El Fin

Ayy dios mio.(My goodness.) I can't believe I am to that dreaded time...the final days. I have been swamped studying for finals, packing, and tying up all the loose ends here. Goodbye's began today with Araceli's son, Alvaro. Today, Tiffany and I surprised Araceli with a mini-birthday party because her birthday is on Saturday, one day after we leave. We bought her a blueberry cheesecake, flowers, and a framed photo of the three of us. She loved it! It was pure coincidence that Alvaro came over for lunch, but it was perfect. After lunch Tiffany, Alvaro and I hung out and spoke english, cause he is learning! When the time came to say goodbye, it was weird...what do you say to someone, that was basically your sibling for four months, and now you don't know if you will ever see them again.... it went well though. We wished eachother luck, exchanged emails, and facebook...and he assured us he will be in Chicago in the next few years, because he loves traveling. It was a beautiful afternoon.

The past weekend was also great. I made the most of Sevilla, going out each night with friends, going to my preferred discotech for the final time, and went on a tapas-tour. We hit up all of our favorite tapas bars, had our favorite dish at each one, and a drink. Among the savory tapas, I have come to love: goat cheese with raspberry marmalade, croquetas, mini-sandwich of pork-chop, potatoes in ali-oli (famous spanish salsa...garlic and mayonese...soo good!), complimenting them with Spanish wine, local beer (Cruzcampo), or sangria! It was quite the Saturday afternoon. Beforehand we went to the futbol stadium because, the best team in Spain- FC Barcelona, was in town, we watched their bus pull up with a huge mob of futbol-obsessed Spanish people!

Among missing my American friends, Spanish friends, and Spanish family, I have come up with several other things that I'll be missing, here it goes:
-The food
-Senoras chatting either in the street, or from the windows of their apts, to the street
-Crazy double and triple parking!
-Spanish Salutations- always very affectionate, and sound better in Spanish but they are: mi vida (my life), hija (daughter0 which they call everyone), tia (slang), etc
-Neighborhood playgrounds full of children all aftenoon with the parents neaby chatting away
-Dogs that don't need leashes..ever.
-On the flip side----they never pick up their dog's doodies.
-La vida en la calle
-Drinking a cafe
-Orange trees- you never eat the oranges, they are bitter and used for marmalade
-Fruit stands- that aren't self-service, or the same for produce departments.
-Eveyone walking around in the afternoon- dar un paseo.

That is enough, it is obvious I'll miss everything a lot. I'm going to post some photos of the last week, then back to work! See you all soon!