La Última Semana

I know I’ve been backtracking a little with the blog posts since my very depressed one that I wrote in the airport…but I still wanted to write about my last week in Navalmoral.

The week was filled with goodbyes to all of my students, fellow teachers, private lesson families, and friends.  On Wednesday, I had my last classes at Zurbarán and made a cheesecake to bring in.  Everyone was so nice and I got so many wonderful presents.  I went to the gargantas that afternoon with Josemi and had a great time relaxing, swimming with the fish, and eating chips all afternoon.  Thursday, I celebrated my last jueves social by eating at my favorite restaurant and going out dancing.  Friday was a day filled with doing all of the little stuff (closing my bank account, buying last minute things, packing), going to lunch with the English department teachers, and eating my last kebab at Quetapa.  Saturday morning, I finished packing before Mamen and Oscar drove me to the bus station.  Saying goodbye was teeeeerrible.  Driving away from Navalmoral was so hard.  I had built a life there over the past year. I had made a whole new set of friends, of family. I had started with nothing and ended up with everything.  When I first started writing in this blog in the beginning of the year, I had hoped I would be sad to leave Spain, because that would mean that I had enjoyed my time there.  Well, I was more than sad, so I guess that meant I had REALLY enjoyed my time there.

Mi hermano mayor

Luckily, I had something waiting for me in Madrid.  My wonderful father had decided to give me an incredible gift as an “I’m proud of you” for the year.  He got me a room at the Hilton, near the Madrid airport.  I arrived to the bus station and immediately took a taxi to the hotel.  After checking in and figuring out how to use my room key to get the elevator to work, I was stunned at how cool my room was. Demasiado lujo! I was able to chill out in the (watch out!) air conditioning and go for a swim in the pool (that had about 435 buttons that controlled different things just asking to be pushed), and then I went to explore the airport side of Madrid.  After talking to friends and making sure I didn’t have to explore alone, we went on a long walk to a park (now my favorite in Madrid) and to the mall.  We hung around the mall for a few hours, eating 100 Monteditos, going in and out of shops, then (how appropriately) eating at Foster’s Hollywood American restaurant for my last supper.

It was so hard to make those elevators work...

After a year of hostels, I may as well have been Princess Kate.

A beautiful park.

Once back in my room, I watched a few movies, then went to sleep…knowing it was my last night sleeping in Spain for who knows how long.  In the morning, I got my stuff together, took the hotel shuttle to the airport, checked-in, and sobbed my way through security.  I had forgotten to take out my laptop, so the security lady, with a very concerned look, told me, “Please don’t cry.  It’s okay. You just need to take out the laptop and go through again.”  Oh lady, if only the laptop were the most of my concerns. 

The flight was uneventful and long.  After a hurried dash through Heathrow to make my connecting flight, I was fortunate enough to sit next to a girl leaving her study abroad program in England…enough chatter so it wasn’t boring, but I didn’t feel obligated to talk to her.

Seeing my parents at the airport was wonderful! Then, seeing the rest of my family when I got back to my house was great too. I really did miss them a lot.  But I always say, if I could just bring all of my friends and family to Spain with me, the world would be perfect.  The more time that passes since I was in Navalmoral, the more reminiscent I get.  I adored my year there and hopefully, someday very soon, I will be able to go back.  Besos a todos! Os quiero!

Lanzarote, the Island in the Sun

This past weekend I finally made it to the Canary Islands!  Whitney, a friend of hers (Erin), and I flew in to the island of Lanzarote on Thursday night and flew back to the “mainland” on Sunday morning.   Two other friends (Anna and Sara) joined us Friday morning.  We settled into our apartment-style accommodations (living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom) after getting dinner at a Mexican restaurant (complete with sombreros and margaritas) and passed out from exhaustion.

In the morning, we hit up the store to get some beach/breakfast/lunch goodies, checked in officially, Whitney bought a towel that looked like a 100 Euro bill, and we made our way to the beach.  The other girls met us there once they had arrived and gotten situated.

The beach was absolutely gorgeous.  The sand was so soft, the water bright blue, and the volcanic mountains made for the perfect background.  We spent the rest of the afternoon swimming and tanning.  I’m not usually a big fan of swimming in the ocean...I don’t like the idea of swimming with animals that you can’t see below you.  But this water was pretty clear and the only animals we managed to spot were tiny fish, so I felt okay about it.  We were in the company of all British, Irish, and German people.  The only Spanish people we saw were the men walking around trying to sell us ice cream (obviously bought at Spar and marked up in price), or offering us “free massages.”  

We had applied and reapplied sunscreen, but after about 5 hours of beach time, we felt ourselves getting burned.  We took the burning and the rising of the tide that was creeping up to our towels as a sign to move on.  We stopped for some real ice cream, and then explored the shops on the “boardwalk.”  In a few of the places, we even sampled a healthy amount of aloe vera to help our red skin.

After walking, we didn’t want to go back to the beach and get all sandy again, so we went to the pool.  There weren’t many people there and it was actually a really nice pool.  We stayed there for a while and took little siestas.  When we were all awake, a little before 7.00pm, we decided on going back to the apartment to rest and shower before going out for the night.

That night, we all went out to an Asian restaurant.  We ordered in tapas style and for a fixed price, we were brought tons of plates of food. It was all very delicious and after eating it all, we were stuffed.  We paid the bill, then set off to find a good bar to hang out in.  Little did we know that the bars would find US.

Walking down the main strip of bars, men were standing all over, handing out flyers.  But, they didn’t just hand out the flyer and let us on our way. Oh no, that would have been too easy.  They would literally take our arms, saying, “Come, come to my bar. This way. Free drinks!”  It was so difficult to shake them.  Eventually we couldn’t stand it anymore, so we gave in and went to one of the guys’ bar.  It was actually a great decision.  We each got a healthy amount of beverages for very cheap and, though not many other people were in the bar, the music was good and we made our own little dance party.  We even met a “professional rugby player” from London. Yeah, right.

After leaving that bar, another guy immediately hounded us and after establishing that he was going to give us free drinks, we went into his bar.  After Whitney and I ordered the drinks, he brought them over, along with a fruity drink, and shots, then told us it would be 7 euros each.  I said, “Um, excuse me? You said these were free.”  He said, “Oh, no, no.  The cocktail (fruity drink) is free, you must pay for the rest.”  After some back and forth about defining the word “cocktail,” I said, “Well, you said it was free and we don’t have any more money” (lie).  He gave me a nasty face, collected the drinks back onto his tray, turned his back to us and walked away.  We walked right out of the bar and I felt very proud of myself.  We didn’t even really want anything else to drink.

At this point, we were getting pretty tired and, earlier in the day, Whitney and I had gone to a car rental place and reserved a car for the next morning, so we figured we should all get a good night’s sleep.

In the morning, after we went through the process of renting our automatic Mercedes (no manual drivers among us) and Whitney and I became the insured navigators, we set off to explore the island.  I was first up to drive.  It was my first time driving abroad and it went surprisingly well. Thanks to my year living in the Middle East, I’m a pro at roundabouts.  

Drivers for the day.

We drove all around the island, from the south, to the north, and back down to our beach.  We saw all sorts of beautiful landscapes, caves, black sand beaches…  

El Gulfo- a naturally green lake.

Yes, the water really was that blue.

We even drove up a very (scary) curvy road to get to a mirador (look out point), but when we saw we would have had to pay to go in, just to see a view, we were about to get back into the car and count our losses when a British couple stopped us and told us if we drove down this one road off to the side for about a mile, we would see the “most beautiful view you’ll ever see.”  After deciding that we would ignore the “authorized vehicles only” sign, we ventured down the tiny road (meant for two-way traffic…there was definitely only room for one-way).

After reaching the destination, we had to park and hike a few minutes.  When the bush thinned out, the view truly was the most beautiful I had ever seen.  It took my breath away.  The water was so clear and all of the other colors so vibrant.

After a good amount of time just staring out into the distance, we drove back down the road and went into the Cuevas de verde (green caves), where our silly tour guide told us (in all seriousness) that there was absolutely no green in the cave (judge for yourself), then we went into Los jameos del agua, a secluded paradise built into an old volcanic crater. 

Mmm, I think I might see some green...

Super cool optical illusion- looks like a massive hole in the cave, but it's really about
 2 inches of water reflecting the ceiling.

By the end of the day, we were exhausted, so we made it easy for ourselves and went back to the Mexican restaurant from the first night for dinner.  Then, we decided we would take a stroll down the main strip.  But this time, we had no patience for the club promoters.  We graciously took all of their flyers, not even slowing down, shouting some “Yes, yes, thank you. I’ll take your club into consideration” back at them.  Once we hit the end of the strip, some girls got crepes, we all got one drink at a bar, then decided it was time for bed.  On the way back, when we saw our club promoter friends, we had a plan.  When they would yell, “Girrrrrls!! What are you doing tonight???” we would ask, “What club do you work for?” They would say (for example) “Nikki Beach!” and we would respond “OH!! What a coincidence!! I work there too!” and we gave them all back their flyers.  They weren’t too amused.  All three times they smacked them away, shouting, “I don’t want those!!”  It made us laugh.

In the morning, we got up pretty early for our flight back to Madrid.  The flight was nothing special.  Once back, I said goodbye to the girls and went to hang out with some Madrid friends.  We all went to the Museo de Jamón for a drink and I had to say a few “goodbyes” to the people I wouldn’t see again.  I cried the entire bus ride home.  I knew the next week wasn’t going to be fun (emotionally). And oh, it wasn’t.

Final Goodbyes (for now)

Well, in the beginning of the year, I said I didn’t want the “era” of summer to end and that maybe, hopefully, I would feel the same about the end of my year in Spain.  Multiply how I felt over the summer by a million and that’s how I feel now.  I’m sitting at the airport with red and puffy eyes, trying to avoid people’s looks and graciously accepting a security lady’s “Don’t cry.”

Leaving here is so hard.  I so want to see my friends and family back home, but I hate that that means sacrificing the life I’ve built here.  I’ve made friends here. I found a Spanish family.  Mamen called me last night after we had said goodbye at the bus station and said that when she got home to our apartment and realized I wouldn’t be there, it was like there was a hole.  I have the same feeling now.

People keep telling me that once I’m back in the States, after a week, I won’t even think about Spain anymore, or the people there.  They say that I should be happy that I had the experience, not sad that it’s over.  The latter is half true, but I’ll never stop thinking about Navalmoral and everyone in my life this year.  I’ve met amazing people and know that they’ll be in my heart forever.

I’ve grown and changed so much. I think that I’m pretty unrecognizable to the girl who arrived to Spain just nine months ago.  Like I said after Valencia, I know this isn’t goodbye, it’s hasta luego.  Os quiero a todos y ya os echo de menos más que podéis imaginar!

P.S. Stay tuned for a delayed Canary Islands post.