martes, 11 de junio

After tossing and turning all night and getting virtually no sleep, I was pleasantly surprised to wake up not feeling tired at all.  Good thing too because I had to be at school 15 minutes early for my Spanish exam.  Jen slept in a little longer than me because she didn't have to be at school until our English exam began.  Everyone was in the same room for the written part of our Spanish final and my 302 class left by twos to do our oral part.  We were given a few minutes to read over our prompt and discuss it with our partner and then had to talk freely with our professor watching us.  My partner and I did really well and I was over joyed to see I got a 100!  I was very proud of myself.

We went back to finish up the written portion and had a short break in between the Spanish and English exams.  English wasn't difficult because it was a short letter to a public official that we were allowed to prepare for ahead of time.  Also, if it was written in Spanish you would receive 10 extra points, so I obviously wrote it in Spanish.  Should be interesting to see how I did on that one. The history exam was after English so a few of us just hung out in the computer lab for them to finish so we could head off to our farewell lunch!

The entire group including Dr. Goetz and Dr. Holliday as well as the professors of the Institute all attended.  The restaurant was very big and we were able to all sit at one large table.  The kitchen had windows for you to watch them make the large pans of paella in over the wooden fires.  We enjoyed tapas and a little vino tinto while we waited for the paella to be served.  We started off with a plate of "tuna jerky" with roasted red peppers and cod fish in olive oil.  I tried the peppers but they had a fishy taste so I stopped after one.  After that dish, calamari and patatas bravas were served.  Some people got mussles as well but the lady failed to bring them to our end of the table because "Americans don't usually like mussels" but nearly our entire group loved them.  I tried everything except those, it was something I just couldn't bring myself to do.

The Paella Kitchen

The paella was served next and it was the traditional kind with rabbit and all.  I wasn't able to distinguish the chicken from the rabbit meat so I ate it all, (since I was just recently told I ate rabbit two weeks ago unknowingly) and it was actually rather tasty.  Oddly after paella a salad was served.  No one touched the salad because we were all so full and me and Jen certainly steered clear given the fact that it had tuna on top...  We were then served a dessert of cut oranges with caramalized sugar on top and a dollop of whip cream and a wedge of what we think was butter peacan icecream.  It was an excellant lunch.

Paella for 27 people!

Paella con Pollo y Conejo

"Fake" Dessert

Real Dessert

After lunch we headed home to cool down a bit after nearly melting from the walk home.  We rested and then got to packing, which surprisngly wasn't as painful as I expected plus I have an extra 15 pounds to fill in my suitcase, shopping anyone?! :)   Our host parents came home to us packing and Gemma immediately said "No No Nooo" we became very said and they said we couldn't go anywhere.  Shortly after they came to our room with presents for us, we got a tortilla de patatas apron and a pretty magnet of Valencia.  The gifts made us all extra sad.  Gemma asked us what we wanted to eat for dinner and we decided on pasta carbonara.

Pasta Carbonara

We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the little table in the living room together and talked a lot about the news and everything we were watching.  It was so sweet because after dinner while we were cleaning up Jamel asked how our exams went and we said we thought we did pretty well.  It made me extra sad when Gemma said to us (in spanish) "You girls know we have to ask about your school work and see your grades because we are your parents! :)"  She is too sweet.  We hung around a little and just chatted before they headed off to bed and we gathered our last things together.

I surely am going to miss Valencia in general and more so my host family.  They have been the most welcoming and helpful people on the trip and have helped us both a ton with our Spanish skills.  They are helping us bring our stuff to the bus in the morning to leave and we all know it's going to be a very sad morning leaving lots of memories here, but we all plan to keep in contact on Facebook and through writing.  I told them when I get a job and have enough money to spend I am going to come back and visit them with my sister :) so Christina, hope you're down!

We head off to Granada in the morning and then Cordoba and Toledo.  I'm not sure what the wifi situation is going to be yet so everyone may have to hang tight until my arrival Sunday.  I'd say that's a pretty great Father's Day present :)