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Hola every one! I wanted to make a post since I have arrived in Spain I’ll detail what’s going on if I have time tonight. Also I typed this quickly so sorry for the grammar and such, I’ll try to edit later.
So my adventure started at about noon on Friday where I met up with my friend Jen to travel to Spain from JFK. Our first plane ride was about 6 hours long (we arrived about a half hour early due to winds and stuff) and it was usually a connecting flight to India, so the plane and people were all Indian. All of the instructions were in an Indian language, the food was Indian, and the background music was Indian. It was very interesting, but I was stuck with a middle seat between Jen and an older Indian man who couldn’t figure out how to use the seat belt or tv. As soon as I got on to the plane all I could think is “what the fuck am I doing?” I just couldn’t believe it was actually happening and that I was completely leaving my whole life behind, but I was already on the plane, no turning back now. Also the whole fight I couldn’t sleep I don’t know it it was because I had no where to put my head but it was awful I ended up watching three shitty movies. We landed in Brussels around 730am their time and our next flight to Madrid was at 9:30 so we killed time sleeping at gate. Our next flight was awesome I had three seats to myself and was sleeping the entire time.
Once we got into Madrid we had to call Jen’s mentor to come meet us, she was nice enough to make us reservations at a hostel and help us get there. She was so nice and helpful; however our hustle was on the other side of town. I had to carry my huge purse, with my huge backpack, and drag my humongous overweight suitcase all through all sorts of metro stations and up and down hill. I’m jacked now lol. After dragging it all through town we had to take it up four floors of spiral stairs, I was dying, and I know I’m out of shape but it was brutal. The hostel itself was pretty good we had our own room and bathroom and to get into the building we had to get buzzed into the building and the buzzed into our floor. Even will dragging my bag around Madrid I could already tell I had made the right decision for going. This city was beautiful and just so different from anything I’m used to I started to feel a bit more comfortable. Jen’s mentor had to leave and we were alone in the city however first we took a nap to catch up with the time difference.
That night in Madrid it was the night of the white balloon, I’m not quite sure why this was happening but the result was so many people everywhere. Everyone from all ages was out all night just walking around and there were bands playing all throughout the streets, it was quite amazing. At this point I felt somewhat lost, although it was my first day in the city I really didn’t understand any of what people were saying. I could somewhat understand when I listened but when it came to responding back I was completely lost. I still am, it’s good and bad to be travelling with someone that speaks English, and she can talk to people more easily than I can, much more. I’m happy to have someone to talk to but it results in me speaking a lot of English.
So the next day we had free until noon when we had to check out of our hostel, which we had no clock, but luckily I woke up at 11 and we packed up and left. We walked around until 4 when we had to meet back with Jen’s mentor to head to the bus station. The bus to Leon was actually 4 hours when I thought we were only 2 hours from Madrid and we didn’t get into Leon until 11 or so. We ended up crashing in the mentor’s apartment scattered all over her room. This leads to today, today was our mission to get phones and a real place to live. The phones were easy, we just went to a store like Macys and bought them for like 20 Euros but the apartment was difficult. We had to go through a paper list of the apartments listed and then figure out how much they would cost with bills included. So we found some places and called only one was able to meet with us to show us the apartment. The first one was beautiful it had a lot of room and space; four people would live there with one guy and the rest girls. This apartment was quite expensive though about 240 Euros a month so the woman owned one other property. This place is a little smaller, I would live with 5 people, it does have a living room and kitchen, I would have my own room and it was 200 Euros for everything. So with much doubt we ended up choosing this place. I am living with the girl I came here with and maybe three boys; it seems to be as good of deal that I can get. We can’t move in till October first though which gives us some time with no real place to stay or anything to do, but the woman wanted way too much money to only stay for a few weeks.
Then later today she took us around Leon it was a beautiful city and a lot of fun, it will also take a lot to get used to it. So that leaves me here sitting on my mentors floor typing this up ready for my orientation tomorrow to see what my program looks like. I’m sure there is some stuff I left out that I will add to the next entry but Adiós for now!