Up Until Now

Hola!

So I just started my second week of classes. I've been here for 11 days! Let's start at the beginning.

I left Chicago on January 6th and had a layover at JFK in New York. When we flew into New York, I tried so hard to spot the Statue of Liberty but had no luck. Quick layover there then off to Madrid. That flight wasn't bad at all. I was next to a Spanish couple and they were really nice. We got a nice dinner and a box of breakfast food which was cool. I tried to practice my Spanish by watching Shrek 3 in Spanish but I got too bored and slept on and off. The flight was only like 6 hours so not bad at all. But the Madrid airport was so confusing! It was a little scary. My gate for my flight to Alicante wasn't very obvious so I wandered around for a little while and then kinda figured out where I was supposed to go. When I finally got to the gate I met some of the kids from my program. I purposely wore my Mizzou hoodie so people could identify me and it worked! A couple guys from my program came up to me and introduced themselves and we talked until our flight left. A quick hour long flight to Alicante and we went to get our baggage. We met up with Armando, one of our program supervisors, and took a bus to our hotel.

When we got to our hotel we met a few people who had already arrived and then we had a chance to get settled and nap if we wanted. Slowly, people arrived through the night and around 8pm we all went to dinner with Armando and his wife Cynthia (our other supervisor). In Spain they have different meal times. They had a light breakfast and then lunch at ~3pm, which is usually a very big meal, and then a small dinner around ~8:30pm. So it was nice to get to meet everybody in the program.

The rest of the weekend we toured the city of Alicante and then we toured the University of Alicante, where we all take classes. During our free time we broke off into groups and hit the town. My group found a cheap restaurant and I had paella (rice and fish dish) and tortilla espanola (sort of a potato and cheese omelet) for the first time. Both are typical Spanish dishes. The tortilla was delicious! The paella, not so much. Just like the picture I linked too, the shrimp came with heads attached. It was quite unappetizing. But after eating, we just walked around and then called it a night. That whole weekend, I avoided taking naps so I could fight jet lag and I did it! I beat jet lag! I settled into the new time zone and new schedule so well! I was really pleased with myself.

So on Sunday after our tour of the university, our host families met us at the hotel we were staying at. One by one, we got taken to our homes. My host mom/madre, Alejandra, was one of the first people to get there, so I didn't have to wait very long. We walked back to her apartment, and she told me about her family. At her apartment I met her husband, Fabian(?), and her 16 year-old daughter, Lucia, and their little dog, Azucar. (This might be his/her name, I can't really tell by how they pronounce it. If that is his/her name, it means "sugar".) The introductions went in one ear and out the other. For the first few days I couldn't remember the dad's/padre's name or the madre's name, only the daughter and the dog. But after calling my madre "senora" a few times she corrected me and told me not to be so formal, but to call her Alejandra.

So I moved in on Sunday and it was so nice to be able to unpack. I have my own room here. They have a pretty big apartment. It's got 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a decent sized kitchen and a nice living room, dining room, and balcony. And it's just the four of us here. I think they have other kids/step kids who have moved out. After I had unpacked, I left the apartment and went exploring in the neighborhood. I live pretty close to downtown and the main street. I had to find the bus stop to school by myself and that was a little difficult. But I found it eventually. So I continued walking around and memorizing stores so I wouldn't get lost. By now I'm pretty good and knowing the main parts of town. I'm proud of myself! It's really hard because the street names are so hard to remember. It would be so much easier if they were only one word names instead of Alfonso X El Sabio and Bendito Perez Galdos and Poeta Carmelo Calvo. Oh well.

On Monday I started class. It takes me a total of about 35 minutes to walk from my apartment to the bus and for the bus to get to the university and to walk to my class. Not bad at all.
These first four weeks I have one class (three credit hours) that's basic Spanish grammar from noon to three. It's a class of international students so it's me, three American kids from my program, four Russian kids, a boy from France (Alsace-Lorraine- that's where my maternal grandmother's family is from!), an Icelandic girl, and a girl from Shanghai. I think it's so cool that the only way we can communicate is Spanish! When in my life will I ever meet a girl from Iceland?! Probably never.

Then in February I'll start three new classes (nine credit hours) through the actual university, instead of through their international center. I'll be in class with Spanish kids! I don't know yet which classes I'm taking but I need to take a Spanish literature class and a Spanish culture class.
Then after those classes end in May, I'm taking a week long class called El Camino de Santiago. It's a pilgrimage through northern Spain. You walk a total of 60 miles during the week and walk through a bunch of cities! I get three credits for that class. It counts as a religion class, and then after the walk, I have to turn in a ten page paper of my experiences during the walk. So basically just a travel journal.

The university's campus is so beautiful! When we got here the weather was ~60 degrees and it's getting a little colder now, but it's still better than Chicago or Columbia, Missouri right? My campus is a certified botanical garden. Before it was a university, it was an airport. There's a building they call the Torre de Control (Control Tower) and it looks just like the control tower at an airport! Scattered around campus are dozens of fountains and orange trees and random varieties of trees. I've seen pine trees and cacti and palm trees. It's crazy. Here are a couple examples.

The picture of the orange tree is a view from my classroom. Jealous? Yeah, it's like I go to school in paradise.

So I just started my second week of classes, and it's going well. I'm placed a little to low, most stuff is a review but it's not that big of a deal. It's good to review verb conjugation and I am learning some vocab. And I'd rather be a smart person in an average class than an average person in a difficult class. It's strange because my teacher doesn't even speak English. So it's definitely a good class. When we don't understand something he has to explain it in Spanish instead of just translating it into English.

A little about Spanish night life- Spaniards stay up much later than Americans. They eat dinner much later and so night life begins much later. Restaurants stay open much later and bars open very later. Most people don't even start going out until midnight or later and bars stay open until 5am or later!! I went out last Thursday night and met people at 11:30 and we stayed out until 3am. I was pretty exhausted but as I was walking home I saw that the bars were still packed, and people were still going strong! It's intense.

Then this past weekend our program had a trip to Granada! I was really excited to go but it'll be a lot to tell so I'll leave that for next time.

Hasta luego!