Estoy en Espana!

I arrived in Spain a week ago with my friend Chrissy. We flew out of Reagan together in Washington, D.C. with a quick stop over in Coppenhagen, random. Once in Spain Marta, the niece of the program director, met us at the airport and we took a shuttle to the Hotel Paris in Madrid. After a tour of the historical part of the city and dinner out with everyone, about half of the 50 students went out to an Irish pub. Later Marta took Jessie, Diane and I to a Salsa dancing club which was awesome! I've only salsa danced once with Jerry in Washington, D.C. and I have to admit I remembered very little, but it was still fun. The next day however, I payed for my fun and I was sick the entire 7 hour bus ride to Southern Spain.

For the next week we lived in the dorms at the Universidad Internacional Menendez Pelayo in Santander Spain. Every morning we had 4 to 5 hours of Spanish class, then siesta, and from 4-6 spanish culture class. You'd think 5 hours of spanish class would be tortorous but our professor smokes so much we had a 15 min. break every 50 minutes. The best part about Santander were the people I met from other countries. UIMP offers a three week intensive spanish course for people from all over the world, and we were there for the middle week. The second night there my friends and I went to La Plaza de Canadio where I met a lot of students from UIMP, because as it turns out La Plaza is the place to be. By the end of the week I had friends from England, Ireland, France, Germany, Norway, Morroco and Greece. With so many languages being spoken, often times the only common language was spanish. So as a result, I got a lot of practice, which I greatly needed.

During the week we took trips all around southern spain, touring small historic towns, 1000 year old churches, and massive castles. Check out my link for pictures (link soon to come), they do more justice to the breathtaking scenery and pueblos than I ever could.

After a week in Santander, and many afternoons of basking on the beach (on of my favorite parts of the city), we returned to Madrid on Sunday. When we arrived at the Hotel Paris where all of our luggage was stored, there were 40 Senoras awaiting us. They were assessing us with skepticism and we were assessing them with mucho fear. I mean I have to admit, at first glance these Senoras are pretty intimidating. Laurance, my flatmate, and I were one of the first to be introduced to our senora, cheecky (I don't know how to spell it but thats how it sounds). She was appaled at our number of bags, 2 each, and couldn't get over why we would ever need so much luggage for only four months. Because of our massive amount of luggage cheecky put us in two cabs, and after telling the driver her address, sent me off alone. I tried not to panic and just enjoy the sites, but that changed when the driver stopped and told me to get out. He explained that this was number 15 like my senora said, but he didnt know where exactly I was suppose to go. So there I was with all my luggage standing on the sidewalk with no idea where I was and no senora in sight. I waited about ten minutes, contemplating the fact that I didn't know cheeckys address, her phone number, the number of our director, or have a cell phone. So I laughed. I couldn't stop laughing, and you can imagine the stares I got from the spaniards but I didn't care because if I didn't laugh hard I knew I might cry. Finally cheecky appeared around the corner and after trying for a minute or two to get her attention we finally went together to her flat.

I love love love her apartment!! It is full of antiques and character, and not mention it has a lot of space for madrid. I'm going to post pictures of our flat and cheecky soon.

I've been sick since I got here but Cheecky quickly assumed the role of surrogate mother. I'm not allowed to go out of the house without at least three layers on, even though it really is not cold out I swear! Also, she had me gargle lukewarm water and vinegar for my throat the first night I was here. Again, random. But that's Cheecky, random but hilarious.

Yesterday was our first day of classes at The College for International Studies in Madrid. I really like my professors that I've had so far. They all speak english very well and are acutally really exccited to teach us. Go figure.

Well, cheeckys amazing cook has just finished making lunch so I'm going to go eat. Hasta luego!