Mini Updates on Finals and Travel

My first final is on Friday. It's also the least stressful one - Language and Communication, my only class in English. So it'll be good to get that out of the way. Euskera's nothing to worry about it because it's likely Mizzou will never see that grade. Literatura y Cine I should be able to pass without a second thought, and to be honest Fundamentos Culturales III as well - between the slight amount he might feel sorry for me because I'm Erasmus, I've come to every class, and I'm trying... and the fact that I've read all the books... I should basically pass. No worries.

Cultura Visual is the big bad one. I haven't studied as much as I should and it's not something I'm as naturally talented at - bullshitting art - especially the more modern stuff. But hey, if I have to study hard for ONE exam, it's not going to kill me. :) Ida and I will study together, I talked to the professor again all pitiful like to prove that I'm trying, I have a copy of the textbook in English from the library, and today I got really smart and found a kid taking brilliant notes and asked him to please email the lot to me. He said he would! :D Yay!

Travel. I'm ready to settle down now, but I still want to do little day-trips throughout Navarra. I'm sort of cursed, though - it's one thing to sightsee towns by myself, another to hike alone through a forest. And most of the other people seem to fall into two camps - 1.) They want to lock themselves in for the remainder of the semester to study... *cough* Lea *cough* Nadine *cough*... or, they see the finals schedule as a reason to travel far and wide... to Italy, Switzerland, or Portugal, say. I really want to stay close to home - day trips, yes, maybe even one or two nights away. But it's not the easiest thing - not because there's not lots to see in Navarra - but because much of it is car-trip material. And I don't have a car.

I'm cursed about cars, btw. Allan's brother got into a little accident right before Scotland, so we couldn't use the car to see anything. Then Allan lost his passport and couldn't come here for us to take our road trip to Andorra (MAJOR bummer). And now, today Ainhoa (the saint) had offered to go on a day trip with her car... I could pick anywhere! We were going to do it over the weekend, but the weather was really rainy... so it was supposed to be tomorrow morning. Well, that didn't work out so well - her mom's car broke this afternoon, so she needs Ainhoa's car until further notice.

There's still lots I can do, and I plan to do. And yes, I am being responsible with my finals. I had the opportunity to go to Portugal this weekend, and I passed. Although I broke my own rule of taking chances I'd never have in America, and that I would regret not taking later (Lisbon for the weekend? Yes please!)... there were a few reasons I didn't go. One is expense and stress - it would have been a reasonably cheap trip, but I need to save for Germany... and there's so much going on around here right now that it would really be stressful to throw things together and run away for a few days. Two is responsibility - I need to study for finals, I'd made a few commitments here even though I could move them if I had to - like volunteering at the Basque school. These sort of things. Originally I might have been tempted, but I thought Sara and Colleen would come up this weekend. Now that they can't, I'm tempted again, but... no. Besides, I'm not that much of a big city girl anyway - I'd rather have a week (or more!) to do Portugal with like-minded friends - spend a day or two in the capital, spend a little time in nature, a little bit in small towns, try to snag world heritage sites... etc, than have two or three days with some basically random other Erasmus students. It would be fun, yes, but I think I'm better off waiting.

Everything is starting to make sense, here. I'm constantly noticing little things and wondering, 'what the hell were you thinking that first month??' Finding a public library, bus schedules, exotic food ingredients, tourist information, granola bars, etc... all so easy after all. Too bad I only have a few more weeks to enjoy it - and then I start all over again in Germany! But I like to think it won't be quite as bad - that I'll be able to use my experience here to be smarter from the start. Besides, Germany's a pretty organized country, and there's about a 50 page packet in English about Bonn, explaining most of the stuff I had to figure out the slowest and hardest possible way here in Pamplona. :)

Btw - today people reached my blog searching for Frau Eilken (is it the same one, I wonder?) and Dumbledore's Will Galadriel. (YES)