My time in Spain has come to an end... for now. It had it's highs and lows for sure. I made lots of wonderful friends, traveled all over Spain and to five other countries(Germany, Czech Republic, England, Scotland, and Portugal), and had one of the most interesting months possible.
Uclés was... stressful, fun, annoying, hilarious, irritating, eye-opening, confusing, and one of the best experiences of my life. I spent, more or less, 24 hours a day with the same 20 or so people for an entire month. We all met under really strange circumstances: being thrown into an English teaching summer camp in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, Spain, with nothing in it but a bar, a small convenience store, and a pharmacy. Fridays would come and we'd let loose at the "discoteca" in town--the attic of someone's house that had a minibar and a CD player in it. We lived in a centuries-old monastery that creaked at night and is said to be haunted, naturally. We ate oversalted camp food for a month and often hoarded fresh fruit in classrooms. My "office" was a desk in the corner of the staff room, and later a dark video room. As often as I felt stressed out or fed up with my day or the people or really anything, now that it's over I don't remember all of that as much as I remember how much fun it really was.
Uclés was an odd experience. It was only a month, but it was very difficult to say goodbye to everybody on Friday afternoon. I met some really wonderful people that unfortunately raised the difficult question, "will I ever see you again?"
Now I'm home. Today is my birthday. I'm so jet-lagged that I woke up at 5am feeling completely rested. I have a bed that's twice as big as I am, cats running around my room, and vanilla yogurt and ginger ale waiting for me downstairs. It's good to be home. Madrid, no te echaré de menos en Septiembre...
