Prontisimo.

      Prontisimo in Spanish means extremely fast, or soon. That is how I feel about what is going on at the moment to some of my exchanger friends. On May 17th all of our host parents received an email from the Rotary member who is the head of exchange in Pamplona. The email stated that those of us who are in Segundo Bachillerato (senior class) will end their exchange on May 20th. At that point it was up to the host families if they wanted to let us stay longer, with permission from our parents in the U.S., taking all responsibility of we students until we fly home. The Rotary here states that we are no longer their responsibility. Three days in advance. The 20th is tomorrow. I am very fortunate to have the host family that I do, because they are willing to let me stay until I leave for the Euro trip with my family (June 11th). On the other hand, some families are not so willing to let us stay in their houses. My friend Tabea is boarding a plane to her home in Germany on Saturday. She's been packing and planning and printing out tickets. She can no longer come to Malaga with the rest of the group, but she's handling everything really well. She is so excited to see her family and friends again in Germany, but sad to leave Pamplona, and as we like to call ourselves, the Pamplonians. Now, Mitchell's situation is a bit more problematic than Tabs' because his current host family says that he must leave on the 20th. There are no flights out of Pamplona before then with such short notice. He needs a place to live. By tomorrow.
     With all this said, I can now tell you what how we've been spending our past couple of days. All of us have been calling home telling our parents to write up permission letters, get them notarized, scanned, and sent to our counselor stating that we're basically no longer exchange students. That was the easy part. Tabs sat in an internet cafe yesterday with her computer in front of her and coffee in hand. We all met her at the cafe and talked in a state of shock once we heard the news about her early departure. We don't want to see her go. Not yet. We were supposed to have a month left with her. Our Tabby Kat. We then left Tabs to talk to her mom and figure things out while we went to the supermarket and a million places down town looking for flyers with places for rent for Mitchell. We got quite a few numbers and held on to them to call later. Natalie and Mitchell went home for lunch and Elle, Athena, and I went to a store to get some bread, cheese, yogurt, and cereal for lunch. We walked to our favorite park and met Tabs there and ate our lunch. We stayed there for hours forgetting about all these problems and laughing about all of our memories while we created more. It was the perfect lunch. Later,  Bex, Nat, and Mitch met us there and we talked while Becca drew cheebies of all of us (cheebies are little animated pictures of people...I don't know the right way to describe them...) and they are so cute!! After an hour or so we left the park to look at hostel prices for Mitchell. On the way I fell for no apparent reason...until I looked down and saw that my new shoes had broken. It was only my second time wearing them so I was sad. Bex reassured me we could super glue them (thank goodness...they were 30 Euro). We went to lots of hostels and found out that they were all pretty expensive...about 30 Euro a night. That's really expensive for a hostel. In Madrid we paid about 12 Euro a night. The we all split up. Mitch and Elle went to another hostel, Nat and Athena went to put money on their bus cards, and Becca and I went to buy super glue. We all met at Athena and Mitch's bus stop. Becca fixed my shoe and then we all went home for dinner. I had fried plantains, cheese, and a banana smoothie. It's one of my favorite meals here :)
      Last night I received the "okay" from the guy in charge here saying that he received the permission from my parents and I can travel and basically do what I want...(because he is not responsible...) Tonight we are all supposed to meet our counselors at 10 in the evening (that's right...PM....seriously?) to get our insurance fund of 400 Euro. I'll be happy to have that money and to be done. I have had an absolutely incredible experience here. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but I can't say it was because of the Spanish Rotary. I was told before I came that the Rotary was not strong. I was asked if I was a strong person and I replied "yes, of course." It's a good thing I am...and it's a great thing that I have amazing exchange student friends here. I don't believe that it is acceptable to throw a student out on the street with three days notice. I don't think that is ethical in any way. Now my friends are in such a pickle (Athena decided this was the best word :P haha). We are making the best of it though, and still having a great time with the time we have all together. Que pena, que pena. Have a nice Thursday everyone.