My time is melting away... last blog post

Hola amigos,


Just a quick update... I cannot believe this will be my final blog post! I am back in Madrid now after a wonderful 3 weeks full of travel. I went on a 5 day road trip from Madrid, to Bilbao, through southern France and the Pyrenees, to Barcelona, Valencia and then back to Madrid. It was an amazing trip - I got to see so many sides of Spain that I hadn't seen yet. I think after all of my travels throughout Spain, I have realized that it really has such a huge mix of landscapes and cultures. Our first day of driving, we left Madrid, drove through land that looked like Arizona, then drove through beautiful lush green that reminded me of Virginia, then up to the north coast to drive through mountains along the ocean. I am so glad I was able to see so many wonderful parts of Spain before leaving. We rented a Smart car, which actually worked out perfectly and was really fun! We tried our best to keep off of the toll roads, which was a great decision - we got to see so many little Spanish towns. The Pyrenees were just beautiful. It isn't tourist season here yet (starts in July), so it was pretty neat to see the chalet towns with mostly locals. And of course, it was great to return to Barcelona. I really like returning places... it really makes me feel like I actually live in Madrid. Valencia was also a lot of fun - we spent as much time as we could at the beach and walked around their really neat "City of Arts and Sciences", a museum complex designed by Santiago Calatrava. Ah what a wonderful trip. Somewhere along the way, my camera stopped working, which has been a bummer - so I have to  rely on getting pictures from friends for all of June. 


I then went to Paris for 5 days! Another absolutely beautiful city. I had such a good time there. Our hostel was in Montmarte, where Moulin Rouge is, which is such a neat neighborhood. We did a couple walking tours, got in free to all of the museums (EU residents under 26 wohoo!), went to Versailles and just enjoyed the city... which included getting banana nutella crepes :). I loved the musee d'orsay, which just has a BUNCH of impressionist paintings. I had a bit of trouble trying to pronounce anything French, but that just made it that much better to come back to españa. The World Cup kicked off while we were there, so we made sure we were able to watch some of those games.. including USA vs. England! It was really neat though, France played on opening night, so we went down to a FIFA festival that was just across the river from the Eiffel Tower... not a bad place to watch a soccer match! 


Christina flew back to Madrid with me and on Monday night we left to do our leg of the Camino de Santiago. The camino is a pilgrimage that people have been doing for about a thousand years to Santiago de Compostela, where supposedly St. James's bones are buried. Over the course of 5 days, we hiked 115 km - so walking for about 7 hours a day. At night, they have cheap hostels or other accommodations set up in the small towns. It was basically like my trip out to the rockies, except you don't have to carry tents or cooking gear or a lot of food - much easier! Once again, I am so happy to have been able to see so many small towns. Galicia (the province that we were in, northwest corner of Spain) is absolutely beautiful and most people compare its landscape to Ireland. It felt so good to get out and HIKE.. and made me so excited to go up to the boundary waters in just a couple weeks! Most people walked about the same distance each day, so we got to know the people who were doing the walk also. We met a really nice Spanish guy and a great old German man. It was such a nice last trip for me... plenty of time to reflect on my life here in Spain, but also just time to be in the moment and enjoy the part of Spain that I was seeing. I would really like to come back sometime and do a different path - there are about 8 all leading towards Santiago. It is so neat because they have markers (sea shell tiles and arrows) every step of the way, so you don't need to have a map or directions or anything... you can just hike and take in what's around you. What a fabulous trip. The whole thing has gotten into a tourist business, so it was a bit of a quick change when we made it into Santiago to see tour groups who had purchased fake walking sticks all waiting in line for the pilgrims mass (which we unfortunately missed). Although I didn't do the walk for any "religious" reasons, it was touching to walk by the handfuls of churches along the route that had been built by pilgrims. 


Well and now I'm back in the lovely Madrid and I feel at home... my feelings of almost being done are so mixed. I take my last exam and turn in a project tomorrow morning, and then I'm free as a bird to live as a Spaniard does for six days - enjoy the sun, futbol matches, my roommates' company and beer in the park. I leave here next Monday morning and will get into Chicago at 7 pm central time. After so much traveling, I think that the 15 hour day will be a piece of cake and then I will have my wonderful sister to greet me at the airport! :D The rest of my summer is pretty busy, mostly catching up with family and friends, with trips to the boundary waters, Madison, North Carolina built in. I will be back in Mahtomedi on the 4th, and I hope to see you all soon!


Go USA and España!!, Bonnie