Day One Jan 7th, 2008

Well I arrived today. What a trip.

I left yesterday evening, spent 8.5 hrs on the first plane and landed in Paris.

If I never have to spend any more time in the Charles de Gaulle Airport I'll be ok. It was quite a confusing experience. Mostly because I was changing from American Airlines to Iberia, so apparently that meant I had to go through customs and leave the airport entirely and then check back in. Unfortunately I didn't know this. I guess it's alright because I figured it out eventually. But it was really confusing!

I actually was able to speak a lot more French than I thought I could. I said:
"I need to change airlines. Where is Iberia"
"A bottle of water please"
"Where is an ATM?"
"Where is Termindal 2D"

While I was able to say this, unfortunately I was not able to understand their response really. So I'd either just pretend I understood, or ask them to show me. I also didn't really say "ATM" I said "money machine" because that's all I knew how to say. They got my point.

Once I figured out that stupid French airport, the rest was a piece of cake. Flew the two hours into Madrid, then I took a taxi ALONE from the airport to my host family's house.

My Senora (I don't know how to type the little ~ on the n) is nice. She is a woman named Rosalia who is probably sixty. She lives with one of her daughters Rosa, who is nice. And now she lives with me and Jacquelyn. Jacquelyn is my SMU roommate. She's nice also. Her spanish is pretty good. Probably about as good as mine, or almost. Rosalia doesn't speak a word of English so my Spanish will get better soon. I think it's already improved just in this afternoon. We talked for a long time, so I'm already feeling much more comfortable conversing. I also get my own room!

Tomorrow we're going to Toledo for an orientation where they'll give us our Spanish cellphones and class schedules etc. I'm getting even more excited!

It still doesn't seem real though. I don't feel like I live here yet. I guess we'll see. I hope I become more accustomed soon. I also feel very alone. It helps that Jacquelyn's here though. This is going to be quite an evolution and I guess we'll see how it goes....