My friends and I made it to Spain yesterday at about 2pm Spain time. The journey was...well long.
The goodbye to my family was hard of course because I love them lots and I just have never gone somewhere far far away without them before.
Me, Kylie, Ashley, Zach... and what should be Austin :)
During customs I got patted down and my bags searched because I forgot to take my hand sanitizer out which apparently makes me a bomb threat. BUT finally I made it through and for the first flight I was in seat 1A which was right by the emergency exit door and was a single seat. SO I had no one to talk to or comfort me in the fact that the door would not blow open and suck me out.. thanks for that visual mom! ha
We had a 4 hour wait in Texas where we met up with Austin and we grabbed a bite to eat at TGIFs. It was kind of interesting because since it was an international airport there were many people from different places. Anyway.. Kylie and I were sitting together on the flight from Texas to Madrid and we were asked if we would possibly switch spots with a woman and her baby because she needed the basket hanger we had in front of us. He then offered us free wine for the trip. So, as a given we took the offer and switched spots. This was also my first encounter with a woman who only spoke Spanish; a challenge but also exhilarating!
The plane ride went smoothly and when we landed in Madrid at about 11am Spain time; we got fast passes because our plane was late due to maintenance (scaryyy) and our flight to Granada was leaving in 45 min. We had to run to customs and to the train and down the escalators to finally find where our plane was to take off. Needless to say it was chaotic and we broke a sweat. ha!
The journey from Texas to Madrid
Chillin in the Madrid airport waiting for our connecting flight to GRANADA!
Our flight landed in Granada and the sights were beautiful!! .. I'll post pictures :)
The airport was extremely small but we figured out which bus to take... in Europe they are less concerned with time so we were told the bus was going to leave in 4 minutes but after we sat on the bus for an hour.. it finally left.
The bus dropped us off in the downtown part of Granada kind of by Hotel Melia which is where we will meet at tomorrow at noon for orientation and to meet our host families! :D Last night we stayed at the Best Western and it was quite the adventure trying to find it. We lugged around over 100 lbs of luggage up mountains and hills for what seemed like foreeeevr before we finally found it. The directions we got from some of the residents here didn't make sense to us :S yet.
We got all settled in, showered, and ready for the night. We hadn't slept at all yet but we were trying to get accustomed to the time change. We went out to a place called Murphy's which was a bar. My friends ordered drinks and I got a water (which costs money... sorry dad) If you buy drinks you get free tapas..which ours included chips drizzled in oil and 6 biscuit halves with melted cheese and onions. The cuisine is definitely different. The man who owned the bar was VERY friendly and spoke decent English so he asked us about our studies here and told us on Sunday nights they have an international speaking convention where people just sit and talk to other natives to better themselves in the language which is perfect for us! He also said if we want to watch American sports we can come any time haha
I ended up staying the night with a gal named Malissa Larson (crazy right?!) that we met on the plane to Granada. She was traveling alone and had a room booked for 2 so I stayed with her! She is super nice and will be in the Central program as well. We set an alarm for 9am and had the breakfast at the hotel.... for 9 euros grr. It consisted of things like toast, warm milk and cereal such as oats, kiwi, oranges, melon, and assorted meats. Like I said.. I'm still trying to get accustomed to the differences in cuisine.
After breakfast we embarked on our journey of the city and I got a phone! Although.. it's not that cool because it doesn't make international calls :( It will however make it a lot easier to keep in touch with other members of the Central Abroad program. We had lunch at our hotel's restaurant and I got a hamburger that was REAL ham in a circle with a fried egg. Zach got swordfish and Austin got salmon. Fish Fish Fish!!
Malissa and I met up with some other members of the program that arrived today and again explored Granada. :) That is about the extent of what I have done so far.
LOVE you all so much!!
I would love to set up a time to skype with you family... miss you.
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