Classes: over.  UNIowans: Gone. Me:Bored.   Well the middle one isn't completely true, there are 9 left in Europe besides me but 2 are in Switzerland, 2 in Tenerife, 2 are spending their last days with their boyfriends and the other 3 haven't called me and I'm doing my hermit thing where I wait to see if someone else has planned something before I get dressed.  My original plan was to not blog until all of the Iowans were gone and I was REALLY bored, but I just walked 100 km, I can stay in bed a bit longer than usual.  What really motivated me was stalking another friend's blog and seeing that she wrote her last Spain blog where she wrote her first... totally stealing that idea next week.  I AM THE BIG CHEESE.

The end of school was an interesting experience because it felt like the last day of high school.  Not even senior year, which is kind of sad, but more like sophomore year or something.  You don't care, you're ready to go, you do nothing in the last class.  At least that was me, there was one hard core teacher here that I didn't have that got teary-eyed and that made everyone do the same.  But this really was like high school.  You had the same classes with the same people everyday and there were totally cliques.  This actually felt more like a movie high school than my high school experience.  There was the feather club (this group of girls who were "artsy" and wore single feather earrings) the philly kids, the UMass kids, the Miami kids, the smokers, the smart kids, the Clique (so important that they didn't even have an adjective!) the cute boys, and my rag-tag friends.  It was complete with people playing frisbee in front of the school every day!  I left on Thursday knowing that my grades were all between 9 and 10 huzzah!

Thursday was my big day.  Finally got all of my grades, went home to eat and sleep.  The last time I saw my mom was 4 pm that day when she went to the doctor.  At 8 I left to take my things to Jessica's house and start the night.  After we settled our things we met up with everyone for our last big group outing.  We took Sidra for an hour before going to a big dinner payed for by our very own... UNI! Sweet!  Some girls of the group worked hard and had us all vote on a 'Most likely' list.  Our 'award show' went along with dinner and was very fun.  I won 'Most likely to become the next Liz Becker' (She was the girl who helped us prepare for our trip which is the job I'm trying to get...).  When you accepted the award you had to say 3 things: 1.  What will you miss most about Spain?  Living in a city and walking to every place that I need to go. I'm going to have to pay for gas back home... 2.  What was your favorite memory in Spain?  The first days we were here, there were no cliques, no one knew what they were doing, and I could hang out freely in other peoples' rooms.  3.  What has Spain meant to you?  (Like everyone else...) It has been a transition.  From little kid world to hopefully when I return, big kid world.  We only had one crier during dinner, and it was the girl who's been crying for the last week.

We left and went out like Spaniards! 6 AM- we can do it!  Me and Jessica's plan was to stay out until our bus left at 6:30 and sleep on the bus.  At around 5 we had to go and everyone was doing one big group hug.  About 5 people were crying at this point, but I still didn't feel like it.  Until I heard the kind of snort that only happens when you are trying to hold back tears.  My big brother Nate was crying.  I lost it.  Dang it Nate!  I still tear up thinking about it... But then he made me do one of those laugh/cry things when he said, "This is just like that episode of Full House when the girls go to camp.  It was awesome, but then Michelle stole a rabbit so they had to go back and it wasn't as cool.  It was the people who made it great."  Only a little laugh, it was still mostly sad.

Jessica and I hopped on our bus and slept most of the way to Lugo.  We had decided that we would speak only Spanish on this trip and everyone said things to the effect of, "Didn't you say that at the beginning of your time in Spain?"  Jerks.  But we did it! We honestly only spoke English at albergues (hostels special to pilgrims [peregrinos] that were more like my idea of hostels-hundreds of backpackers in one room) when English was the common language.  And the first moments of the last day- we were soooo out of it.  As Gran Canaria was a great last trip, so was this one.  The Camino de Santiago (or The Way of Saint James) is supposed to be a journey of reflection.  Additionally the country looked like Iowa (Save for mountains) which made us excited for home.  We decided that walking 100 km was also a good way to get rid of some Spain fat we've accumulated.  We did the bare minimum in order to get a certificate but our experienced friends told us that we had enough stamps to seem like month-long travelers- yes!  Uhh to explain that?  You get a passport type thing and you have to get at least two stamps a day to prove that you really were walking from each place.  You can get stamps in bars, restaurants, churches, museums... anywhere along the way.  We met these silly Germans at the certification office who got rejected because it was evident that they took a bus one day.  Durrrr.  Anyways I'm certifiably a peregrino del Camino de Santiago.  The certificate is all in Latin and my Latin name is Saram? Cool!

I might be typing super small posts EVERYDAY after Thursday when my friends leave me.  So look forward to that. 1 Friday left!