starting the end

so we took our final exams today. they weren't that bad. i'm just holding onto the hope that our profe will help us out and give a little curve or something, but no worries. this spain experience was worth it even if i do get a couple of A-'s out of this program.

we took some pictures with our family today since we aren't going to be having another lunch together before we leave, unfortunately. we have a big party at profe's house tomorrow and then kristine is leaving on wednesday. introductions: faustino, area 70, and his wife, consuelo. they are some really great people. i really really like them even though we haven't really bonded much even after living with them for almost 2 months. i feel like it's just that they don't know what to talk to us about, although they are totally 100% nice all the time. i love them. it's been an awesome experience. consuelo gave each of us matching necklaces and had specific colors picked out for each of us... she gave me mine specifically because it matched one of my rings that i bought here. it was so cute.

after lunch, we went into madrid and wanted to get some souvenir shopping done and out of the way, but we were foiled by the awful rain (it started pouring cats and dogs, and gerbils even) and all the street vendors' stalls were gone. and the prado is closed on mondays, which we forgot, unfortunately. so it was a slightly unsuccessful day in madrid, but that's okay: party tomorrow and we've got allll day wednesday to get stuff done! and then i've got a couple more days with dad. so it should be great.

the reason i'm looking forward to coming home

although i'm really sad about the program ending so soon, there are definitely going to be some great things about coming home! like these:

i just found these pictures on my computer again and thought i would share... they're from our little picnic we went on in that week i had at home before i came out here. i'm excited for more plans like this for the 6 weeks i'm at home this summer!

cuenca y teruel

this was our last adventure of the program. it was basically an opportunity to "explore our brains out" as our profe said. the cities we hit are not really known for being huge tourist spots, but are mainly just places where people live and exist with a few really cool places in between, so it was fun.

we mainly went to cuenca to check out the "casas colgadas" (hanging houses) that are pretty unique from anything we've yet seen. cuenca is famous for them and they're really pretty, although i couldn't figure out what is so crazy about them. i enjoyed them though. and we went to an abstract art exhibit there as well. it was... abstra

this was just a cool building. or set of buildings. and it was funny because (if you look at the picture below) we matched them! hahaha and each other... kristine and i bought these shirts together and our friend rhett managed to be matching us. primary colors are 1 2 3...

afterwards, we went this tiny little town called albarracin. there wasn't really much there but this cool outer wall but it is a beautiful, beautiful town.

friday night/saturday we ended up in teruel... the final stop on our trip. it was a really cute place as well. but the best pictures i took there were just me with the 3 youngest sherman kids, who feel like they might as well be related to me for how much fun they are.

we have 4 days left in our program, and then it will be over! sad! and now begins the countdown until alyse and blake's excellent adventure! (and yes, i will insist on calling it that... i won't call you blake, dad, but i think that should be the title of our weeklong trip. sound good?)

i <3 don quijote

i FINALLY got the pictures i wanted of me with my good friend! i was so happy to get this done. the first one is me with miguel de cervantes, the writer of don quijote (who was born in alcala de henares) and the second one is with don quijote and sancho panza themselves. suhweeeeet.

the prado museum

so, living so close to such a major european city, i would have been disappointed with myself if i hadn't taken advantage of visiting everything that i could and getting all the culture i could out of it. so we've been somewhat regular attendees of the museums around here. or at least, we've gone a few times, which has been a really cool experience. i've discovered that i do have some kind of artistic taste, in that i can figure out what i like and what i don't, even if i don't have very much knowledge on the style or era that it comes from. and this is what i like:

this painting is by bartolomé e. murillo, and it is called "la sagrada familia del pajarito," or "the Holy Family of the little bird." and oh my gosh, i loved it from the first time i saw it. after walking through and seeing oh so many of the same type of paintings of christ as a child (usually just a small looking person being held by mary, not a baby, with joseph nowhere to be found), it was so dang refreshing to see something so realistic and true-to-life. look at the holy family: they're just hanging out together, spending time together. joseph is being so fatherly to his young toddler. mary is sewing. jesus is playing like any normal toddler would do. i love this painting. a lot. it's even better in real size.

there's only one week left of our program, and we're still working on cramming in as much museum/madrid time as we can. man, time has flown...

just a-riding the metro

well, i can't take pictures as well as rique or kylie by any means, but in case you were curious to see how we get around the general area of madrid on a regular basis... this is how. thanks to our abonos, which are the month-long passes we have that give us free public transportation throughout all of madrid, we get to experience the excellence of the metro.
these are not typical pictures: it is rare that we get seats on the metro and it is rare that there is empty space where people are not standing. the best is when people are crowded in really close, especially with the european habit of NOT wearing deodorant is obvious. it's also really funny to me how people run like mad to catch the metro as it's leaving... when the trains come every 2 minutes. literally, every 2 minutes. i mean, if you miss it, you just have to wait for another 120 seconds for the next one to come... but people run like crazy to catch them before they leave. although that is by no means only a spanish/european thing; i know that happens in the U.S. too. it's just funny.

shout out for profe

can i just say that i love my professor and his family? they are amazing. their kids don't fight, as far as i can tell, they're HILARIOUS (like the 4-year-old who walks around telling everyone that his full name is seth lover sherman and that he thinks that jesus is a jedi knight) and some of the nicest kids in the world, and are super well-rounded. and profe and his wife are just excellent; they're so nice and just cool with us doing what we want, as long as we are following the BYU guidelines and not gallivanting off to morocco on our weekends. such a great family... we totally lucked out with getting a director that's so cool. i've heard from several other people how uptight and not-cool their directors are and it definitely plays havoc with the mood of the whole group. we just had quite an emotional noche de hogar where we all talked about how much we loved each other and thanked profe for everything he's done. it was a very nice night... my faith in BYU-related FHE's has gone up on this trip.