A Well-Deserved Day Off

...is what I had today.
At least that (the well-deserved bit) is what I think after I have written my final exam last Friday. It was not easy, but not overly hard, either. I was well prepared, but you know what it's like; there is always a small portion of luck coming into it. We were tested on eight different subjects, and some of the questions were open to interpretation, as were some of the answers for the multiple choice parts. Most of my class mates seemed to be rather happy after the exams, but two of them admitted to have been completely blank with at least one question each. I wasn't blank in any topic, but I still find it nearly impossible to tell how well (or not) I've done. Ah well, I'll know more in six weeks time!

It was a week stuffed to the brim with classes and revising, but I still managed to get a walk in every evening after our lessons for the day ended and before sitting down in my hotel room to do more revising.

Maybe you remember that I "discovered" a piece of El Camino de Santiago, or St. James' Way, during my previous stay in Ulm. This post tells you more, and also shows pictures of a nearby village that I wanted to walk to during my next stay. That next stay was now, and I did indeed walk to the village. 

However, it was somewhat disappointing; when I arrived at the bottom of the hill and stood opposite the road leading into the village, I found it a lot less appealing than what it had looked like from afar. Therefore, instead of going into the village itself, I chose to walk along the road and back into the woods on a different path, where I had not been before.

 
I met a group of eight young bulls; they were only looking at first, but when I didn't just walk past but stood at their fence for a few minutes, they became more interested and came closer and closer to the fence until I walked away. What went on behind those handsome big brown eyes I have not the slightest idea.

On the Thursday evening, I was surprised at how nostalgic I felt at the thought of leaving it all behind tomorrow, and (most likely) never going back to this place. If you look at it on the calendar, it does not seem much - one week in March, one in May and one in June - but those three weeks were very intense weeks. Also, because we saw everything from snow (in March) to spring (in May) and summer (this time), it felt a lot more than just three weeks. I had been walking those same familiar paths so many times, it felt as if I'd lived there for a while and not just been there for a brief period.

So I went for a "good-bye-walk" along the fields where I'd walked the most, and took a few last pictures. How dry it was in some places, compared to the lush green freshness of May!

Back at the hotel, it was time to join my class mates downstairs in the lounge to watch the Football World Cup (it was the match Germany v. USA). I am usually not at all interested in watching any type of sports on telly, but it was fun watching a "big" match as a group, and I had bought bags of crisps and some sweets for the lot. The match itself was rather boring, but it was our last evening there, and the last occasion to spend time with my class mates. 

Good job the match started at 6.00 pm already! It meant we could all have an early night and get enough sleep to be fit for the next day, or (as some of them did) even put in some more hours over their books and ledgers.

I slept very well that night (as I usually do), but I still need to remind myself every now and then that what started in March with this post has now come to an end. Even if I have failed one or more of the subjects, I will only have to go back to write the exam in that particular subject and not for a whole week - but I hope it won't come to that.