Uff da.

Uff da. It's a phrase that entered my life during my first year at Luther. With one roommate from Minnesota and the other from North Dakota, "Uff da" was thrown around often in our room. Too much homework? -Uff da. Something crazy happen? -Uff da. Anything at all? -Uff da.

Today "uff da" is on my mind, because of everything going on. We have entered the final, FINAL countdown. 13 days and I will be back in Grimes. Uff da.

But enough of that talk, I thought I'd share a bit about my tour of the Lladró factory. I went to the Lladró factory on Friday afternoon with 4 other girls--Jill, Claire, Colleen, and Kaitlyn. We got a little lost, since Google Maps wasn't the most precise at nailing down the location of the factory. We arrived a wee bit late, but they didn't really mind. We got to see each step in the process of making the porcelain, from starting the molds to firing the pieces. The detail is incredible. There are a bunch of people who only make flowers for the pieces. The woman made a rose, right in front of us--and she was surrounded by all the different flowers she had made that day. It was really impressive. I also really enjoyed looking through the showroom...the pieces range in price from 40 euro to 120,000 euro. It's expensive stuff. Each piece is hand-painted, and all of them are beautiful. Now the show room is the place where they are wanting you to buy a piece--I was wanting to buy one, but I wasn't enthused about the price tag. We had hear rumors that there is a "Seconds" room--that is to say a room with the pieces that have "imperfections." We asked about it, and they took us there. It was a giant room filled with pieces--all about 50% cheaper. We only found one visible imperfection. I ended up buying a piece. I'll post a picture of it when I get home. For now, it's living in a box, carefully wrapped up under my bed--and I don't feel like ruining the packaging. It was a piece that I felt fit my personality. It's nice that I now have something uniquely made in Valencia to take home--and it's something I can continue to collect for the rest of my life.

The rest of the weekend has been a mix of working and relaxing. My literature professor decided to give us a lot of work to do over the weekend, realizing that we haven't read everything that she wanted us to read. I've been working away on those readings (post Spanish Civil War short stories) plus working on reading poetry from post Spanish Civil War. We've read a lot of poetry in my lit class, which I wasn't really expecting--but we found out this week that poetry is our professor's specialty. I have a presentation in Avant Garde tomorrow, and then will spend the rest of the day enjoying Valencia. These next 2 weeks will be a mix or work and pleasure--because I will have a lot of school work to do, but I also want to enjoy my last 2 weeks in Valencia. It will be a delicate balance to maintain.

I just finished skyping with my parents earlier, and I got a full tour of our yard. I'm surprised at how green everything is, and it made me excited to get to see everything in person. I'm going to go back to work now--keep on reading and taking notes. All for now.