¡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!