Cercanías

Sell your car, buy a bike.

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The public transportation here is fantastic, but a good chunk of my time here has been spent on the train or as we call it the cercanías. Cercanías gets me to the center and the far outskirts of Madrid. The majority of my hiking trips have involved taking the cercanías for far too long. Thankfully, on each trip, I’ve been with people who are interesting to talk to and comfortable with silence. However, I miss the ease and convenience of driving myself places. I feel like I could be doing so much more with my time if I didn’t have to spend so much time on public transportation. I have been reminded though that life doesn’t have to be all hustle and bustle. The laidback lifestyle here has grown on me and I hope I can implement it into my life somehow.

I know... it's been a month since my last post. Even after I explain what I've been up to there is no excuse. Oh well. At least I'm getting around to it. So I left off on saying I was going to be a tourist during my last few weeks. I wasn't 100% wrong.

Even though classes were finished, there is a week called recovery week where any class that has been canceled can be made up. My Commercial Law professor decided to make up one of his canceled classes that Monday. I didn't have anything better to do so I went. I ended up making a new friend, Ares, which was sad because it was the last day of class and it was his birthday. The rest of the week was spent studying for upcoming exams. That Thursday I flew to Liverpool! (For those who don't know, I went to Liverpool two years ago for a mission trip/internship) I was able to meet up with most of the people who made a huge impact on my life two years ago and I was able to meet more people. The couple that I stayed with were very kind and generous. It was the type of experience I was expecting when I went to Spain. After a great weekend of encouragement and catching up, I headed back to Madrid early Sunday morning so that I had time to study for my finals. My first day of finals was a bit of a hot mess. One professor took 30 minutes to get us situated because he was trying to keep people from cheating and the other exam looked nothing like what we went over in class. I actually ended up failing that second exam... That Wednesday, I made it make to the Reina Sofía Museum with Ryan and Ares and we explored the rest of the floors that I missed the first time around. The next day, I took Armana and Ares to Kapital (7-story club) and if I had so much more fun the second time around. That weekend I went to Valladolid for 24 hours to say goodbye to Nacho and his family. Then I got back in time for church on Sunday so I invited Ares to tag along with Marilú and me. The following Monday was finals day 2. I only had one final and the professor only allowed us 20 minutes to finish. That evening, Armana, Natalia and I went to the Monday night party for students as a last hurrah. While we were there we realized why we had stopped going in the first place. The next day I went to El Escorial with Ares and we went on a little hike and checked out the monastery that the city is known for. On Wednesday, I went back to El Prado with Olivia (a girl from my research group) and Ares. Then we went to 100 Montaditos with Denver and Bhvin and afterward we all headed to Denver's apartment to watch the Chelsea game. On Thursday, I went to a goodbye lunch for Armana and then I took Armana to the airport. It was one of the saddest goodbyes of the semester. The next day I finished my tourist stint by visiting the History of Madrid museum with Ares. On Sunday, I went to church and dinner with Marilú for the last time. I am so glad that I was able to make a friend at church to go with, but it did make the goodbye hard. That Monday was the last day of my finals. I was able to retake the final I failed earlier and finished off my last final. In the evening, I went swing dancing with Chris, Irem, Natalia, William, and some of their friends. It was a super fun experience because I had never gone swing dancing before. Afterward, I said my last goodbyes and headed home to get ready for my last trip before going home. Before I headed to the airport on Tuesday, I grabbed lunch with Ryan to say goodbye. After lunch, I took my last flight to Mallorca! I was able to spend the week with my family, which was awesome! I went to the beach almost every day, I went snorkeling for the first time, I watched my cousins train for rugby, I celebrated Aker's birthday, and I got to spend time with my abuelo. It was a really good way to end my time in Spain. When I flew back to Madrid, I was able to get breakfast with Bhvin and then lunch with Irem to say goodbye. It was strange saying goodbye to everyone because it still hasn't hit that I might not see them again. Now I'm home!

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Since I am extremely behind, I'll write about what I need prayer for in the last post.

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Until next time!