This week was one of my last “chill” weeks in Toledo. As I’ll be traveling for the next few weekends, I decided to just kick it in Toledo to try to catch up on homework and live a normal week all the way through. So, that’s exactly what I did. (This might end up being one of the shortest blog posts I write on this blog! haha.)
On Monday, I had my internship as usual, and so with Monday being the day before St. Patrick’s Day, I ended up giving my St. Patrick’s Day presentation a lot. As an example of what one of the teachers decided to add on, Maria Luz wanted to get her students reading and speaking in English, and so we looked at some very simple limericks, which was fun for me to figure out the rhythm, and interesting for the students to figure out the pronunciations so that the ends of lines rhymed. I tried to get through my internship as normally and happily as possible, because I had learned the previous night that Toby would indeed be going to a better place today, and so I kept it together as best I could. In the evening, I made sure to call my parents, if only to be there, especially for my mom who had been miles closer to him than us all, for a moment. I said lots of prayers, and called my sisters as well, and we all comforted ourselves with the thought that Toby would now be in a better place. He’ll certainly be waiting for us in heaven over the Rainbow Bridge.
The next day was St. Patrick’s Day, but regrettably I had nothing green to wear. Anyways, I had classes and my wonderful French conversation with Noelia as usual, and then met up with my theology presentation partners just before an evening presentation at school to try to practice our theology presentation for the next day, but I ended up just talking about Toby and my family. Oops. It did help me to talk about it though. So we continued onto the presentation, which would be explaining part of the history of the Camino de Santiago, which we will be on excursion there after the end of exams (that blessed day). It was suggested that we bring vaseline and two pairs of socks for our feet, walking poles for comfort, and only what we needed in our backpack so as not to weigh us down too much. We also got a little introduction to what our itinerary would be, and the environment of the cities where we would be visiting. It turns out that we will be doing part of the Camino Portugués, from Palácios to Braganza, and then also visiting the Spanish cities of Zamora and then ending up in Braganza. After the meeting, I had chosen to participate in a dinner with some ladies who had come to visit the Fundación from the University of Minnesota, the school that communicated with the Fundación so that I could be here, to be able to give feedback on the whole program and how everything was going (as they were here to evaluate the program in its entirety, up to sitting in on classes). A handful of other students and I got the opportunity to speak our mind about different issues with the program as well as what we liked, and so it was a nice dinner and a great time.
The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly. Classes as usual (theology and internship on Wednesday; theater, lit, and history on Thursday), homework as usual, and trying to catch up on homework over the weekend. I definitely spent a lot of time on the phone with my family, and I’m starting to feel a little bit of the bug to be moving on and getting planning with my family for when they come here. I also started to feel the first little urges to go home, which is saying something since I haven’t really been super homesick this entire trip. I spoke with my parents and we discussed budgeting for the rest of the trip, and also I’m just starting to figure out my summer plans, as I’ll need to be both working and taking multiple summer classes to be able to graduate on time.
It was certainly a nice week to just relax and take advantage of downtime to be able to do homework and plan for the future and whatnot, but as I mentioned, I’m also starting to get a little restless. I absolutely cannot wait for Spring Break next week, as I’ve finally firmed up all my plans! I’m heading to Alicante and Palma de Mallorca over Palm Sunday weekend, Venice and Cinque Terre during the week, and Antwerp to reunite with friends from last semester over Easter weekend! I can’t wait to see friends, take a break, and just travel travel travel! And of course I’m looking forward to seeing my parents after almost nine whole months away. I’ll catch you all next weekend - until then, ¡Hasta pronto!
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