Despite the absence of blog posts, I am here in Madrid, Spain safe and sound, happy and everything else. My señora (the lady that lets us live in her apartment), Vicky, is what I have described as a cool great aunt. She is hilarious, loves to talk, and is really sweet, exactly what a great aunt should be like. The good thing about her always talking is that I don’t have to talk. It has been a bit more of a challenge to talk in Spanish all the time than I would have ever thought, always stumbling over my words and pronunciations. Thankfully, Vicky will just smile and nod…and then continue talking about whatever she had been talking about.
Yesterday, Marissa and I went to McDonald’s, bought some ice cream cones, and furiously sent emails to our parents and checked FirstClass and Facebook (just the bare essentials.) Between the both of us, we only had 30 minutes of internet, so you can see why we were in such a rush. However, this has forced me to confront my addiction to Internet head-on. Right now, I am in some sort of bargaining mode, ice cream for Internet. Also, this has definitely limited my ability to communicate with my family and friends that are Stateside. This is quite frustrating and if you are reading this (which, uh duh you are right now) please know that I would love to talk to you if I could, but it is nearly impossible given internet time restraints.
The first night we were here, nearly the whole Spain group went to Plazo Mayor, which is the big hot spot here in Madrid. There are a lot of families and young people there (which we call jovenes in Spainsh and sounds a lot less awkward) walking around or sitting down to drinks and dinner. There is no need for me to bore you with details, but I will say that traveling with 15 people—14 girls (that are the majority blonde) and 1 guy—really reminded me of being a freshman in college, always with a big group to go to the DH, all wide-eyed and just a little scared.
Tuesday was our first day at Nebrija University, a school for foreign study programs, meaning AMERICANS! Marissa and I are very excited, mainly because we don’t know many other people right now, and going to a new school means having friends that are fewer than 4000 miles away. We took a quick test to determine our level for a language class and had a short orientation about Madrid and the university. Afterwards, we tried to return to our apartment with Vicky. Note the italicization of “tried.” That’s because it took us some 2 hours to find our way back to our metro stop, Herrera Oria. We probably saw the entire city, or at least the cool parts, but it was good to get around and see the hot spots. In fact, I even saw the college of biology at Madrid University. It was gigantic, with big greenhouses, labs with everything that we have in the States, and much more. Can you tell that I miss the states just a bit? Anyways, we finally made it home to Vicky and the first thing we said, and we said it with a bit of a pathetic tone was “Vicky, we were lost and didn’t know how to get back.” Apparently there are others that have been lost after their first day of school, also. Thanks, Vicky. Now we don’t feel as stupid and pathetic as we felt, taking almost every line of the metro (which is the subway here) and a few buses. Oy vey.
ABOUT THE SLIDESHOW
I have included some pictures here, some of “los arcos” that are about half a mile from our apartment and some photos of a park that is right outside of our university. And folks, our university is no Furman. It’s smaller and there are no pretty gardens or cute fountains or big trees on campus. But there is a fabulous view of the mountains and pretty, historic architecture. It has definitely made me appreciate the gardeners of Furman, who furiously are keeping things tidy and pretty.
My Spanish is getting a lot better, also. It’s even hard for me to write this blog post simply because we are always surrounded by Spanish. Plus, Marissa and I are trying to speak the language to seem a little bit less like Americans. But the blonde hair gives us away, I would suppose. Hopefully, by the end of my time here, I will be able to speak like Vicky, although I’m not sure if it’s good if a 20-year old speaks like a 60something-year old woman in Spanish. Okay, it’s settled. We need to meet some jovenes.
Until I find internet again or until I have another ice cream cone at McDonald’s (this is the second time, people)!
Con amor,
Jane
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