Hey!! ok, so it has taken me a while to get the blog up and going, but its up now and hopefully I will be diligent in keeping it updated regularly. I started the long trip to Europe in Sacramento and flew from there to Seattle, WA. Everything went well until I got to the Seattle airport to find that my flight from there to London, Heathrow had been delayed a whole hour, which turned into an hour and a half by the time we were actually leaving the ground. I sat next to an Egyptian lady on the plane and ate dinner and slept through breakfast on this flight, and made it clear across the giant Heathrow airport to my gate with about 10 minutes to spare before boarding my plane to Madrid. I had a feeling that my luggage wasn't going to make it on to my plane, and that feeling became reality when I waited and waited and waited at the baggage claim and no bright teal suitcase came out. I talked to the airline desk and the lady was able to locate my suitcase and told me it was had been put on the next flight to Madrid and should arrive that same night. She said they could deliver it to the place I was staying, but that would require giving them an address, which I, of course, didn't have on me. But the lady said not to worry because I would be able to call them with the address and they would deliver it the following morning.
I arrived at what would be my home for the next three months where I was greeted by my "madre" Maria and her daughter Alba (11). Maria hardly speaks any English at all and Alba speaks a little because she learns it at school. I had to explain the luggage situation in English and luckily Alba understood enough to tell Maria what was going on. She called to give the airline my information and they told her that they weren't sure where the luggage was and that they would contact the London airport and they would have to wait for a reply. Its now 2 whole days later and the are apparently still waiting for a reply! Needless to say, I still do not have my luggage, but luckily I had a carry-on full of clothes so I am at least getting by.
Yesterday we had orientation for school and we took a tour of the campus. It is called El Universidad De Acala, and none of the classrooms or buildings are heated so it is freezing during class. I was able to get to know some of the people in the group a little better yesterday and there are lots of fun people. There are 4 guys and 24 girls! My roommate Sami and I were the first to spot the Starbucks right by campus and spent our first euros there! The Starbucks worker gave me a very wierd look and questioned me when I asked for salt on my caramel hot chocolate. He asked if I meant sugar and I assured him that I indeed meant salt, and he handed me three little packets of salt! Later that night we went to find ourselves a hair straightener. We went to all the stores we could find in the area and we found everything but the straightener, including an alarm clock so that we no longer have to worry about waking up on time like we did this morning. For dinner, Alba made potatoes and cheese from her little chef's cook book. It was very good, but this morning at about 5am Sami and I woke up with awful stomach aches and could not go back to sleep. I think we need to get used to the cheese here or something. It wore of a by about noon, and today was the first day of class. We only had one class today so that was nice since we didn't well. It was our Spanish class and our teacher only speaks Spanish, but she is very funny and nice. Even though we felt sick we still managed to find the local mall which had a nice store called alcampo. It's kind of like a target superstore. We found ourselves a straightener, then went home for lunch. Lunch today was interesting...we had rice, an over easy egg, and slices of banana, all covered in tomato sauce (including the bananas). It was very different but not bad at all. We met up with the all the people from the group to go into Madrid for a few hours. We did a little shopping and just wandered the streets!
Aside from the fact that I don't have my suitcase, I am loving it here. Just hoping to pick up the language ASAP because I feel very helpless not being able to communicate well.
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