Study Abroad
Day 1
Thursday, January 19th 10:45 AM

And by “Day 1” I mean the 17th and 18th of January turned into one giant super day. Danielle and I (plus various parents) got ourselves to the airport by about 11. For a flight that left a 2:17. So, let me tell you, by 2:17 we were ready to go. We got checked in, I got some Euros, said goodbye.

It has been very strange saying goodbye to everybody in the last week, as if I can just press the pause button on my life in Minnesota and expect everything to be exactly the same when I get back. Because it probably won’t be. And I probably won’t be. As much as I told them not to, my friends will have fun without me, and Jack will probably grow another 8 inches by the time see him again.

After going through security, Danielle and I got some lunch at Chili’s. There was a nice lady sitting at the table next to us that overheard us talking about Spain and told us a little about her trip there. On her next trip, she and her “cute man” are going to see Eastern Europe.
We hiked down to the gate and got on probably the most cramped plane I’ve ever been on that didn’t land on a lake in Canada. Our backpacks didn’t even fit in the overhead bins; they had to temporarily check them for us.

The flight to Atlanta was bumpy but went by pretty fast. It was raining pretty heavily, so we landed a few minutes late. Now, an hour layover in Atlanta seemed like a pretty long one in my head, but by the time we sprinted down about a mile of Atlanta airport, arriving at the gate as they were paging our names, we realized we’d made it just in time. We sat down in our seats panting, but considering we weren’t going anywhere for the next 8 hours, we had time to settle down.

The flight was pretty uneventful. Danielle slept a little, I didn’t really. We watched “The Constant Gardener” which was good. I did not throw up, which was even better. When we arrived in Madrid, it was 9 in the morning, though it felt like the middle of the night. We got our passports stamped and stood around the baggage area just long enough for them to tell us our bags, not having legs, were not able to run to the plane as fast as we had and were still sitting in Atlanta. And for some reason neither of us had the address of the Fundacion on us so we couldn’t tell them where to send our bags when they came in.

We found Yuki and Miguel who were standing outside customs holding up the Fund sign along with 3 of our Puertoriccan classmates who seemed to have packed everything they owned. But they kept us entertained while Miguel called the airline to let them know where to send our suitcases. Shampoo and clean underwear are arriving this afternoon. I can’t wait.
Do you see how this day goes on and on? We got on the bus with the rest of the world whose suitcases had made it and had a nice hour-long south to Toledo. We listened to Spain’s Top 40 radio, which consisted of about 25% Spanish songs and 75% crappy American pop songs from 5 years ago. Faith Hill made an appearance. It was painful.

A truck had to take two trips to get our crapload of baggage up into Toledo. The upside of losing ours is that we didn’t have to haul two suitcases down the cobblestone streets and up 3 flights of stairs to our room.

The rest of the day consisted of a tour of the Fundacion and trying not to lie down and fall asleep. After the tour, Danielle and I took a walk around the city, making our way up to Plaza Zocodover, then trying to get as lost as possible (you can’t go too far, it’s a walled city). After about 20 minutes, we stumbled upon the doorstep to the Fundacion. While some of the students met their host families, Danielle, another girl and I drifted in and out of consciousness watching “The 40 year old Virgin.” I think it’s about a guy, or something, and he’s, like, a virgin. I can’t be sure. I wasn’t quite awake. By this time it was about 7, and waiting until after an 8:30 dinner to go to sleep seemed somewhat impossible. So I had a handful of Goldfish crackers and went to sleep.

It is SO LOUD in this building. I’m not sure how I got any sleep at all, between every noise echoing and inexplicably waking up to pee numerous times. I share my room with Danielle, and we share a bathroom with two other girls, Robin and Kelly. Robin is about 8 feet tall and Kelly arrived late last night. Both are nice.

This morning I got up at 8:30 (though I was probably awake about 3 hours before that), kind of showered (c’mon, suitcase) and went down for some desayuno. I had some sort of pastry with sprinkles on it and a pear. Spain has my kind of breakfast. At 9 we had to take a placement test. To be honest, it didn’t make me nervous. First, because it wasn’t that hard and second, you can’t fail. They’re not going to send you home. And even if they recommend you don’t take a certain class, you can still take it if you really feel strongly about it. At 12:50 I have an interview, though, which makes me a little more nervous because I don’t think I’ve spoken an articulate sentence in Spanish for about 6 years. But I’ll get it there.

Meals are late here—1:30 comida and 8:30 cena. We’re having a tour of the city at 3, plus some more orientation and a welcome party tonight. Tomorrow we’re leaving for an excurcion to Madrid. Classes start on Monday.