My first few days in Spain

This is me blissfully unaware that my flight to my first connection in Dallas had been delayed which would cause me to miss my flight through London and into Madrid. Do not fear! Because when I went to talk to the guy at the desk about it he said "Do you just want to be put on a flight straight to Madrid?" so I was like "Um. YEAH." and he said "I thought so, I already retagged your bags". So perfect.

Things have been pretty crazy since then. I flew 9 hours from Dallas to Madrid which was a little miserable. I didn't sleep at all on the plane which meant when I got to Spain it was morning and I hadn't slept the entire night. This was even more of an issue because my strategy for beating jet lag was to not sleep the night before I left so that I would be tired enough to sleep on the plane, which obviously didn't work out. So I was awake from Monday morning to Wednesday night haha. It's ok though, I'm working on getting caught up!

When I first got to Alcala to meet my host family I was excited but a little nervous because I didn't know how well we could communicate. When a lady showed up for me, I left with her and she started talking to me. And I didn't understand A WORD. So I thought I knew Spanish until I got here. PANIC MODE. So that was pretty stressful for the first few hours but then I got into the swing of things and I was able to understand 1 out of every 5 statements addressed to me and respond to 1 out of 30 maybe so I was struggling but doing better. We had spaghetti for lunch for those interested- it's Roberto's favorite in "todo el mundo" (all the world).
So the lady that came to pick me up was actually the abuela (grandma) doesn't live with us. This took me a while to figure out. I live with my roommate, Kaitlin from BYU-I, and my host mom Encarnacion and Roberto her 13 year old son. They are really fantastic. Nicest people ever. They kept saying my first day that my Spanish was good and I was like uhhh I really don't think so and Roberts was like No really, girls come here and don't know nada, nada, nada, nada (rough translation!)

Today we went to the University for our Spanish placement tests. I was pretty concerned about finding my way around- as you may know I'm extremely navigationally challeged, but it was great because last night Roberto walked me to the school and kept repeating the directions to me and making me repeat them back and then saying them backwards to get back to the apartment. He was super great. Also- he is easier for me to understand than almost everyone else. Maybe it's because he is super patient and willing to repeat everything he says. But he is adorable. We listened to his music which was- Maroon 5, Black Eyed Peas, Pitbull, One Direction and Carly Rae Jepsen. He says he likes English music a lot better than Spanish! His mom thinks it's weird because he doesn't understand any of it.
The written part was pretty rough for me but the during the oral the lady kept saying I had great Spanish! She asked if I practiced a lot or spoke other languages, I was so happy! My main goal of this trip is to become fluent and I felt pretty discouraged at first but there is hope! I even had to talk to a lady at the bank about why Kaitlin's card wasn't working and it was rough but mission accomplished!

Afterwards we toured Alcala for a while and then we came home for lunch (Chicken and Lentil soup) and "un poco siesta" (a small nap). Roberto's instructions worked because we were a little turned around in Alcala but then I found the school and led us home! I was very proud of myself- first time ever succesfully navigating anything. For real.
Then in the afternoon we had a race/scavenger hunt with our group and we had to go to various locations in Alcala which meant a lot more navigating and asking people for directions in Spanish. We met back at our professors' house and had churros and chocolate (it's literally a cup of super thick melted chocolate.  Hot fudge consistency. You dip the churros in it and then drink the rest.) But at that point we were pretty late for dinner and not really sure how to get home- especially in the dark. We wandered and pulled out the map a lot and asked a few people but finally got home. But right before we got back the apartment we ran into Encarna! She had been out looking for us because she was worried! I felt bad but she said "No pasa nada" which basically means nothing happened and it's fine. She brought us in and stuffed us full of dinner, which was thinly sliced steak in a delicious sauce. When I say she stuffs us I mean this- she put 4 pieces of steak on my plate, bread, orange, cookies and candy for dessert. I literally might die. The first day- when we spaghetti. I probably had an entire box of spaghetti on my plate. It was painful- but it's rude to not eat what's on your plate! She was really nice and said if I don't like something or don't want to finish it I don't have to. But when we tested that theory she got a little upset. If we don't eat 3 plates of something she thinks we don't like it! She also really wanted us to drink some wine and it took a lot of convincing that we really couldn't drink!

Well that's it for now! Check out the video on my facebook wall that one of the girls in my program made of our first days!