Last Orientation

I'm a tad overdue for a post, and right now I'm out of school early, and the Criterium de Dauphine doesn't start to be covered on tv until 14:40, so I decided I might as well try and write a post. A couple of things before I start though. First, I've had this song stuck in my head for the past pair of weeks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoLTPcD1S4Q . Anyway, you all should listen to it. It's quite good. The second thing is that I find my head a bit jumbled at the moment, so if that is reflected in my post, I'm sorry. Anyway, here is what I have been up to since my last post:

A couple of weeks ago I went to see the bulls with my Spanish grandma at Las Ventas, which is the bull stadium in Madrid. A while ago, I said I would explain how the bulls work. And I would still like to do that, but, unfortunately, I just don't have the time or energy at the moment, and probably won't over the next few weeks, to do that. Sorry. But, on the brightside, I will put up some photos in a post in the next couple days once I have time to look through the photos that I took there.

This past weekend was my final AFS Orientation. And I quite enjoyed having the opportunity to see all of my Madrid AFS buddies, as well as one from Galicia, one last time to say goodbye. And my internet just died, which means my music stopped, which means my thought train derailed.
I fixed it, so now my music is back. And I happen to be listening to another very good song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ddd70PMxTE), so I'm happy. Anyway, to continue, we headed up to Cercedilla, a town in the northern part of the Madrid community, for Saturday and Sunday, although for me it was only Saturday afternoon and Sunday because I had exams Saturday morning, which I should probably mention before going on with this past weekend.

So, as I was saying, this past Saturday I had exams. Three of them. And they were the SAT Subject Tests. Extremely fun. Not really though. But not as bad as normal exams. Anyway, I took the Spanish one, the Math II one, and the Chemistry one. I spent Monday-midday Friday studying Chemistry nonstop, spent Friday afternoon studying Math, and didn't spend anytime studying Spanish. Unfortunately, I can't tell y'all how I did on them because I don't find out for another 16 days, but I can tell you how I think you did. As some of you probably already know, the SAT Subject Tests are scored on a curved scale from 200-800, with 800 considered a perfect score. With that in mind, here is what I am expecting to get on each test: On Spanish, I feel like I will get between a 780 and 800. On Math, between a 760 and 800. And on Chemistry, between a 650 and 750. So, I was happy with the first two, but quite disappointed with the Chemistry. But hey, that kind of stuff happens sometimes.

Anyway, back to Cercedilla. As I was saying, I got in later than everyone else because of my exams. The problem was that I had forgotten to write down the name of the Albergue we were staying at, and I also forgot to write down directions of how to get there. You all see where this is going, but I'll go ahead and tell you what happened anyway. So, I get off the train at 2:20, walk out of the station, and realize that I don't have directions of how to get there. So, I figure I'll just walk into town, because I remember what the building looked like from a picture I saw of it, and I had seen a building that looked like it could be it when I was on the train. So off I go, towards where that building more or less was. And after about a kilometer of climbing and then going down hills, I got to that building. And I saw a nun shaking sheets out of a window, as well as a big sign saying 'Primary School of blahblahblah'. So I think to myself "This is a bit of a problem, but since I know it isn't in the middle part of town, I'll just keep on heading through town until I get to the other side." And so I do that. And I get to the other side of town, look around, and say to myself "Well, it doesn't look like anything is here". So I start to turn around and head back into town, but then after a couple of minutes, one of the AFS volunteers calls me to ask where I am. And I say I am in town already, but a bit lost. So I ask how to get there, and he says it is along the main road for awhile until it forks, and from there it is up the left fork and uphill. So I thank him, hang up, and turn around to follow the road, figuring that I just didn't see it the first time. And after a few minutes, I get a call from Erika, one of the AFS students, saying that they are all waiting for me to go on a hike and that I need to hurry up. So I start to walk faster, head about a half kilometer down the road, and then decide that I was right the first time and that there was nothing this way. So I turn around, call Jon, and ask him how they got there. And he says that he can't remember, but will find someone who remembers and call back. So we hang up, and I decide to start asking the townsfolk where it is, because by now I had remembered the name. And so I go up to the first person, and they aren't from town, so they don't know. So onto the second person, who this time is from town, but doesn't know either. So I enter a little bakery to ask the storekeeper, who is an older lady who I thought would undoubtedly know. But she doesn't, so she tells me to head up the road a block to the town office, because they will know. But I get there, and they're closed. So I ask a waiter at a bar in the main square, but he doesn't know either. And you get the idea. Well, this went on for 10 or 15 minutes until I finally got a call back from Jon's phone. Well, here is the important detail that ended up messing me up and causing me to get a tad lost. You see, when you leave the train station in Cercedilla, there is one main road, but it splits into two within about 50 meters. One of those splits heads into town, while the other heads up into the mountains and away from town. I, logically, headed down the former when I first arrived, but the albergue was down the latter. Anyway, I finally figured that out on this call. And so, I turned towards the train station and started walking as fast as I could to get to the albergue because they are supposedly waiting for me in order to go on the hike. So, about 3 kilometers later, I arrive at the albergue covered in sweat. I put my stuff in my room, and then I go to find a volunteer to tell her I was here and that we could now go on the hike. It turns out that they were also waiting on another volunteer and that we wouldn't leave for another 45 minutes, so I was a bit grumpy about being told to hurry, but I was glad to have a bit of time to relax, so it worked out. Anyway, at about 4:30 we left the albergue to go on the hike with the idea that we would be back by 8:15 in order to have dinner. Well, we went quite slowly on the way to the lookout, and then took a nice long snack break by a fountain we found on the way down. So, we found ourselves hurrying to get back before the cafeteria at the albergue closed. But we made it back for dinner, so it all worked out. Anyway, after dinner we did a couple more activities, and then just hung out until the volunteers said we had to go to bed.
The next day (Sunday), was nice and relaxed. A few activities, lunch, time to relax and hang out, and then goodbye. And it was weird saying goodbye. It wasn't a oh-I'm-going-to-miss-you-so-much goodbye like I expected. It was more of a I'll-see-you-again-sometime goodbye. Which is exactly what it should have been, because honestly, I'm hoping to see everyone of them again, and I am sure that I will see at least some of them again in the future. And what's really nice is that I don't feel like I expected I would. I thought I would be all sad and empty after saying goodbye and after being reminded how little time I had left. But I don't. Instead, I feel like I had fulfilled what I had come to Spain to do. That I had finally completely changed into the person that I really am. That I had formed relationships and friendships that time and distance won't wear out and break down. And so, although I'm not ready to go home, I'm ready to go home. If you get what I'm saying. I mean, I don't want to go back to Boulder a whole lot, but I now feel like there isn't really anything that I will leave uncompleted when I do head back to Boulder. And I believe that that really was the goal of this last orientation. And in hindsight, the orientation really did its job, so kudos to the AFS volunteers who ran it.

Anyway, I don't really have anything more to say at the moment. I will aim to get another post done with the bull photos in the next week, and one more before I head off on the 22nd, so until then.