Spring/Easter Break and Law School

Friday, I leave for my "Easter" break. Here in Spain, Easter break is really a combination of spring break and the Easter holiday. Normally, we'd have off for the week before Easter and the Monday after Easter. However, this year we also have Friday off and tomorrow (Thursday March 29) is a country-wide strike, so my vacation started early. I'll be travelling from Madrid to Milan by air, then going throughout northern Italy by train. After Milan, my next city is Venice, followed by Bologna, then Florence, then Pisa, then Genoa, and back to Milan for my return flight on Easter Sunday. Here's what my trip will look like:

In addition, today I decided to accept an offer to attend the University of Illinois College of Law as a member of the class of 2015. Now, I have the difficult part of trying to find housing from thousands of miles away.

Where have I been???

 

As one of my friends rightfully pointed out, I haven’t been so good at updating. But, here is a new one for today.

The second week in February marked the halfway point of my time in Spain and as of today, I have a little under four months left. Given this, I think it might be helpful to reflect over the last 5 months I’ve spent in Spain.

What I’ve done:

• I’ve been in a foreign country for 162 days, and counting…
• I’ve increased my list of visited countries from 2 (Canada and Mexico) to 7 (Canada, Mexico, Spain, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany).
• I’ve applied to 30 different law schools, all from abroad. So far my record is 12 acceptances, 6 denials, 4 waitlists, and I’m still waiting on 8. Included in these are 8 scholarships, including 5 scholarships of over $10,000 per year.
• I have visited the three coasts of Spain and have taken countless buses and trains to these cities.
• I’ve managed to avoid private transport throughout my entire trip. This seems amazing since there was hardly a day in Michigan that I did not drive somewhere.
• I have, hopefully, improved the English of my, roughly, 300 students. In addition, I’ve spread the knowledge of Valentines Day, Christmas (in the States), and Thanksgiving to Spanish children.
• I have picked up some of the British English, which I so despised in the beginning. I now find myself looking for the rubbish bin, spelling some words differently (mainly the double “ll” as in travelling), and also using have a lot more (as evident in this update).
• My Spanish is much better than when I first arrived. I now feel confident enough to pay exactly with change, as opposed to the beginning when I used to only pay with big bills, to avoid paying the incorrect amount. I can also give directions in Spanish to the occasional lost Spanish tourist. But, most importantly, I can recognize when my students swear in class and yell at them.
• I’ve been a tour guide of Madrid, both for one of my friends who visited after New Years and my family who was just here a few weeks ago.

What I will do:

• I will make a decision about which law school to attend in the next month. This decision has been driving me crazy, but I know it’ll all work out fine.
• I will be visiting some more countries before I come home. Later this month, I’ll be spending a week in northern Italy for our Easter break. I also have a trip to Morocco in the works. I hope to visit Greece, the U.K., Paris, and more of Spain, in the next four months.
• Continue to improve my Spanish.
• Learn more about Spanish cooking. I’ve been pretty good with learning some traditional Spanish foods, but I can definitely do more.
• Explore and take more pictures of Madrid. I’ve clearly spent most of my time in Madrid, but it’s the city that I have the fewest pictures of.
• Send some postcards out. I have about 12 that I’ve been meaning to send but keep on forgetting to do so.
• I’ll work on updating more often.