Madrid, before my flight out, I’m going to be staying at the Hilton? That’s right…leaving in style. Thanks, dad!