I'm in Spain!! It feels like it's been one really long day, since I haven't yet had a full night's rest. A what a long, though good day. My first flight was from Indianapolis to Newark, and despite some turbulence it went well. Transferred well, then relaxed a bit between flights. My second flight was to Madrid and was on a giant Boeing 767. Was huge! The seat next to me was empty, so it was quite comfortable. I only slept a few hours though, but was able to listen to a few chapters of my Harry Potter audiobook. The monitors aboard the plane showed the progress of our flight, which was really neat, as well as estimated arrival, altitude, etc. We had to fill out immigration forms before we landed, which wasn't the best of ideas for someone who gets motion sick. Wasn't too bad though.
Finally, we landed in Madrid. The gate was a little ways from immigration, and I'm glad I had a long line of people to follow. There were signs posted along the way saying Equipaje y Salida and the translation Baggage and Way Out, which amused me greatly. I was kinda surprised at how easy immigration was. Literally, he stamped my passport and moved on. It took a bit to get my luggage, and then I was ready for customs. They stressed that not declaring something you needed to for customs was bad, so I went there just in case. The sign said if you have more than 10.000 Euro, you need to declare it. Well I forgot that the . and , are switched in Spain, and proceeded to look all kinds of silly. Going through Customs was super easy too, I just walked through a door, didn't do anything. I guess I just expected the whole going to another country thing to be more difficult.
After finding the group of AHA Segovia students, we sat around for awhile, and then were shown to a pretty nice charter bus that would take us to Segovia. I tried to stay awake for the first part of it at least, and got a couple of cool pictures. Madrid was so weird looking! There's all these apartment-looking buildings for quite a large radius, and then in the middle are four giant skyscrapers. Is not what I expected a city to look like. There was also this giant cross surrounded by mountain-looking things (I have no sense of perspective, maybe they were just big hills). Pictures can be found on Facebook.
Upon arriving in Segovia, we were paired with our Spanish mothers. Mine is named Julia and she has 2 daughters and 4 grandchildren. We went back to her apartment which is much larger than I would have expected. I've only really seen my room, the bathrooms, kitchen, and living room, but the hallway turns and there's more around the corner and maybe I just haven't seen many large apartments. I had to carry my bags like 5 blocks (it was more than 3, I'm just not sure the exact amount cuz I was battling exhuastion). Note to self: bring wheeled luggage next time! My room is pretty cool though, cuz the bedspread is pink!! Pictures can be found on Facebook.
After my tour, I watched pokemon with her grandson Diego until lunch, which was some sort of vegetable soup and salty pork. Was quite tasty. After lunch, she asked if I'd like to rest and I heartily agreed. I slept about four hours, and then finally got up. Small children are quite loud, especially when they are three little boys. Everything is very chaotic and I'm never sure exactly what's going on. So it goes. I got all settled in, and then Julia and I went shopping. The market was really interesting, and they totally didn't have any cold milk :( I think I may have said I like orange juice, cuz the other option was piña and I have no idea what that is, so maybe I'll learn to like orange juice this summer. She also bought some hotdogs, which was a little surprising. The baskets were pretty neat, like the ones we have only bigger and with wheels on the bottom.
On our way back, we stopped to sit with her family and had drinks and tapas (...pretty sure). I had a tortilla on toast, and was delicious. The kids were so adorable. It gets pretty chilly at night, which was a bit unexpected. The weather here is very very dry, something I wasn't really expecting.
And now I am quite exhausted, and I don't think we've even had supper yet!! I'm going to go do something that requires less thinking now. Hope you enjoyed my first update!!
No comments:
Post a Comment