ESTOY AQUI! (i am here...)

BUENOS DIAS! well, i guess its after 6 now so its more like BUENOS TARDES!!! remember, 6 hour time difference. lets see....

i got here 2 days ago. the flight went smoothly- said bye to les, mom, and dad as i passed through security and from there i went to find my terminal and such. british airways was amazing- i highly suggest it. everyone had a awesome accent- any rubbish for me to get rid of? cheerio!--- you know, the regular. so the flight was 6 hours long and i did not sleep a wink. dad, i know you would be interestd to know what we got to eat on the plane. wellll i got chicken and pasta with a side salad with feta cheese and crasins, a piece of apple pie, a roll, and kit kats. lol- it wasnt bad considering its plane food. then they turned off the lights and like, 2 hours later they turn the lights on and announce breakfast. silly silly silly. i TRIED to fall asleep but i couldnt so i did some sudoku, played around with the touchscreen tv i had in front of me and watched moulin rouge, listened to music etc. i had an isle seat in row 50--- you know how those big planes have 2 aisles so its 3 seats, 4 seats, 3 seats going across the plane? well i was on the aisle in the middle (does that make sense? seat 50D out of 50A through J) well anyways.... basically the seat next to me had NOONE IN IT!!! so i had some elbow room. that was nice.

then i had a layover in heathrow which i was really concerned about but i had enough time becuase our plane arrived earlier than expected due to very strong tail winds. so, i got to the right terminal, which was a small miracle, and we were loaded right onto the plane again. i was laughing a little bit to myself because as we were getting on there was a group of tourists from china (i think) that SOMEHOW ended up getting rows 15-32 window seats only. really funny watching that happen. the food on that flight was basically inexistant, but i was fine with it cause i had m&ms my mom packed for me for my flight over..... yummmm.

i arrived and go through customs (dude, he didnt even ask questions. he just marked my passport and let me through, nbd (no big deal)). i picked up my luggage and used some spanish skills to find out where patricia witzig was giong to be meeting me.

i found her! it was nice... i had been traveling for a while and was quiiiiite exhausted so we spoke in english for a while and she drove me to the hostel where my friends jeanie, jeanette and kara were staying. she dropped me off quick on the busy street and showed me the entrance and said the hostel was on teh 7th floor... so me with my HUGEEEE bags was a funny sight. i found the hostel and the room (again, funny with the owners of the hostels because they were confused which room i was in) and walked in on the girls all dead asleep. GOOOOOD MORNINNGNNNGGG SUNSHINES!!!! we all reunited, i was very very energetic, then i crashed until dinner. we walked around the city at 8 ish... which is still sortof early for a spanish dinner, but found a little pizzaria and we all split 2 pizzas and wine for 20 euro.... what a deal!

the next day the rest of the students were going to be arriving so we had to move to the hotel next door that was reserved by our program and we got to meet the others in the group. overall there are 13 of us- its cute, and small! 6 from catholic, 6 from ripon in wisconsin, and 1 from bard college. the director picked us up at 8 for a tapas dinner and handed off a handbook of rules etc.

we fell asleep, and now it is sunday, and this morning we had breakfast at the hotel, and met our host families! the senora of the house is named concha, and she has a son, daughter and a dog. her daughter has recently moved out of the house and is renting with friends, and her son is my age and studying engineering at a nearby college. one of the girls from ripon in wisconsin, katie, is also living in the flat. i have the CUTEST room. it is painted tiffany blue and there is a corner baclony with all these potted plants looking out onto the city street! its amazing. we are all on the 5th floor of our building and its very small, but its very typical, especially in the city. i am near a few metro stops which will be helpful getting to school, about a 30 minute ride. if i go downstairs and walk along the streets it is very safe, and there are sooooo many places to eat, places to watch movies, cafes,.... so much to do and see. its still intimidating walking around and giong into places especially when they are busy because of the language barrier, but i just had lunch a few hours ago and got through the how conversation in spanish so i guess so far so good.

ok, tomorrow we have breakfast at puente de sol (google map it... its near the center of the city) to have churros con chocolate for breakfast.... my type of meal!

this has been a very long blog, i guess its nice to be able to use english to express myself! xoxoxo i love you all. ps. mom, get skype, cause laura and i just used it and it was very very dandy.

CIAO! HASTA LUEGO!