26/20

whew! i´ve arrived! (safely, yay! nothing more interesting than some /very/ turbulant flights).

i started this journey in msp, flying to newark, nj, to barcelona, to sevilla. all the flights were turbulant. and the first two were in the 2 smallest planes i have ever flown in in my entire life. talk about disconcerting. the first one had, as far as i could tell, 57 seats, no first class. it was 19 rows of seat a, aisle, seats b-c, and my head brushed the ceiling. aack! then my hopper across the ocean was 3 and 3, but it was super small. the biggest plane by far was the one from barcelona to sevilla, and that was the shortest (and most turbulant) flight. the poor girl in front of me had never flown before and was freaking out the entire time, trying to find something to hold on to. it was like a bad roller coaster--you just want to get off, but you can´t til the ride is over.

my first real encounter with spanish was at the barcelona airport, which is pretty much super confusing. i had to ask directions, and i got perfect directions back in spanish and i understood all of them! yay!!! then i ate lunch and a nice man from peru sat next to me, and we then had a good hour conversation, just in spanish. i´m already finding myself thinking in spanish, and i´m having to translate things back into english in order to write this (like i just wanted to say "solamente en espanol", and i had to think about it in order to write "just in spanish").

last night i stayed at a hostel, and i got a cab from the airport there. it was a bmw. whoa! so i stayed at the hostel for the night, and, not wanting to traverse a strange city alone at night, i went to a supermarcado (supermarket, but really more of a gas station), got myself a bag of doritos, doughnuts (for breakfast) and a fanta naranja (different from us fanta--and better--/just/ as good as i remembered them. OH! and i already found a few zumo machines and can´t wait to test them out!) and called it a night. not very healthy, but at that point i had been traveling for 26 hrs by the clock, 20 by my body, and was ready to hit the hay. the shower in the hostel was /the/ most confusing shower i´ve ever used, but eventually i got myself mostly clean. then i hit bed.

today i woke up, got checked out, hailed a cab, went to the institute, went through a brief orientation, and took my cab to the apartment. or so i thought. the map that the institute gave me was wrong on the placement of the apartment, and everyone i asked had no idea where it was, so i spent about an hour lugging around all of my stuff and trying to find it. lemme tell ya, i was on the verge of tears. finally i found it, and got myself there. yay!!! never was there so much celebrating.

my senora´s name is carmen, and she´s awesome. a great cook!! if all of her food tastes like the meals today, we will be in good shape. i´m sharing a room with danielle olson, the other stout student, and our apartment is just the cutest thing i´ve ever seen--so authentically spanish! pictures to follow soon. basically, i love it here--and i´ve only been in the city for a day! it´s gorgeous, with all of the meandering mideival streets that are so charming (and at times frustrating). but so far, so good. and best is i´m not having any trouble understanding natives at all! woohoo! they do drop the s at the end of a lot of words, though (so seis is sei, and adios is adio). but if you know that, you´re in good shape.

classes start tomorrow at the lovely hour of 8:30, and it´s a 20 minute walk. but i´m ready. i think that´s all i´ve got for now. updates to follow soon. hope you´re doing well!
-kl