Well my first night in Madrid is coming to a close so I'm going to give you all a summary of what's happened thus far. I left Milwaukee at noon (August 31st) and flew to Philadelphia. The flight is about two hours, which isn't bad at all normally, but I was unfortunate enough to be sitting next to someone who weighed about 400 pounds and had terrible body odor, so it seemed horribly long. Needless to say, I was relieved to get off even though I had a three hour layover in Philadelphia. Side note: the wifi at the Philadelphia airport (at least in Terminal A where I was) is AWFUL. Anyway, we took off from Philadelphia at about 6:40 p.m. (5:40 Milwaukee time). This flight was even more exciting than the last. The guy sitting next to me was Spanish, but has worked in the U.S. and Spain both for several years and speaks perfect English. Anyway, his television didn't work so he notified the flight attendant and they restarted it. After they restarted it, it still didn't work so he pushed the button to request a flight attendant and the lady came up and was VERY rude to him saying that he should stop pushing buttons and that they would restart the television, even though he told her that another flight attendant had already done that and it didn't work. So they got into a bit of a row, even though the man was only asking her to report it as broken so that they don't seat someone there again who is intending to have something to do while on an almost 8 hour flight, and they presented him with a federal notification that he was threatening airline workers and blah blah blah so he asked for my email as a witness and it was a bit of a mess.
I took a bunch of stuff to try to fall asleep but maybe slept for an hour (of course). I arrived in Madrid at about 8:25 a.m. (1:25 a.m. Milwaukee time), made it through customs and got my bags very quickly, found the directors for the program and met my anfintriona (host mom), Argentina, and a few other girls from the program that arrived at the same time as me but on different flights and their anfintrionas. Argentina and I took a taxi to our barrio, Lavapiés, and had fun lugging my luggage up to her flat. After we finally got it up, we went out to get a café con leche y algunos churros. Yummy!! It's more typical to have them with hot chocolate, she told me, and after you're returning from the bars at about 6 a.m. but they were still good :) Then we walked around the neighborhood, up to la Plaza Mayor, and around different parts of the center of the city that Argentina wanted me to see. She quizzed me at almost every corner. She's so sweet and really doesn't want me to get lost!
At orientation, we met all the other students and their host families, and then put together a map of the US to show where we are all from and introduce ourselves. We also went over some basics of living with your anfintriones and things like that. Then at about 9 we left to go out to dinner with the group. We ate at a restaurant in the center of Madrid and omg the food. We ate a lot and had some delicious desserts and drank some Sangria, and then left at about midnight. Argentina made me escort us home, even though I wasn't quite sure how. She said, just use your intuition. I didn't quite figure it out, she helped, but I'm glad she's making me familiarize myself so much with the streets! Anyway, when I was starting this post at about 1:00 a.m. there are soooo many people out. The windows here are always open to let in el aire fresco, which I absolutely love. And it's kind of fun to hear dogs and people and cars instead of the silence of the country in the Midwest that I'm used to.
In conclusion, needless to say, I love Madrid. My first day was fabulous and I can't wait to start the next!
Hasta luego! xoxo
Jolene
Hope all is well with you Following you on your blogspot. Do we need to get on Facebook to see more? Talked to your mom tonight. We will keep in touch
ReplyDelete