Day one in España

Day one in Spain

-We spent the morning before I left in a packing frenzy as I tried to make my suitcase light enough to take, which eventually we were able to

-Ryne came over to say goodbyeL I actually didn’t cry, probably because I was all cried out from the day before

-We went to Target to pick up a few last minute things

-We got Chipotle for my final meal

-Ryne left and me and my parents headed to the airport where we sat around for a while before I finally had to head into the gate

-I went through security and for some reason they had to look through my bag L, but it all worked out!

-I went to exchange money, which took forever

-I bought two Chicago mugs for my host family at a gift shop

-I headed to my gate where I saw lots of people who were clearly from Spain, which was cool!

-On the plane I sat next to an older man who was on his way to Italy to meet his wife who he had not seen in 3 months because she is a nurse on a cruise line. Now they are taking a trip all around Europe together

-When I arrived in Madrid I was greeted by an airport person that told me I would not make my flight to Granada so they had to put me on a different one that was about 3 hours later!! I was sooo bummed. I walked around the airport trying to find a payphone so that I could call my program and let them know I would be late. I asked about 3 people where the phone was in Spanish because I could never understand their responses and was too embarrassed to tell them that.

-Finally I found a payphone, but I could not figure out how to use it -_-

-I asked a nice looking lady if I could use her phone and she said yes, probably because I was on the verge of tears over the whole situation

-I talked to one of the program directors in Granada (Christina), and she told me I would just need to take a bus or taxi to the hotel instead of getting picked up. Ugh!!

-I trudged around the airport for a while, took a nap, and freshened up in the bathroom before finally heading to my gate

-As I sat on a bench, the girl sitting across from me asked if I was going to Granada for the Arcadia program! Yayyy!!! Her name is Shannon and she is super nice! She came from Chicago too and also missed her flight. I was so relieved. I found out she is from California but she goes to school in Ohio and plays rugby

-Eventually we were flagged down by another group of people our age who were also with our program, it turns out we were all on the Chicago flight so we will still be getting picked up whoo hoo!

-The names of the other people I met are Brandon, Emily, Julia, and Dove. We had lots to talk about on the plane since we all had so much in common, yet we all were from different places. It is a very cool experience to hear about where everyone is from, what is the same and what is different.

-We arrived in Granada after a very short plane ride and we were picked up by two of the coolest, nicest young women in the world! Their names are Triana y Christina and they will be the ones managing our program while we are here

-We took a bus into the city of Granada where we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and headed straight to lunch at about 2:30 (they eat very late here)

-The city is sooo beautiful it is insane, it does not even look real. The place where we ate was outside in the beautiful sun with umbrellas everywhere next to a river, and literally had street guitar players playing the absolute perfect Spanish music. It was something out of a Rick Steves travel movie.

-At lunch we ordered various tapas and shared them, which was fun and a good bonding thing! We all got to know a little more about each other too!

-After lunch we had a couple of hours of orientation talk just about safety and all that boring stuff. Granada is known as a very safe city, there are just a couple parts they said to avoid

-After orientation we had free time for the rest of the evening which began at about 5 o clock

-Me and my new pals walked around the city and looked for places to buy cheap phones so that we can communicate with each other while we are here

-I got a pay as you go phone for 40€ which included 20€ free. Every text costs a cent and a phone call starts at 16 cent and is 1 cent after every minute

-The quest for the perfect deal on a phone lasted a while but we got to know the city a lot as we did it.

-We also got to practice our Spanish with each other and with the Grenadine people

-As we walked we saw a large group of Spanish boys on one side of the street and a large group of girls on the other side of the street singing something in Spanish to each other. We are told it was probably some kind of college initiation night for first years. Apparently something like that happens for bachelor/bachelorette parties too

-At about 9 o clock we headed to a restaurant for dinner, even though we were all exhausted

-The restaurant was called la cueva and was basically my worst nightmare because the theme seemed to be dead pig L

-I ordered onion soup because I wasn’t that hungry and didn’t feel like spending much dinero. Turned out it had ham in it even though I asked they waiter and he said it didn’t! Oh well it was easy to pick out.

-I love not having to tip at restaurants here, although you really have to flag down the waiters when you need them though

-After the restaurant we went straight back to the hotel which was really close and we went to bed early because we have a placement test for our classes tomorrow.

Interesting things I noticed

-Men look very metro

-TONS of hippies live here

- People tend to arrive late in Spain, which will be interesting because in America we are very time oriented and structured

-Style is very diverse