Day 2

A sister is always there to defend you no matter what. ~Felicity Martin

Amelia and her mom really enjoyed their time together. Both were thoroughly content with what they had done and did not feel like there was anything missing. They both will remember it for the rest of their lives. The day in Marseille during which, they had no idea what to do and ended up riding a Disneyland like train to the Notre Dame de la Garde. The days in Italy where neither could speak the language and had any idea what was going on, the tour of Pomeii and the walking tour of Sicily. The day in Tunisia where they got a taxi tour with two of their new friends from Australia; they got to see famous ancient Roman ruins and a gorgeous fishing village. The day in Palma where they again did a taxi tour to all of the major tourist sights and then found some coca cola for mom. All of it would be remembered. It was all well documented in photos as well. Amelia took picture after picture of everything.
The dinner table at which they were seated could not have been more ideal. They had two couples that are empty nesters and a couple of ladies from Sweden. They were all extremely nice and easy to make conversation with. The wife of one of the couples even offered Amelia a job on the farm that she and her husband own…now that is not something that Amelia would every be interested in. She is so definitely not a dirt under the fingernails kind of girl. The waiter who was from Thailand was extremely cute and young and was constantly flirting with Amelia. She was flirting back but not openly enough for anything to have come of the flirtation. It was just for fun anyway. Nothing would have happened from it anyway.
Once the cruise was over Amelia and her mom went back to Cadiz where they enjoyed all the touristy things around the city as well as a day on the beach. The sun felt very good considering how cold they were in Italy the week before. Mom also got to meet Katrina. Amelia wanted her to meet Eloise but she could not get a hold of her to have them meet each other. Her mom stayed with her at her homestay. Her padres were ecstatic to meet her mom and often got so excited that they forgot that mom did not understand any Spanish. The time was successful and the two parted tearfully knowing that they would see each other in just a little over two months.
Amelia went back to classes in full study mode because there was only a week before midterms. She worked on papers and presentations and reading books and notes and just general studying to get things done. She could only hope that they would all pay off in the end. She got fifty pages of her Spanish novel read for her literature class in less than two days and got it all analyzed and put into an outline as well. She typed all of her notes into word documents as well. The first weekend after break she literally had no life. All she did was do homework and hang out with her family. They think that she is a boring student who does not have a life but that is her choice. She would rather be at home than out getting drunk…that is not a crime. So what she is a homebody? There are lots of those in this world. Maybe just not that study abroad in Spain apparently probably not those study abroad in general actually. Homebodies like to sit at home and hang out with family and just relax, not jet set across the world.
The week of midterms flew by quickly but the exams were frustrating because they required studying every night since there was only one a day. Amelia was honestly studying every day of the week that week (except Friday…her program does not have class on Fridays). She really enjoyed herself but it was slightly frustrating that she did not get to have any fun ever. The beauty of the exams being done is that she now did not have to study for them again until the end of the semester for the finals! If only that meant there were going to be no presentations and papers to happen in that time. That would be luck but alas no…there would be a minimum of one presentation and one paper in each class. Wonderful…just what every students favorite thing to do is.
Oh well…she is here to study not to have fun and lay on the beach every day even though that would be nice. It is what they (all the students) would ultimately like to be doing, as well as traveling to other places in Spain and Europe during their spare time. Most of them had traveled at least one or two weekends of the semester that far and they would eventually be going on trips as a program as well. Just not until November. Eloise and Amelia were becoming better friends again. They were doing two presentations together as well as going to do things such as climb the highest hill together just for exercise. This is something that both their madres thought they were nuts for doing but alas that is what they wanted to do especially since their madres are the ones that tried to shove food down their throats a minimum of three times a day, oftentimes it was more like four or five.
The weekend following midterms was Halloween weekend. This meant that on Monday it was All Saints Day and there would be no school as in Spain it is a national holiday. This was nice because it meant a four-day weekend. Amelia spent the weekend relaxing and taking time to hang out with friends. She went up to Katrina’s house and they tried out the recipes that Amelia had found on the Internet as well as went to a movie at the discount theater near the house. Then she lay on her bed and watched movies all day on Sunday to recuperate from the late night before going out for Halloween that night with some other people. The scene was extremely lame that night so they did not stay out very long at all. That was ok with her. She had not wanted to go out in the first place.
The next day she got up around eleven in the morning and got dressed at breakfast and did homework until it was time for lunch, which was pretty much all fish so she had a “special meal” of leftover pasta. This was fine with her. Noelia and Ivan her host sister and brother-in-law were there for lunch but none of the other family were. This seemed weird to Amelia because all she had ever heard about was how fiestas were days when the family was all together yet there were days where the whole family was assembled that were just normal days and today they were not.