Back in Alcalá... and loving it!

I have realized my last post was a little scattered and grammatically incorrect. It probably has something to do with being up at 1 AM writing it. I will try to make this one more short and precise. Time is flying past here... I can´t believe next week we have examenes parciales! I have been a busy bee studying for those.... what I study here? (I know.) This past weekend I was ecstatic to be able to stay at home with my family. That was until I realized that I had a day trip to Soria on Friday with my literature class. As badly as I wanted to sleep in, that was just not going to happen until Saturday. Soria turned out to be beautiful. It is not really known for anything here in Spain except for being the place that Antonio Machado wrote about in his poems and where he met his wife of sixteen years old. That was the exact reason that my literature class decided to go to visit it. It is wonderful for me to go to places to experience the reasons why the artist decided to be inspired because then I feel so much more connected to their work. It was the perfect fall day in October and it was beautiful walking down the path seeing the leaves on the trees change colors and fall all around us. Yes, the weather is finally starting to change from 80´s to 60´s, no more reasons to be jealous, I have started to pull out my jackets. The rest of the weekend I basically spent with my Spanish family and studying. My Spanish sister competes for a skating club in Alcalá. Now, I know most of you are assuming ice skating, but alas no, she roller skates competitively, which by the many kids at the competition seems to be pretty popular in Spain. She was tested this weekend to move up to the next level and I finally know how my mom feels when she is watching me play volleyball. Nuria (my mom) and I were squeezing each other´s arms at every opportune moment. She passed! I think that I cheered louder than any of the parents did for their children.

This weekend I am traveling with CIEE again to a different area of Spain, Extremaduras, which is one of the poorest regions of Spain. That should be interesting, except right now I am more worried about studying. Ah exams! But first tomorrow I am going to go to the famous Prado Museum in Madrid for FREE! I am seriously ecstatic... you all have read how I felt when I saw Picasso´s Guernica painting. Well, this museum has Velazquez´s very, very famous painting ¨Las Meninas¨ painting that I literally studied and wrote a paper for at Madison for two weeks. Seeing this in real life is going to be out of this world!