Let's see...where do I begin? I'll try to give a run down of the last month.
A friend from the Reno, Lance, came to visit me here in Irun. He has been traveling in the United Kingdom for about 3 weeks and made a side trip to come to Spain to visit me. He was the first visitor I have had since I have been here and it was amazing to see someone from home. He arrived on a Tuesday afternoon and came to the school to hang out while I was in class. He was here until that Saturday and we didn't do anything really exciting but it was so nice to just have someone to talk to that really understands me. Honestly, I felt a little bad because I had to work and give my private classes so Lance had to spend some time alone exploring the Basque Country but it seems to me he did quite well. He says he really liked it here and that he would like to come back. Lance, you are always welcome to be my guest. We can eat arroz con pollo and drink tinto de veranos every day on my balcony!! :)
The week after Lance left, I went to the Spanish Mediterranean island of Mallorca with some girlfriends!!!!!!!!! We wanted to have a last mini-vacation before we all went our separate ways and returned to the States. I decided to fly down to Mallorca a day early so that I could spend some quality time alone. I arrived on the island on Thursday afternoon and checked into the hotel which was a block away from the beach!! I spent the day sight-seeing and relaxing. The other 3 girls arrived the next day around 12:00 noon and we went to the beach and began 3 days of relaxation. The weather on the island was beautiful and we were able to go to the beach every day. The water was warm enough to go swimming and so clear and blue! I haven never seen water like that before. It looked like something out of a magazine! The island itself is seems really nice. I don't think I would want to live there but it's perfect for a vacation. The island seems to be overtaken by old Germans on vacation. I didn't even feel like I was in Spain. When you enter into a bar or restaurant they just immediately start to speak to you in English or German. And everyone is tall, blonde and with blue eyes! It was really interesting. I didn't fit in at all. I left early on Monday morning and returned to the good old Pais Vasco later that day. It was raining at cold when I arrived in Bilbao so it was a bit of a shock. Welcome back to the Basque Country!
The only bad thing about the vacation to Mallorca was that I caught a cold while there. It started with just some body aches and then turned into a cough and sore throat and then manifested itself into a full-on cold. I think also going from cold, rainy weather here to nice, sunny weather and then back to cold, rainy weather had a big affect on my body. I ended up loosing my voice and staying in bed for an entire week. No school. No private classes. No nothing. It really knocked me out. Even a month later I still have some lingering affects.
To add to the cold I caught, I had a pretty bad week of self-inflicted injuries. Let me explain. Most of you already know I am quite the clumsy person. I think the 7 concussions I have managed to give myself explain a lot. I am always waking up with mysterious bruises and bumps. It's just something I have come to live with. Well, my mother graciously sent me a box filled with Girl Scout cookies, my mail and a DIY pedicure kit. It was perfect because just a few days ealier I was looking at my feet and realizing how tore-up they were looking. So one day during my lunch break from school I decided to give myself a predicure. I have this tool that cuts off the dead skin from your heels and it is amazing. You do have to be careful with it (it is a razor, after all) but I have used it for almost a year and have never done any harm to myself. Well, that all changed this one fateful afternoon. I managed to cut myself really badly. Not only did I cut myself I took a chunk out of my foot. It was about the size of my thumb nail. I didn't even realize it until I looked down and there was blood all over the floor. My foot was gushing blood. I didn't know what to do so I just found a towel and tried to apply pressure. Well I ended up going through 2 towels trying to stop the bleeding. I was limping around the house trying to find band-aids and couldn't find any. I finally found some cotton pad things and managed to attach them so that I could hobble my way to the grocery store and buy band-aids. I lost a decent amount of blood but recovered. I just had to limp around for a few days!
Then a couple days later a vicious spider decided to make my leg his breakfast, lunch and dinner. I got three huge spider bites on my right leg and my whole leg swelled up and turned red. It hurt really badly. I did some research on the internet and it didn't look to be poisonous so I just applied some ice and let it heal. It took about a week to finally heal. I told my friends that if anything else happened to me I was going straight to the hospital and staying there for an entire week! I figured that it would be the safest place for me!
A few Fridays ago I had dinner with one of my classes at a gastronomic society here in Irun. It was so much fun and the food was amazing. We all cooked together and spent the night chatting and laughing. I also spent the night practicing my Spanish! This class is full of very intelligent and interesting students and it was great to be able to know them a little more outside of the classroom. I hadn't been able to bond with this class very much because of a change in professor, and for this I didn't have class with them for almost 2 months. But after a night of dinner, drinking and dancing I think we all know each other much better now. Here are some photos from the night.
Now I am just enjoying the rest of my days here. Next week is my last week of classes and I can hardly believe it. My time here has gone by so incredibly fast. Some days I feel like I just began this journey and other days I feel like I have been here for 10 years. But I have really enjoyed this experience...more than I sometimes allow myself to believe.
Enough for now....this has taken me forever! I promise to write again soon.
