Oh wait, we have papers and exams and stuff?!?

Saturday was a pretty messy day here in Sevilla.  It rained the entire day so I stayed inside and watched Christmas movies and (kind of) did some homework.  I got to skype with my parents and some of the family on Dad's side since they had they're Thanksgiving meal on Saturday afternoon.  It was nice to "feel" like I was there, even if only for a little while and only through a video.  Better than nothing. 

Sunday night several of us went out to dinner (a mixture of UNC program people, Paola and a couple of her friends from Paris, and Camilla's friend who's visiting for the weekend from Germany).  We went to Coloniales (aka the best restaurant in Sevilla) and had a tonnnn of food.  And our bill was only 68 euro (so about 6 euro a person...including drinks--water isn't free).  Not bad at all considering how much food we ate.  I hope to go there at least one more time before leaving.

Today has been yet another rainy day.  Not only rainy though, but windy and downright cold.  Not to mention the fact that we don't have heat in the house.  I sat in my room today with two shirts, a hoodie, leggings under my jeans, two pairs of socks, and two blankets.  It's colder in the house than outside....aka more reason to not sit around the house much.  This afternoon I went to a cafe to do some trip planning for ROME!!  We leave Wednesday and come back Monday!!  Absolutely thrilled to be going!  It was the one place that I really was looking forward to going to so I'm soooo excited that it's finally almost time to go. 

I'm now under 20 days from coming home...which is truly exciting.  Not to say that I'm rushing away the rest of the trip, but as Camilla and I were talking about the other day, we are ready and prepared to leave.  I've loved my time here and it's been the experience of a lifetime, but I'm also prepared to leave.  There are people on the program who've wanted to leave for the past two months and there are people who never want to leave.  For me, I've done what I wanted to do, seen what I've wanted to see, learned what I intended to learn, and now I'm content knowing that I've spent my time here wisely and my time here is drawing to a close.  I'm so glad to be leaving without regrets of not doing as much as I could have or seeing as much as I could have. 

The only downside to the last few weeks here - papers and exams.  Oh wait, we have those?!?  It's so weird to have been in school for the entire semester without work at all really and now only of a sudden we have a pile of work to do.  Again, I do not like the education system here.  It makes no sense to have students cram for one final exam or do one final paper that determines their entire final grade in a course.  If they have one bad day (on the day of the exam) they fail the class?  How can that be fair?  Not only that but it seems that with work throughout the semester students are forced to learn more instead of cramming for a final exam and then forgetting the material immediately after the exam.  But, to each his own.  I have 3 papers and 4 exams and I'll be done with the semester.  Hopefully they go well.   :)

Random picture of Camilla and me from Granada.  :)