I don't think we're in Ohio anymore...

Today was our first full day in Spain. But before that, I’ll start at the beginning...

We left Cincinnati on Saturday at about 2:45 for Atlanta. My mom and I were up until 5:15am the night before trying to pack everything and get ready-typical of my family to pack the night before and stay up the whole night. Woke up at about 8:30 so that we could leave early (ha!) to stop in Dayton on the way to Cincinnati airport and say goodbye to my grandparents. The flight over was fine, it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, and I almost cried, but held back the tears. I felt bad for Nicole, the other girl from Miami who is my roommate, she was crying a lot saying goodbye to her husband (she is 26, married). On the plane I didn’t really sleep much. We got into Madrid airport a little earlier than expected, went through immigration, got our bags, and headed out to look for Bowling Green people at about 9:30ish. We got out there and didn’t see anyone, so we waited, I knew of 2 other kids who were supposed to be getting in soon after us, so we kept an eye out for them. We waited and waited, and by 11 we still hadn’t seen anyone. Nicole and I were starting to freak out a little bit, because we hadn’t seen any of the other students or the director of our program, and we thought everyone had to be in by 11, and we weren’t sure if we were in the right place. Finally, I called the director, Susana, and she said not to worry, that she was coming at 12 and to meet by the information desk. So we moved over by the information desk, and then I saw a kid that I recognized, Nick, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was to find someone. Then, Steve came up and was relieved to see us. Out of the 5 of us that were there, Steve and another girl from Dayton had lost all of their bags, so they had nothing. We waited for what seemed like forever, finally Susana showed up. Steve and Nick went and bought beer, because they could, which was funny. The rest of the students finally came through, several had lost one or both of their bags, I felt bad for them and lucky that both of my came through. We didn’t get out of the airport until about 2, and we were all tired, especially of waiting there for so long. We took a bus to Alcalá where they dropped us off and we met our host families. My host mamá, Juani, is a really sweet 58 year old woman. Her son and his wife and their son were at her house when we got there. Her grandson was really cute, 2 ½ and reminded me of Chris, cars and trucks all over the house. She showed us our room and the house, and then we had some soup with rice and chicken and then more chicken. After resting a little bit and getting settled, we ate dinner again, tortilla francesa and real French fries that she made, then went to bed. One of the big differences over here is that lunch is at about 2:30 in the afternoon and the main meal of the day, then dinner is at about 8:30. I have to say, I think I win the award for bringing the most stuff (surprise!), and a shout out to my Miami roomie Nat, because our room is about the same size, maybe even a little smaller. But it’s fine and the house is very cute.
Today was the first day of school. We got up at about 6:30am, and my roommates back home can attest that that is very early for me, but I was able to get up on my own, shocking, I know! We had to be at school by 8:30, so we left at around 7:40 so that Juani could show us the 2 buses that we can take to school. After we got to school, we had our first class, which was Peninsular literature. I think that is going to be a pretty good class, the professor was hilarious and hopefully that will be a good class, I think it will be. Then we had our advanced grammar class. The professor told us that she tries to speak slowly but starts going quickly unconsciously, which we quickly learned was the truth. She talked very fast and by the time she let us out early from class, most of our brains hurt. She seemed nice though, hopefully it will be a good and useful class. We had to take a placement test, and did some orientation things, then had lunch, but had some time to hang out and chill in between. We had another orientation about culture shock, host families, and different stuff like that, then we were finally done for the day at about 5:30. We waited around for our mamás to come pick us up, like we were elementary school kids, which was kind of funny. We took the bus and then walked home to get to know the route a little better, but it was a little rainy and dark unfortunately. We walked around a little bit, and Juani showed us a shopping mall and came back for dinner, corn and veal and something else but I forget what it was.
Overall, Spain has been fun so far. Our class schedule got changed so now we only have one class Monday/Wednesday at 11am but then three in a row on Tuesday/Thursday. That will be tough, but all the kids seem really cool so far. There are three girls who were here last semester, so they were showing us the ropes a little bit. There have been lots of laughs so far, lots of moments of cluelessness and confusion also. Some people speak very quickly, and it can be hard to understand them. You don’t always know all of what they are saying, but usually you can get a general idea. We were talking about the trips that we are going to take and stuff too, and I think we there is a group of us that is going to go to the Olympics in Torino, Italy, so that should be really awesome and I am so excited for that. Other than that, trying to get used to the new schedule, the language, living with Juani and everything. It has been busy so far, lots to see and learn! Tomorrow we are going to meet and walk around the Plaza Cervantes, and then have class again. This weekend I think we are going into Madrid so that we can register at the embassy and they will teach us what buses to use to get there and stuff like that. Time for bed, we have to get up early again in the morning!
The internet is somewhat difficult to have access to here, so I apologize if I don’t post anything for a few days. Leave comments or drop me an email!