Spain!

Hola from Espana!

This is my second day here, but it's been so busy this is the first time I've had to write. It took a long time to get here, and I'm not quite used to being six hours ahead of Michigan time. My flight was from Chicago, and thankfully I didn't run into any major delays or have my flight cancelled. It was -12 Fahrenheit and the fuel for the plane kept freezing, but thankfully we were only delayed for about half an hour. It was about an eight hour flight to London where I had a seven and a half hour layover before coming to Madrid. I'm thankful for the long layover, since I had to take a bus to get to the next terminal and had enough time to get to where I needed to be. There were also three other people that were on the flight with me that needed to get to the same terminal, so it helped a lot to have a group to get to the right place.

Take-off from Chicago

The flight to Madrid experienced some turbulence, so I arrived in Madrid about a half hour later than I thought. After getting my luggage, I had to take a bus to the terminal where I was going to meet the group of students going to Segovia through my program. I'm so thankful everything worked out alright with all of the flight and travel stuff, since this is my first time out of the country. When we arrived to Segovia, we met our host families and went to our "new homes." I'm living with a widow whose daughter lives in the apartment above us, if I understood her correctly.

The Aqueduct of Segovia

After a wonderful siesta, we had orientation at the place we are taking classes through. We then took a short tour through Segovia, and the aqueduct was one of the places we stopped. Built by the Romans around 50 A.D., the aqueduct is one of Segovia's most famous landmarks.

The View!

Classes started this morning, and the picture above is the view from outside. The picture doesn't do it justice; it's gorgeous. The weather's pretty nice here too, no snow! My host mom keeps asking me, "Tienes frio?," (Aren't you cold?) since it's their winter here. Everyone is in their winter coats, but I'm loving the weather. The only problem that I've run into so far is that the food made me sick this morning. I think it's because it has different spices to it, but I'm not entirely sure. The food tastes wonderful, I just am working my way up to being used to it by having tea and what I think tastes like the Spanish equivalent to chicken noodle soup. Besides the food, I'm having a great time so far. I can understand most of what is being said to me and can answer back somewhat coherent enough to get by. Spain Spanish speakers have a different accent than that of the U.S. and South America, and they speak very fast. It's an adjustment to get used to, but I think I'm doing alright with it so far and it can only get better. I'm taking classes in art history, grammar, civilization, and the European Union, and I can't wait to go on our first excursion either this Friday or next.