After yesterday's disasters, Abby and I seriously contemplated going home. If we didn't have each other it might have been almost happening. Luckily we could laugh at our stupidity and we were able to cross our fingers that it got better.. Neither of us really thought people would speak absolutely NO english. When they say "un poco ingles" after you ask if they speak english they aren't kidding, they only know "un poco" which translates to n.o.t.h.i.n.g. Good thing I can survive on doritos for a few days because that's all i could eat out of vending machines. I know numbers and can read letters, so thank god I can get food from there..
We got to sleep in before switching rooms to be with a new roommate for the next 3 days before moving in with our families. My roommate is really nice (just like everyone on the trip) and from Boston but goes to Boulder and is in a sorority--perfect :) We met up with 5 other girls who also got here a day early so we all got coffee and got to know each other. Everyone is so nice! We all are surprisingly normal so it's definitely going to make for a great semester. They're from all over so hopefully I'll have some cool places to visit later!
We made our way to the bus stop to try to go in to the city towards the beach :) The $2 i spent on an ipad app with offline city maps was the best $2 I've ever spent--because it was so helpful! Even with a map, we had no idea where we were to begin with, but once we found a big landmark we figured out how to go downhill, so luckily one of the girls knew enough spanish to get directions because street signs are not on the street. Why? Because it's spain. They are small tiles cemented into the buildings. If no numbered streets isn't confusing enough, try orienting yourself on streets that change every other block.. Not easy when it's a different language. We'll get oriented soon enough though.
We made it down to the esplanada, it's a main road thing by the beach with a ton of palm trees and mosaic tile floor to walk around. I'll put up pictures of everything soon, I just don't have time yet and we only have 1 internet cord for our 2 person room right now so it's sort of a struggle. It's so beautiful here though! After admiring all of the huge yachts, we decided we were going to meet someone who has one and can take us out on it before we leave. After walking for what seemed like days, we found the bus stop and made it back to the hotel by campus for orientation with the rest of the group.
9 pm is dinner time here, super late and I was STARVING, again.... So around then 11 of the 21 of us headed to a restaurant for tapas, a traditional type of meal kind of like a bunch of appetizers without eating a full dinner. We met some spanish student helpers who knew some english and will be helping us this semester, so it was fun trying to talk to them. They taught us a lot of spanish slang terms too, which was good to know considering my blonde hair is like gold and I've already attracted the Senegalese men..
Finally the other 10 from our program made it! They were stuck in the Madrid airport for 12 hours! Sounds terrible but they were all together so they got to know each other at least.. We had fun meeting everyone! They are from all over the country, a lot from the east coast, a lot from colorado and then washington, minnesota, and u of i! It's going to be a really fun semester with them for sure. Our directors are very friendly and thank god they don't speak spanish to us all the time yet!
Oh and by the way, posting on a blog is really difficult.. Pictures to come and another fun post of our first orientation day today. There's so much to say in so little time! I'm already having so much fun trying to remember my spanish and speak to locals. I know they think I'm so dumb because i have a terrible accent, but I'll start saying "graTHias" rather than "gracias" soon. I can't get past the lisp part yet.
Pictures to come!
-k
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