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I survived!

January 24th, 2011 nmmari12

I have officially completed and survived my first academic semester in Spain!!! Woo! Unlike at Holy Cross, Spain does not officially end the semester until after winter break, which left me worrying and attempting to complete tests and papers during the holidays. Personally I don’t like this system. I think that winter break should be a time to relax, spend time with family and friends and not worry about finals. However, part of the study abroad experience is learning about different cultures and their educational systems. I won´t receive my final grades for a few weeks, so everyone please keep your fingers crossed that I passed! The new semester starts next Monday, so basically I have a week off (yay!). I am currently taking Sociology of Urbanism, Contemporary History of Social and Political Movements, the HC grammer class and I still have to choose one more. Any suggestions?!?

This past weekend 5 of us Crusaders went on a day trip to Pontevedra, a city near A Coruña. We hopped on a train at 9:35 and arrived in Pontevedra two hours later. We walked around the city for a few hours, which was quite a bit smaller than A Coruña but still gorgeous and very quaint. We also ate at an amazing Spanish Tortilla place that had about 10 different types of tortilla. Mine was stuffed with cheese and Galician ham! I am going to sure miss this food when I leave in June…but let’s not think about that quite yet.

Yesterday the other HC kids and I went over to our director´s house to watch an American football game (Bears v. Packers) on TV as he has American channels. We ordered pizza and drank Coca-Cola. While I was a little homesick earlier that day as my parents were throwing a football party for our nieghborhood , sitting there watching the game with the other HC kids and Pablo, felt like a new mini family, thousands of miles away from home. While the wrong team won, it was still great fun.

This upcoming weekend I am traveling to England to visit my friend Amanda at Sussex University. It will be quite a short trip (Friday afternoon-Sunday morning) but I am so excited to see her and tour around Brighton and London. Even though I saw her about a month ago when I went to NYC, in college your friends are like your family and a month apart really feels like years!

Dato Divertido: After three kings day (Jan 6^th) all the stores have tremendous ¨rebajas¨ (sales). Some stores discount their items to over 70%! The ¨big sales¨ last a week after three kings day, but supposedly sales continue until March! There are a lot of cute clothing and accessory stores in A Coruña and every time I walk by them I am tempted to go buy something. While I have been fairly good about not buying anything these past two weeks, after completing the semester, I might have to go treat myself!

Elena, Arinelli and I in Pontevedra

Elena, Kristen, Kelsey and I. Getting in touch with our inner child

Elena, Arinelli, Kelsey, Giselle, Kristen at the best tortilla place! 🙂

This entry was posted on Monday, January 24th, 2011 at 8:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.