I'm back in America now! Home sweet home. I started slacking a little towards the end with keeping up to date on everything I did... May slipped by faster than I realized. Since Morocco, I also went to Paris for 3 days (incredible, minus the stomach virus I caught on the way home), Segovia and La Granja for the day, and Toledo. I had a great time in all of these places and I especially loved Toledo. It was breathtakingly beautiful and was full of rich Spanish history that you could almost feel just by walking down the street.
Our final weekend in Alcala was probably the best weekend of my life so far. Once finals were over, we had nothing to do but spend time with each other and the place we had grown to love. Some highlights from the final weekend:
Thursday - CrusaCrawl
Each room made a special drink to share with everyone and then the whole group went from room to room. The final stop, once we took the 2p to the Plaza (singing obnoxious American anthems the whole way), was haircuts hosted by the homestays. We chose the Don Quijote statue as the ideal spot because of its great significance as a mainstay in countless drunken photos. There was a fair amount of chaos involving uprooting a tree at a World Heritage site, but nothing our group wasn't used to. Then we made our way to Cancan where they had shirts honoring our final night there.
Friday - Closing Ceremony, dinner in Madrid with MJ and our professors, JOY
Our closing ceremony at CIFF marked the official end of our academics in Spain. Matt and John gave a little speech (stand up routine?) that was hilarious. Audrey made a great slideshow of pictures and videos that summed up our semester wonderfully! Afterwards, we hung around, had some tapas and drinks and relished the beautiful weather. Later that night we all met in Madrid for a final dinner with Maria Jose, Ivan, Tanguy, and Lindsey. I'm definitely going to miss paid-for-by-Loyola dinners! We convinced them all (except Lindsey) to come out with us after to Joy, one of our favorite places on Fridays. We all had a blast and Tanguy was especially hilarious with his dancing! I never had him since I wasn't in the marketing class but he was so entertaining at Joy that I almost wish I took that class to see what he's like on a regular basis.
Sunday - CRUSAFEST
Since we weren't able to make the annual spring Craigsfest, we decided to have our own Spanish version. The day was beautiful so we were able to hang out on the balcony of the boys' room. Everyone tye-dyed shirts and wore them around. Even though we just hung out, played games, and danced I had a blast! It was definitely 10x more fun than Craigsfest has ever been and I couldn't imagine a better way to end the semester.
If you couldn't tell already, I miss Spain so much! The people I went abroad with were so fantastic and I can't imagine what my experience would have been like if they weren't all there. I made so many great friends, had the time of my life, got to explore new cultures and people. This is an experience I will never forget and I am so glad I took the opportunity to spend the past 4.5 months learning about myself and others in Spain! Ya echo de menos, España. Hasta luego, porque no puedo decir adiós.
