Spain Summary

I compiled all my footage, all of my photos, and all of my friends' photos to create the best-of-the-best for a summary of the 2010 semester abroad.

There are some bits from Alicante, Valencia, Granada, Elche (where I took a day trip with Scott), and even some footage of my internship.

Enjoy!

The last moments

I don't have a Twitter. However, I felt some twitter-like inspiration on the last leg of my journey back home from Spain in late May.

I had a notepad with me and decided I would write random thoughts down as they happened. I just found this notepad while cleaning my room and realized that I didn't post any of this here on my blog.

Before I write this, I wish I had written "tweets" about the "morning" before traveling. I put quotes around "morning" because I had to leave my host family's house at 4:30am. I ate dinner as usual the night before around 10pm, then said goodbye to Rocio before she had to go to sleep around 11:30. Carlos stayed up, watching TV, while I sat in my room and packed my bags until 2am. Thinking that I should get SOME sort of sleep before leaving, I took a nap until 4am, then made sure Carlos woke me up if I wasn't in the kitchen by 4:10am. Luckily he didn't have to, and I ate my "breakfast" then got ready to leave.

I remember that the first thing on my mind at the moment was how much I would miss my host family and my Alicante home in which I had lived for the previous 5 months.

The second thing that was on my mind was how I would miss the live broadcast of the series finale of LOST, which would be at 6am Spain time. It was devastating, really.

Anyways, on to the "tweets," which are un-twitterlike in their order, because I wrote them in the order they occurred, the newest posts at the very end.


May 25, 2010
(Alicante airport)
6:15am: Just saw a guy make the last call for boarding on his flight. He ran to the gate and chucked his papers at the flight attendant, in a rush.

6:18am There seems to be 2 types of people at the airport: those with some sense of style, and those who equate "travel clothing" with "mountainous terrain clothing."

6:20am There is a woman dragging her duffel through the airport. Someone needs to tell her it doesn't have wheels.

(Madrid airport)
8:55am You know Security's having a good day when they are whistling Duran Duran.

9:04am Airports everywhere are collections of people looking around aimlessly and being confused.

9:15am Asked if the toy store clerk would take a picture of me and a lifesize cardboard cutout of Pocoyo. He said taking photos isn't allowed. Jerk.


Pocoyo.

9:35am I just got abnormally excited for a tortilla bocadillo. I'm gonna miss those.

9:36am Received a plastic cup for my squirt-top Evian watter bottle. Way to be wasteful, Spain.

9:45am Just got a call from Katie [Blubaugh]. It was a much-needed surprise after not talking to anyone in the past 5 hours.

10:15am Why is that man holding a woman's legs in the air at the bookstore? Oh, I just noticed 2 EMTs leaning over her. Sure took me a while.

10:20am I am BALLIN' with $400 cash. Looks like funny money after a semester of dealing with a rainbow of bills.

10:25am Why does the Chupa Chups machine appear to me now, when I am fresh out of Euros?!?!

(on Madrid-Chicago flight)
7:15pm Snack box time on the plane! Unfortunately, due to orange allergies and refusal to eat marbled deli meat, I only scrounge the 1-inch candy bar and small palmeritas cookies.

(Chicago)
2:30pm Back in the good ole US of A: where sedate people ironically wear athletic clothes on a daily basis.

Tenth Radio Broadcast!

I felt like the Spanish never enforced the law. Either that, or they didn't have laws. They drink in the streets, the kids don't have curfew, the cops don't enforce drug laws, etc etc.

This broadcast talks all about law.

Song: "I fought the Law"--The Clash

Ninth Radio Broadcast!

Living with Lola the dog was something new for sure, since I never had a pet in my life. The way Spaniards treat their dogs and how they walk them around without leashes inspired my ninth show on pets...which are called "Mascotas."

I have a couple interesting things to say about this broadcast...

You would wonder what they call mascots...they call them "mascotas" also. Although, mascots truly are an American concoction since their sports really don't have mascots.

The song used is "The Underdog" by Spoon. They don't have a translation for an underdog because it really doesn't exist. They don't have that cultural idea of surpassing mediocrity to get to greatness. That's an American concept.

Eighth Radio Broadcast!

Clearly schooling was different in Spain. Not just the education, but the culture of how to address teachers, how to dress in class, or whether or not it's okay to eat!

Here is my 8th radio broadcast on schools.

The song is "Me and Julio Down by the School Yard" by Paul Simon (one of my faves!).

Seventh Radio Broadcast!

I finally got around to uploading more of my radio shows. Not all of them are up yet, but at least I got to number 10!

Loly (the radio director) suggested I do one about women, since it was women's month in March. So here is my 7th broadcast, on women.

The song is "Just a Girl" by No Doubt.

Recording my Radio Show

Here is what the studio looks like, and here is me recording my final segment.

This is out of order because I plan to post the rest of my radio shows on here for you to hear.

However, I didn't want to forget that I had this clip, so here you go...