Tying up loose ends...

1. First, "finals week" here is really something more like "finals day." I had three exams on Wednesday. Were they difficult? Well, I emerged from them all with my sanity intact (the same cannot be said about finals at Knox). So that was okay. Yes, they were all in Spanish. So that... that passed. I "celebrated" by going to the bar across the street and getting a beer with three other girls from this program before going home for dinner. It was really very tranquil. Nothing at all like Knox -- where you spend 3 to 6 days addressing only the most basic needs of survival (except sleep) and furiously writing papers while everything else in your life is put on hold. Then, once you are liberated from the mental and emotional stranglehold that is finals, you spend half the day in a dazed stupor and that night in an aggressive (and for many, a drunken) attempt to make up for all that fun you are sure you missed out on over the last few days. At some point in time, there is a massive sigh of relief and while I can´t speak for everyone, I always feel a little better about myself in that look-at-what-I-just-survived kind of way. Here, I missed that sense of accomplishment, even though I realize that as I admit that I sound like a sucker for punishment. I just... I don´t know. I didn´t know what to expect, so I´m not disappointed. I just didn´t feel closure. It was like this whole finals thing was an afterthought... maybe a consequence of the differences between American and Spanish education systems?
2. As I write this, the countdown to the beginning of the grand adventure around Spain starts in about 19 hours. Where is this wandering two weeks going to take me? Here:

Barcelona – Peñíscola – Valencia – Guadix – Granada – Ronda –Arcos de la Frontera - Jerez de la Frontera – Sevilla – Córdoba – Cáceres – Toledo – Madrid – Segovia – Zaragoza – Barcelona

Fun fact? We change hotels 9 (NINE!) times in 14 days.

I´m going to be so sick of everyone on this trip. I´m not even being mean about it. Its just... group dynamics. This trip is organized by the Knox Program as a part of the study abroad experience. Yes, that is amazingly cool. While I´m both excited about this trip and happy about the group of people that I´m traveling with, I can´t lie about the trepidation I have over spending countless hours on a bus with these same people... or eating meal after meal with all of them... or being herded around the city from one photo op to the next. I just can´t get excited about that. Sorry. But it will be worth it. I know it will. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

3. Today is me doing all the little things I needed to do a week ago but didn´t get around to it. This blog post, returning books to the library, cleaning off pictures on my camera, replying to emails, etc. Then I need to pack, clean my room and go to bed early because my tomorrow starts at 5:30AM.

I feel like I should apologize for not being very perky lately. Since my hair has reached "long-ish" status, I feel like I´ve been a more serious person. No minimal-effort, messy ponytails for Amanda, oh no. European women wear their hair down and are to be taken seriously so of course, I do the same.
And when I´m on the bus, I have the tendency to zone out. I picked this up from fellow bus-riders, and rather quickly at that. While there are advantages to this habit, it also means that I catch myself frowning. Not a very happy, perky thing to do. Then I look around me and see all the old women wearing the same expression and I smile in an attempt to counteract the wrinkles I´m getting a head start on, if their own countless wrinkles are statements to the same fact. What are the advantages, then? First, there is no better way to get over the simple fact that you are hemmed in by too many people. Secondly, and more importantly, by zoning out you can be unconcious of the fact that the bus driver has narrowly avoided at least a dozen accidents in the 20 minutes you´ve been a passenger. I paid attention to how the drivers navigate the streets only twice and both times I exited the moving box of near-death experiences I could feel my heart beating in my throat.
All that aside, I´m not really in a bad mood... I´m just... not happy. I guess I´m not unhappy either, though. I don´t really know for sure. I just don´t feel like I have anything to get really excited about. I say I´m all about this upcoming trip, but even as I say that and really feel it, I can´t summon up a convincing smile to go along with it. I´m just... serious. And I don´t really like it.

written by

achavero on November 30, 2007 from Barcelona, Spain

from the travel blog: Amanda in Barcelona

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you're experincing life in translation, but you continue to make me smile!

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