It Could Be Worse

That's become my new mantra of late. It seems my last couple weeks here have really wanted to test my character. But I'm glad I had to go through some of these things, it really has shown me things about myself I didn't know I had in me before this.

So a couple Thursdays ago now, the 4th, I was leaving for Venice in the afternoon right after classes. After my Spanish class I realized I had left my purse in the cafeteria at school 2 hours earlier. The purse had my passport and camera. I went to lost and found and back to the cafeteria, spoke with security, looked in bathrooms and trash cans...nothing. Finally I went with Hannah and another friend Lindsay over to our program offices. They have a copy of my passport there, but told me I'd be unable to travel with it even though I'd be still in the Schengen area (which is the group of countries in Europe that no longer have border controls when traveling amongst them). One of the women called the American Consulate for me and found out I could receive and emergency passport. It was 12:15, we were supposed to catch a 1:15 bus to the airport. The airport is an hour away from Barcelona. Hannah and I ran outside, grabbed a taxi, and sat in a painfully long ride, got to the Consulate at about 12:40ish, went through security and they were waiting for me with the paperwork. $100 dollars, a crazy passport picture, repetitive paperwork, and a half hour later, I had my brand new "fake" passport. Well, not really fake, but close enough...30 minutes for a passport? Kinda crazy. Anyway we bolt through security, I yell back to Hannah to grab the cell phones while I hail another cab (I think the security guard thought we were crazy at this point). We take another cab ride to the opposite corner of Barca (of course), and manage to make the 1:45 bus. Ok, breathe.

We made it to the airport, got on the flight, landed in Venice, got off the plane and onto the bus. Hannah forgot her camera on the plane. Not our day. We went back in but they said that nothing was found on the plane. So at this point Hannah and I were somewhere between a bit down and completely delirious and laughing a lot. At least we could laugh. And going along with the theme, it could have been worse...I still had my wallet! My wallet, credit cards, cash, cell phone, and keys were all on me and not in my purse. We weren't hurt, it was just bad luck. So we decided to enjoy the weekend. And we did...mostly. It's a beautiful city, we walked everywhere (not much choice there, we weren't up for swimming), saw a couple glass shops (and by a couple i mean one every 5 feet), took a gondola ride (our gondoleer only spoke Spanish ha), and got attacked by pigeons. That might have been the highlight of the weekend. Unfortunately due to the circumstances, there will be no photo album from good old Venice.

Hannah and I headed back to Barcelona Sunday night. Our flight was supposed to be at 6:15, but why would that actually work out? We had to be bussed to another airport because of fog and ended up taking off at 9:15. At least they let us bring our duty free bellinis through the second security check.

After Venice, I had a few days of hell as far as finals go. Two papers, a presentation, and the two hardest finals I have. All within two days of each other. But it felt really good when it was over and I actually ended up getting a 9/10 in my Spanish class. I believe that roughly translates to around a 4.0 actually in our terms. That's the only class I've heard about so far, but I'm very happy about it. Especially considering I'm living in a Spanish speaking country...

However, things don't end there, my head had been itchy all week and yesterday morning I ended up finding lice. LICE. I thought I wouldn't have to deal with lice again until I started having kids! I'm assuming it was from the hostel in Venice..that city just had it out for us. Soo I lotioned and shampooed and combed all day yesterday. Went out last night and came home only to find more. So I went through it all again today. It feels much better so I'm hoping I got most of it, but it's always something.

Tomorrow I have a paper and a presentation followed by my last final on Wednesday. Elena is planning on cooking a dinner here for me her, her husband, and then Hannah and her host parents. I'm looking forward to that. I really lucked out with my host parents and I'm going to miss them, especially Elena! She breaks my heart, talking about how much she'll miss me but that she doesn't want to think about it just yet. She said she has a bunch of stuff planned like shopping for after I leave so she'll stay distracted. She's just the sweetest.

Anyway, time to go study some more so I can go out for a bit and take advantage of my last week here. Last week!! When did that happen? Can't wait to see everyone SO SOON!