I Made It!

I’m finally in Spain!! It felt like I would never get here.

I flew in on Thursday. The plane ride didn’t feel that long, and the flight was really empty to so I ended up having 2 seats to myself, awesome! It was a Spanish airline, so they did all of the instructions in Spanish first, then English. I guess I looked Spanish because all the flight attendants talked to me in Spanish but talked to the guy behind me in English!

It was a little sad leaving Chicago because they had all this horribly slow, sappy piano music playing in the background while we took off. Fortunately they shut that off after we were in the air, but then they showed a really strange Iberia-sponsored “news show.” It all worked out in the end because I just listened to my iPod for most of the way and watched The Hangover.

The best part was when we finally reached the coast of Portugal. We flew over Porto, Portugal and its lights looked so pretty at night. The clouds kind of made it look like it was sparkling too, so my first glimpse of Europe was absolutely beautiful.

We landed in Madrid at 7 am their time. No snow here; it’s been in the 50s all week, so that’s totally awesome. Their airport was really new but sooooo long. I went through 7 or 8 moving walkways before we got to the middle of the terminal where the exit was. It was early, so nobody was really there except the people that had just gotten off my flight.

Nobody was in the line for customs either, so I got to go straight up to the guy. He took my passport, stamped it, and said, “Bienvenida a España!” and I said, “Gracias!” Oh man that was absolutely my first conversation on Spanish soil.

Later that morning, I met my host mother. She’s really nice and definitely very motherly! After she made me a traditional Spanish breakfast, she showed me the university and then took me shopping for a bottle of coke after I said I was tired. Her husband works at the bar down the street from the apartment, so apparently I can head over there whenever I want for something free. Today she gave me a glass of sherry from the 1920s; it was really good.

Spain is so different from the United States! People are really friendly and nice to each other; it’s rare to find a stranger who’s grouchy or who won’t respond when you speak to them. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is nice. The architecture of everyday buildings is gorgeous. And they only buy furniture that fits perfectly into the space it occupies, so it’s like every room has feng shui or whatever it’s called. They listen to a lot of music in English too, even if they don’t understand it. Rihanna is really popular here, and so are a couple of bands that are obscure in the US.

Woops, this is getting long. I’ll update later because now I need to buy a new jacket! I look kind of conspicuous with my big red coat haha.

Hasta luego, amigos!