and another quick update

Hey all,
I realize it has been awhile since I've updated. I've been pretty busy with school work and enjoying Madrid! Since I updated, I went to Mallorca with my roommate Vanessa and have been in Madrid since. The weather is finally beautiful - 80 and sunny for the next week!!

I also realize that I haven't really reflected on my time here much. I'm feeling a bit sad that my time is winding down... Everything here has just been so wonderful for me to be doing independently, and I have just been so happy. It has been really empowering being able to be happy here on my own, and makes me feel so adventurous about my future. I am really in love with Madrid as a place to live - it was such a good choice. I love my program; it requires a lot of independence, and it pushes us to really learn Spanish and put ourselves in new situations. I sometimes can't believe that I've been living in Spanish for the past four months! My roommates have really helped make my time here great - I'm so lucky to be able to get to know some Spanish girls. At the same time, I have realized how much I really do love my life that I have in Madison. I am so excited to have so many wonderful opportunities ahead of me. I'm thinking that after graduating next spring, I would still really like to go to Uganda or a latin American country for some time and probably take a year off, and then hopefully get my masters in public health somewhere! There are so many schools that I would love to go to... including the U of M and UW :)

All of my classes are going well - I am done with three papers, and after my three exams on Monday and Tuesday, I'm done with my American "Reunidas" classes! Woohoo! Today was our last session at the Prado - I was actually pretty sad. For that class, we go to the museum every Wednesday for a couple hours... and every week, I feel like I fall in love over and over again. After next Tuesday, I will just have one more week of my other two classes (last day June 1). For Geography and Gender, we have our final on June 22. For Cartography, I have to write a paper talking about some aspect of maps and their use in security and defense - I'm thinking of writing about maps used in colonization... that way, I could have lots of examples and other things to say to fill up the 10 pages!

It is crazy to think of my next 6 (5.5!) weeks: most days I know exactly what I'm doing. Will comes tomorrow (in 8 hours!!), on Saturday we're doing a day trip to my roommate's house in Avila, which is a town about 1.5 hours away that has really well preserved medieval walls. Then, next Wednesday, Will and I are going to Córdoba, Sevilla and then Lisbon! I am so excited to have him here in Madrid, and to travel with him! Then I have my last 2 days of class, and I am going on a road trip through northern Spain from the 2-6 of June. We're heading up to Bilbao, east through the Pyrenees (and hopefully southern France) to Barcelona, then down the coast to Valencia and back to Madrid. It should be absolutely fantastic! Then, June 9-14, I'm going to Paris with Christina and another friend. I am soooo excited to see Paris... the five days will be wonderful: filled with so many paintings, crepes and hopefully good weather! After Paris, Christina, my friend Amanda and I are doing the last leg of the Camino de Santiago, an old pilgrimage route through northern Spain that finishes in Santiago de Compostela, a city that supposedly houses the remains of St. James. We'll be walking for 5 days and it works out to be about 115 km - 65 miles! Then, I'll come back to Madrid and have a couple days before my exam on the 22nd.. and I'll finish off my last 6 days in and around Madrid. It is a lot to fit in, but I'm so excited about everything!

Mallorca was absolutely amazing. It is a good-sized island in the Mediterranean, and feels like a tropical paradise. The entire island is very touristy - lots of British and Germans.. one restaurant we went to didn't even have the menu in castellano! It was really fun to stay with Vanessa and her family - her mom was so welcoming! I was there Wednesday night through Sunday morning, so 3 full days. On Thursday, we hung out in Alcudia, the town where Vanessa lives. It has a beautiful port city with mountains in the background, and then a few miles inland there are old medieval walls and an old Roman theater. This island seriously has everything - mountains, the sea, beautiful beaches with palm trees, and history! Palma de Mallorca, the capital, has a beautiful old gothic cathedral, old bridges and old walls. Just seeing all of that, along with palm trees and beautiful aqua water, is like the perfect vacation combination. On Friday, we drove through the mountains (with Vanessa's cousin) on the northwest coast of the island. We ended up having issues with her brakes, so we had to opt out of our mountain adventure early and head to Magaluf, a town right near Palma de Mallorca. We rented a hotel room for Friday night - one block from the beach! For all I knew, I could have been in Mexico - English speakers all over the place, beautiful beaches, all night dance clubs. We had a really fun Friday night, and then spent Saturday on the beach and in Palma. It was such a nice relaxing vacation - compared to all of the other weekend trips I have done! It was sad to say goodbye to Vanessa... I realized that I will be saying a lot of goodbyes in the next month, as people start leaving. (One girl in my program leaves next Friday - she doesn't have an exam in June... people are slowly leaving throughout June, but most are staying until late June or early July.)

On a happier note, Ruth came to stay with me earlier this week! It was really nice to see her and hang out a bit more - made me even more excited for returning to Madison next year! Tomorrow is my good friend's birthday, so we have a whole day and night of birthday festivities to celebrate - and to welcome Will to Madrid!
All for now! Sending my love, Bonnie