Hola!

So I have officially been in Spain for 11 days now and am loving every minute of it. I have finally fixed my internet after almost a week and a half of it not functioning which was so frusturating. Especially trying to explain the problem in Spanish when I really didn’t even know how to say what was wrong in English.



To recap the last 11 days of my life: I pretty much never thought I was going to make it to Madrid because of the blizzard in Chicago the day I was leaving and the fact that I got extremely lost and turned around in the Frankfurt, Germany airport. But nevertheless, I found the SMU group there and we headed two hours to Madrid. Even though we were completely exhausted when we got there, our senoras son and wife showed us around the huge city and tried to give us some helpful hints. We ate potato soup and chicken for dinner, unpacked, then repacked for our trip to Toledo the next morning.

In Toledo, we had our orientation course. We had various classes about how to live in Spain, how to deal with a Spanish family, what was going to be very different and how to deal with culture shock. We also toured La Catedral and other beautiful places there. The churches were built hundreds of years ago and had interesting gothic styles and plenty of history behind each little detail.

It also snowed in Toledo which was fun! It rarely snows in Spain, especially here in Madrid, but of course when I come I bring the snow. The weekend was fun and we all got to know each other, including the University of San Diego kids who are also in our program. We headed back on Monday and had to find our way back home on the bus. Public transportation is the way to go here. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve already taken the bus or metro to school, shopping, restaurants, bars. But its safe, clean and relatively cheap so it works. We of course got lost making our way home, and walked around for a solid 45 mins before realizing we were going the wrong way.

For the next few days we were just trying to get acquainted with the city- figure out how to get to school, what our classes are going to be like, scout out some shopping places and bars. There are more bars/cafes in Spain then there are in all of Europe combined. But the bars are all very small and they are more like coffee shops/restaurants that serve alcohol. And with every purchase of a drink, you get tapas with it- which are like appetizers.

And surprisingly, I have absolutely LOVED the food here. I am usually an incredibly picky eater but I have eaten everything that has been served to me. My policy is don’t ask, just eat because if I’m told what I’m eating I prolly won’t eat it. But I’ve eaten lots of chicken and lots of different types of meat from cows, lentils, vegetables (!! I know right?), tortilla Espanola, (so great), sopas, pasta y mas. We went out to a restaurant once last week and Gretchen ordered goose liver without knowing it so that was great. I haven’t been served fish yet (YAY) but im waiting for the day to come…

Classes have also begun. I have two classes every day. My Hispanic literature class is going to be a little difficult because I am basically the only one whose Spanish isn’t perfect (and there’s only three kids in my class). I also have a Spanish class on business, a cultural class, and a class on modern painters (all taught in Spanish oyyy). So I am going to be on campus or around campus for most of my Mon-Th and then we have Fridays off. Next week I am also going to start tutoring two boys in English.

We traveled to Segovia this past Friday and visited the royal palace in La Granja and went to see the acqueducts and another palace. We also ate cochinillo (fried baby pig) which is what Segovia is famous for. Not too bad. Then that night we all decided to have a hardcore Spanish night out- which means not coming home until the metro reopens at 6 am. Needless to say, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay up until 7 am again. I’m too old for that haha.

Other than that, it has been a lot of fun getting used to the Spanish culture. They have a lot of different rules and customs. For instance, its not creepy to stare at someone here. Like literally on the metro you will look up and find people blatantly staring at you. Breakfast consists of only cereal and toast (oo and cookies) and then I usually eat a sandwich for lunch but am STARVING by the time we eat dinner at 9:30 pm. But everyone is a lot more chill here and not in such a rush like in the states.