I've been in Spain for FOUR days now. Some of the longest, yet shortest days of my life. Let's start at the beginning....
Thursday- Saturday (August 25 - 27): I had a blast in Chicago spending time with my sister! I saw a mass Zumba going on at Millennium Park
Sunday (August 28): I spent some more quality time with my family at Lake Huron and then hung out with one of my friends. (The water was crazy that day because of the hurricane that was going on in the East Coast!)
Monday (August 29): I drove to town to meet up with two of my friends, Megan and Jessica, we walked Marlette (which didn't take too long) to take pictures to show my host family and then we went and play Monopoly with some other friends (Ryan, Nick and Jared). GUESS WHO WON??? Me!
Tuesday (August 30): I began the long, horrible process of pack. I had to pack, unpack, and then repack... I started with everything super nicely packed and organized. The suitcase closed, everything was going fine and dandy, until I weighed it. It was well over the 50 pounds limit (more towards the 55 or 60 pounds!!). So everything came out, I compared my clothes... only the lightest ones made the cut, and got to begin repacking all over. On my second attempt my suitcase weighted 50 pounds exactly... cutting it close? Maybe, but did I care at that point? nope. I had just enough time to run to all the neighbors say bye, clean up my room, and eat a little dinner before my friends started showing up. Then all to fast it was time to stay goodbye.
*Note to future exchangers- Don't have your going away party the night before you leave.. especially if you have to get up at 4 the next morning*
Wednesday (August 31): I got up at 4... I was so confused when my mom first woke me up, "huh? what's going on?" haha. Then I quickly got dressed and we put my suitcase in the car and before I knew it I was half way to Detroit. At 6 I said bye to my family, made through security, and was bored at my gate. My flight didn't leave until 10. (the other girl I was supposed to fly with dropped the program :( ) Finally we were boarded and I watch How I Met Your Mother on our personal TV's. In Atlanta I didn't need to wait long because by the time I found my gate they were almost boarding. On this flight their were on personal TV's, but I sat by a very talkative guy and we talked the whole 2 and 1/2 hour flight. Now JFK is one complicated airport... I almost couldn't find the AFS meeting point. But I did, and we left for the hotel for the orientation. I met SO many awesome people, it would take almost an hour to list them all, so I'm gonna be lazy and not list any :P
Thursday and Friday (September 1- 2): The orientation continued. We left for the airport at 4:40 pm and our plane left at 9:00 pm. At first we were all wondering why in the world we needed to be at the airport 4 HOURS earlier, but the lines were so long at JFK we had just enough time to get our food and eat it, before we boarded the plane. It was a 7 to 8 hour flight to Zurich Switzerland, I spent the whole time talking to a girl named Erika... and then I slept half of the flight to Madrid because I was so tired from staying up all night. We landed around 3 pm, but had to wait for a bus until 5. We stayed at a hostel with a ton of other AFSers from around the world for yet another orientation. Strange thing #1 in Spain: They put boys and girls in the SAME room. I was in a room with another girl and a boy.... Another room had 3 girls and one boy... of course everything went fine. Nothing bad happened, but still it was strange....
Saturday (September 3): I left by bus for my host family at noon, it was an hour long trip. I rode with a boy from Germany (the same boy who stayed in my room) and his host mom, who was an AFS volunteer. When the bus pulled into the station and we were met by both our families holding signs with our names on it. From the bus station I went to my house, where we ate another meal. (I was probably given 6 to 7 different meals) I give my family their presents (American food cook book, a hoodie from my high school, candy, and a jar of peanut butter). Later that night I met same of their friends and we played Rummikub and I lost miserably and ate pizza (MORE FOOD)
Sunday (September 4): We had to get up at 8:00 to drive 2 hour to a festival near Santander in the Northern part of Spain. The festival was called 'Guerras Cantabras' and had something to do with the Romans invading Spain. It was really cool. There were a ton of 'Roman' booth and Spanish hut that offered free food and drinks. Then my host family took me raspberry picking.
Monday (September 5): We did a lot of little things, we went to Valladolid to run errands and I played Wii with Patricia. It was a nice slow day.
I'll upload some picture later!
adios <3
No comments:
Post a Comment