Estoy en España!!! It all happened so quickly, but all of a sudden I'm sitting in this cute Spaniard apartment. The flight went well, 8 hours is long any way you do it, but after about half way done my neck, legs, and back all began to ache, and I forgot my ibuprofen in my carry-on which was stowed above me. The flight itself was interesting because I sat next to a girl who had done a study abroad 2 years ago but came back to do an internship, so she gave me all kinds of good advice.
My Spanish mother is super sweet and caring from the beginning. She lives alone but takes in students I think to keep her company. She told us right off the bat that she had had other students form our church and that she has a picture of President Kimball y un libro de mormón... Of course I only understood about 1/3 of that to begin with, but I can usually pick out the gist of what she's trying to say. The accent here is very different from that of the Mexicans so when we first got here I had a hard time understanding anything at all. Right now, it's hard because my brain needs alot of sleep that it \can't get (i'm trying to fight off jet-lag).
Everything here is basically looks the same as in the United States, until you get to the towns themselves. They look like the typical "spanish stereotype" architecture. I'll post pictures soon. ALso right when we pulled up into the calle, there was a fiesta going on right there in the street. It was a pretty cool start to our spanish adventure to see this right away. It's not as odd as I would think to only be surrounded by Spanish. I have noticed that it's so much easier to speak spanish here than at home...of course. And now it's not even odd that I don't hear much English. (If you noticed that i'm talking in circles its because of the jet lag---if i take a nap i won't wake up...the typing is putting me to sleep but if i stop i'll fall asleep.
Tonight our madre (Pilar) took me and Jen, my roommate, out around the plaza when she when to the mercado. I was a little surprised to see that everything is very similar to the US. They even have Oscar Meyer hotdogs.
On that topic, our first comida in spain was, well, huge. What it was was this well, pasta dish-with a chinese kick to it. We came into the little kitchen and she had made us a huge plate. Well we dug in--it was a little slimy on the way down and spicy but pretty good. Well both Jen and I were starting to feel full after about half the plate was gone--then she brings us chicken (a huge, huge piece) I thought I was going to burst. I didn't want to be rude so I ate as much as i could (it was good though)...Then she brings out bread and this beat dish...she told me to try it so I did and I thought I was going to barf...no joke. It's a good thing the water was there!! I think it was the texture. THEN, after that, she brought out this huge slice of melon-which was fantastic, kind of like a mush-melon...but anyways, now i'm stuffed and it's definitely siesta time. Oh, Pilar likes to cook things in olive oil--no bueno. But I guess this means that I will get a lot of use out of those new running shoes I bought before leaving the States.
I keep thinking that tonight I'll go to bed here, but then in the morning will be back in Indiana. Estoy en españa but it still seems so unreal to me. Anyways.creo que es todo--for now. Hasta luego!
