Time is dwindling...

Ahhh! I can't believe how little time I have left here and I can't help but thinking about how hard it will be to readjust to life in the US. Everything is so much more laid back here! Plus, I've gotten used to not having a ton of school work...not good for next year. So not too much exciting has been happening, just trying to enjoy the time I have left with the friends I've made here. It's so sad! On Saturday the ISA group went to the Albufera, a natural reserve about 20 minutes outside of Valencia. We went on a boat through it, which was fun. the weather was perfect! After we went to the beach outside of it, which was even more gorgeous than the Valencian beaches and had so many waves!
The next day, Jenna and I went for a walk in the rio and came upon a festival in the park. In Sevilla for the past week there has been the "ferrier de sevilla", a celebration for Sevilla kind of like our Fallas, where everyone dresses up in traditional clothes etc. The festival in the rio was put on by the people who used to live in Sevilla but not live in Valencia. Lots of women and little girls were dressed up in traditional flamenco outfits and there was lots of food. In addition, they had horses-Andalusians! They were gorgeous, and they had a rink where they were showing them, prancing and rearing. It was fun, except one of the men was using spurs on his poor gorgeous horse and it was starting to bleed. Our Spanish mom also showed us pictures from when she was a little girl and her mom had dressed her up for every festival. There were pictures of her as a Valencian fallera and wearing the Sevillian flamenco dress. It was adorable. She grew up in Madrid with her family, and has one son who works as a translator on a cruise ship...so he gets to travel the world. Really cool. Susana is a really smart woman and I look up to her a lot. She's really smart and knows everything about politics as well as every spanish celebrity. She loves animals, and apparently had to stop watching Snakes on a Plane because there's a part where the snakes kill the animals in storage...nevermind the part before where people shot each other. She's very progressive and I like to listen to her thoughts about the world. For instance, there's a major social issue here with immagrants from Africa who can't get work permits. They're fleeing from much worse situations, but without work permits can't survive. Therefore, they make a living selling illegal things like pirated movies and knock off designer handbags. They're everywhere, and when the police come, they grab their goods and take off. Our host mom buys from them because she says it's much better than having them steal from people to earn a living. It's an interesting concept: which illegality is worse?
I think that all of the social and political issues here are very interesting. Some are the same but some are entirely different. I need to continue to keep up on my European politics when I return the the U.S....which is really soon. Oh man.