Day 24: La cuenta, por favor

The sun sets over Parc Güell, Barcelona

BARCELONA, Spain -- It's my last day in the library before I take a few days off and then head on home, so I thought I'd take stock of what I set out to do, and what I actually did this month.

√ Work (and how!)
√ Travel (I managed to hit points North-Barcelona, South-Granada, East-Valencia, West-Salamanca and middle-Madrid of the Iberian Peninsula)
Buy a pair of Camper shoes (nope -- I just wasn't wowed by this years' modelos, and what with the dollar being such a pansy compared to the euro...)
√ Polish up my Spanish and Catalan (I've been mistaken for Spanish once -- which is pretty exciting, considering I could never actually pass for a Spaniard -- and have, as usual, been humbled in both languages.)
See current Spanish movies (No new releases, alas. There just wasn't anything in the theater worth seeing. I have watched 6 or 8 in the library, though, and bought plenty of DVDs to take home)
√ Eat Spanish food and drink Spanish wine (aside from two days in Madrid when my body roundly rejected all Spanish comestibles, I think I took care of this one. I have eaten paella no less than 10 times.)
√ Visit friends/colleagues (I never did find the real Gael, but I've gotten to hang out with my friend Adame in four cities, stopped in on a former professor of mine in Madrid, a colleague from Amherst in Salamanca, some friends from Cal in Barcelona whom I hadn't seen in a long time, and my two host brothers from my 1996-97 year abroad, one of whom has changed his name from Jorge to Bhati after a trip to India, which actually doesn't surprise me at all)
√ Absorb current Spanish culture by osmosis (difficult to quantify, but I did it)
Avoid Spanish lottery pyramid schemes (well, to be honest, I wasn't really expecting this one, but I still failed at it. I was roped by friends into spending 8 euros toward ONCE lottery tickets -- Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles, which at least support services for the blind in Spain -- from which our conglomerate won 34 euros, subsequently reinvested in more ONCE lottery tickets. I have been promised a timeshare in Palma de Mallorca when we hit el gordo)

All in all, a good month. Thanks for reading along! Just like my favorite Barcelona lechería (aka dairy barn), the SJBlog is going to be Tancat per vacances for a few weeks while its founder, CEO, and general editor makes her way from Spain's second-largest metropolis to Northern Wisconsin's most isolated, off-the-grid island, reuniting with her twittering dog and patient dogsitter in the process. Fins després!