Tuesday, Day 27

Hola mis amigos!

The dreaded day has finally come: un dia ultimo en Valencia (the last day in Valencia). Katie left a little bit earlier than I did this morning because she had her second half of her Spanish final before I had to be at the institute. I started the morning on my own with my last piece of PB toast in my homestay! I got to the institute around 10:30 and completely tripped up the stairs on the way into the building. Lucky for me, the other group from Ohio (20+ students) were currently looking through the glass by the entranceway and saw my act of clumsiness. Something's never change.. only I would trip up a flight of stairs, with everyone watching, on the last day of class.

Once I made it to class, without tripping again, I completed my English final and my part one of my history final. My English final was a letter to the Regional Minster of Education, like I explained in my blog yesterday. My history final was eleven questions in which we were allowed to use our notes and answer them in one-two paragraphs. By the end of the two finals, my hand was throbbing from writing.. at least we are done (well almost!).

After finals, we had our farewell lunch with the director of the institute, one of the Spanish professors, and the directors of the program. We ate at a really nice restaurant that served fancy red wine, tapas, and paella. The tapas consisted of TUNA, fried calamari, patatas bravas, and mussels. To my surprise, I ate everything but the tuna.. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. After we were served tapas, we were able to sneak a peak into the window of the kitchen and saw the men making the paella over the wood stove. They cooked the paella in the restaurant much like our "grandparents" did when we visited them a few weeks ago. (I forgot to mention in previous blogs that Katie and I found out from our host mom and dad a few days ago that in our Paella at our grandparents we also had rabbit, not just chicken....) This time we knew ahead of time that the paella would have chicken AND rabbit, vegetables, and rice. It tasted all the same, so I didn't mind either way.

(Tuna with Codfish and peppers)

(Fried Calamari with Mayo)

(Patatas Bravas)

(Mussels)

(Paella made for our table of 26) 

(Cooks with the wood fire)

(Traditional Paella: Rabbit, Chicken, Green Beans, and Rice)

 

For dessert, like I could eat anymore, the waitress served salad (with tuna of course), which I politely declined. Who serves salad as a dessert anyways? Afterwards, they gave us caramelized oranges with chocolate ice cream and whipped cream. Now that, I just couldn't turn away. We had so much fun during our last lunch in Valencia though. A few students gave a speech in Spanish to thank the program directors and the institute professors. Afterwards, they gave us a certificated that marked the end of our enrollment in the American Institute. So bittersweet!

 

(Salad for dessert?)

(Cream, Caramelized Oranges, Chocolate Ice Cream)

(The other half of the group)

(Students giving a speech to the directors)

 

 

Leaving lunch, Katie and I dreaded going back to our homestay to pack. We came back to only Jamel in the house, half asleep, haha. So we decided to lay down and relax for a little while (aka procrastinate like we always do). We finally got up around 6:30 and got to it. Surprisingly it didn't take us as long as we thought it would.. I'm not looking forward to lugging everything around this next week though to four different cities, if you include Madrid. We were interrupted during our packing my Jamel and Gemma who gave us the cutest little gifts. We each got an apron with the recipe for the Spanish omelet (or tortilla de patatas) on it and a Valencia magnet. The small gift literally brought me to tears. I'm going to miss them so much! They asked us what we wanted for dinner and Katie and I requested pasta de carbonara (cream sauce with bacon) just to be on the safe side. We had seen a little too much tuna today..

 

(Carbonara pasta, my favorite!)

 

During dinner, we sat and talked (well Katie mostly talked) about our trip, our classes, and going home. I'm excited to get home and share my experience with everyone, but I'm still sad to have to say goodbye to the place I've called home for several weeks now. I'm not sure how I feel about it one bit! Gemma and Jamel promised that they would drive us to the bus tomorrow (at 7:30am, yikes) to make sure we got on the bus safely. It is going to be one sad and tearful goodbye, I'm sure. I'm not sure how much wifi I will have this week, but I will be keeping up with the blogs as much as I can. Adios Valencia, see you Sunday Mechanicsville. Hasta Luego!