Finals Done, Woohoo

We made it! We are (almost) finished with the fall semester at Vigo! On Wednesday and Friday Matt and I took our exams and were certainly grateful to be finished with such a daunting task. Our literature professor marched into the classroom and seated us randomly; three students in each row with the foreigners (Matt, Nicky, and me) separated. She then handed out six sheets of printing paper, followed by the exam itself: two essay questions. We then had the next two hours to scratch out our complete knowledge regarding the questions, everything in Spanish of course. Thankfully, we had the help of our Spanish/English dictionary, and even though we didn’t completely fill out six blank pages, both Matt and I were satisfied. On Friday, our history professor sat us in alphabetical order, resulting in my sitting between John and Matt and in front of Jenny. Nicky was in the very first row! The history exam was very similar to the literature exam, only we had three essay questions with the choice of choosing two to answer and a longer time limit. Afterwards, Matt and I were giddy, happy, and exhausted; we decided to celebrate by eating dinner at an American restaurant aptly known as Fosters’ Hollywood. We enjoyed a nacho appetizer and our main plates: I chose a barbeque chicken and Matt devoured a chiliburger. We lingered over our Cokes (free refills!) and discussed the accomplishment of completing (almost) one full semester in Spain. Our happy weekend continued into Saturday evening when we went to a dinner party at our French friends’ home. We received an email in English saying, “We have organized a party and want to see you!” Though we didn’t know what to expect, Matt and I happily went along because we really do like the three girls, though their names are incredibly French sounding and hard to remember. It turns out Matt and I were the only non-native French speakers in a party of ten or so lovely French students. We were quite comfortable though because our three French friends also invited the group of three French girls in our history class and we knew several others. The highlight of my evening was when “Come What May” sung by Ewan McGregor from the movie Moulin Rouge played on Emilie’s iTunes. I know the words by heart and happily sung them out and was surprised when two girls joined in with me. There we were singing in English, drinking orange juice and Coke and munching on bread and pate, in a cozy little apartment surrounded by French friends. The night was incredibly fun. This morning we went to Playa Samil, the beach, to catch the circus that is in town. When we discovered, however, how much tickets cost, we decided to walk along the sand instead. The day was warm and sunny and we sat talking with Nicky and watching the waves, joggers, and a game of soccer. What a beautiful day! After we write a paper, the semester will be officially completed, and we finally get to choose new classes! What will life be like without two hours of Spanish history twice a week? We can’t wait to find out.