¡Qué Cansancio!

Hola!!!!

¡Ay Dios mío! A lot has happened since I've been here, and it's only been 1 day! I left NY @ 9PM on Wednesday and arrived to Madrid @ 10:20AM on Thursday. The flight was 6 1/2 hours long, which was not too bad. They fed me dinner and breakfast on the plane, which I thought was pretty interesting. I got to sit next to a girl from Paris, France on the plane and had an oportunity share a lot of things with her! She is actually doing an exchange program in NY, so we realized that we had a lot in common. After arriving in Madrid, I was quite overwhelmed because everything was in Spanish (which honestly, I'm not quite used to), but luckily I made it to the gate on time. I arrived in Málaga @ 1PM, and it took me an hour to find my luggage! Some young ppl from a church I found, Nueva Generación, picked me up and brought me to la Residencia de Teatinos. While there, I met up with Teljer & Michelle and got a chance to meet some ppl from la residencia. We also got a chance to meet up with Doña Isabel, who is the Director of the Residencia. She is very nice and let us know that she is available for whatever we need, which made me feel very comfortable. After I brought my luggage up to my room, I went down to the cafetería and got a chance to meet my roommates, who are fenomenal! They are all from Málaga, which is apparently a huge city! I live on the top floor of la residencia and my room has an awesome view of the mountains.
I made an attempt to unpack, but ended up taking a nap because I was so jet lagged! After I woke up, I went down to eat dinner with my roommates Azu and Carmen. It was funny, because I really wasn't hungry because I felt like I had just finished eating on the plane!

I ended up going to bed super late because I was busy unpacking, and the then in the morning I woke up @ 9:30. I then sat around with María, one of my roommates, and Irene. It was just amazing getting a chance to talk to them and find out about them and their stereotypical opinions of "Americans". After a couple of hours, Teljer and Michelle came up to see if I wanted a tour of el Centro, and I said "OF COURSE!" Michelle gave us a tour, and I ended up buying some things for the room.


It's amazing because even though I speak Spanish, I'm not used to the customs here. Like I'm so used to shaking hands when I meet people, and here they kiss on both cheeks. Plus, the words are different. It's actually really interesting because there are ppl here from all over. For example, I met a guy here named David who is from Mexico and another girl was from Argentina. The campus is so huge, and I'm afraid I'm going to get lost!


I thought it was funny, because naps are customary here! Everyone takes a nap! Plus, they eat dinner here very late! Dinner is served @ 8PM. That is unheard of in the United States, which I thought was quite interesting, because they advise everyone not to eat after 7PM in order to stay healthy. For example, here at la residencia, they offer breakfast, lunch, snack, & dinner. I thought that was wild. On Sundays, it's rare for anything to be open, so Teljer & I are going to get together to see what plans we want to make so that we can visit as much as Spain and the rest of Europe as possible.

So far so good! I'm sure that my time here is going to be great, and I'm going to be able to learn about the Spanish culture and their customs, while learning about myself at first. It will be interesting to see how much I accomplish at the end of these 6 months.

Bueno, es todo por ahora (that's it for now). Hasta luego!

En el Principio....

Bienvenidos a todos (Welcome to all)

Where to start?! Ok...back at the beginning of the school year (in August), I decided to apply for an international exchange program to the University of Malaga in Spain. Since I'm doing a double major in Spanish & Finance, I wanted to make sure that when I graduated I would be a well-rounded candidate for international affairs for any company I work for in the future. Well, turns out, I got accepted! Now, I'm a couple days away from my departure to my new life for the next 6/7 months! Holy cow...ahora que lo pienso bien (now that I think abt it) what the heck was I thinking! lol...j/k!

Many people may not understand why I chose Spain, since I already speak Spanish, so let me start from the beginning. I was born and raised in the U.S. My father is Puerto Rican, born and raised, and my mother was born in New York (Puerto Rican decent). My grandmother, who spoke very little English, lived with us and cared for my sister and I until I turned 15. Even though I speak Spanish, the Spanish that I learned to speak was very much lacking in formality, which I have no problem admitting. Luckily, I became very well aware of this from an early age, which is why I decided to double major making Spanish my second major.

In my household, similarly to many Spanish-speaking households in the U.S., "Spanlish" is used quite often, which is why I decided to incorporate a "Spanglish" heading "Las Aventuras de Crazy Liz" for this blog. With this being said, many of my entries will be in "Spanglish". I am hoping that along with this experience, I will be able to be more educated in the Spanish culture and take note of the differences between los Españoles and los Latinoamericanos. Also, I am hoping to be able explore first hand some of the cities and cultural aspects of Spain that I have learned about in my spanish literature classes. Lastly, I'm hoping to make life long friendships, which will impact my life for the years to come.

To those that will be reading this blog and keeping up with it, I hope that you will enjoy what I post, and if there are any requests, please feel free to let me know. (I cannot promise anything, but maybe I try!) I will miss my family and friends terribly, but just know that I will be in good hands.

Espero que les guste!