So, let me start to keep you updated. On Sunday I left the United States for Spain, and I have made it! I met up with my program in Madrid and we all stayed at the Hotel Moderno in the Plaza Mayor of Madrid from Monday through Thursday. After waking up at 4:30 to get to the airport for my 7 am flight, I was already setting myself up for some much needed sleep. I had a lay over in Boston and then I flew (wonderfully I might add) to Madrid. I was fortunate enough to fly first class and man, they were true to their word! I think the main highlight was that my chair basically fully extended so that I could lay down and sleep. Anyway, I arrived in Spain at 7 am their time, and had to wait for the program to pick me up at 11. Luckily there were a few other people on my flight so we all sat together, waiting for three hours.
We got to our hotel and I took a huge nap. I am still adjusting to the time difference today, but it was a little harder for me than most of the other students because many of them are from the east coast. Those three extra hours make a huge difference! I shared my hotel room with two other girls Alli from Michigan (as I learned, a michigander) and Kate from Massachusetts (also uniquely called a masshole). Anyway, we had a group meeting and then API took us out to dinner for tapas. We were all so hungry by the time we ate dinner that we filled up on the first thing (bread, ham and cheese) and didn´t realize that they were going to keep bringing things out. Needless to say, we did not leave hungry, although we did leave with a bit of a giggle fit when we couldn´t figure out what they had tried to serve us for dessert. When we saw the plates of food coming out, the first thing was "Oh no, more food!" and then it was brought to our table and I heard "oh, is that chicken?" then someone said, "No, it looks like fried fish!" then someone else said, "No it´s french toast!" so we all decided to try it together. It definitely was a dessert, but what it was I still cannot tell you. I was too full to even force myself to eat more, but I took a little bite and it probably could have been all three things. Who knows.
Okay, so my next full day was indeed full. As a group (we were split into two groups) we went to the Palacio Real (or Royal Palace as they dubbed it.) It was built for the King of Spain when the Alcázar burned down in the 18th century and it was certainly a real palace. The furnishings were phenomenally decorated and everything was spectacular. That afternoon we went to El Prado Museum, which is one of the best museums in Spain, housing many collections of Goya, Velázquez, and El Greco. We were pretty tired that afternoon and the tour wasn´t so great, but overall it was very amazing to be there.
On Wednesday we went to El Escorial, a monastery about an hour away from Madrid which has the 2nd most important religious library in the world, is a school for children, an monastery, and a burial site for all of the Spanish monarchs and their kin. It was built in the late 1500s by King Phillipe el segundo and it´s still in use today.
Finally, while in Madrid, I basically ate the same thing for every meal, and all of it revolved around ham. My intake of jamón has probably increased 100%. I tried to prepare myself a little by eating ham in salads or whatnot, but I don´t think I could have ever fully prepared myself for this. Not that it´s bad, it´s very delicious here, but it´s just funny because I never envisioned this happening before. I have eaten ham with cheese, ham sandwiches, ham and cheese filled little rolls and more ham. Pretty interesting.
Alright, so we left Madrid on Thursday and took a bus down to Sevilla. On the way down we stopped at Toledo which used to be the capital of spain before it was moved to Madrid. It also used to be a very religious sector, especially for the Jews, but now everyone has pretty much moved out. It´s known as the "City of three cultures" and you could see the influence of all of them (the Jews, Arabs, and Christians). There was this wonderful Cathedral that we saw that took 500 years to build. After the tour, I was pretty spanish-listening out and asked the tour guide that question of how long it took to build and she told us 500 years. I said, wow that´s a lot and turned to the girl next to me and said I bet you most people died before it was finished. She said, I don´t know who you know that lives that long but everyone who started working on it died before it was finished, that´s quinientos (500 years). Apparently I thought she said 50 years. While that is still a long time to do anything (and while it is certainly not enough time to build a cathedral) I still was amazed. Nevertheless, we cleared things up and now I will always remember to listen closely to questions I personally ask someone.
The bus ride to Sevilla was pretty long after that, about 6 hours with a quick bite to eat in the middle. From what I saw while awake, the landscape was beautiful the more south we got. I know that Spain is pretty big in agriculture, but I wasn´t seeing great farmlands in the Madrid area. Things became clearer on the way down to Sevilla though. We finally got to Sevilla and I met my roommate, and our host mom picked us up. My roommate (Jessica) has already lived in this house for the past semester, so she knows everything about what to do, so that´s been helpful because when I got to the house, my host mom (María) very rapidly explained everything to me. When I say rapidly, I mean, they speak spanish so fast! All I could say for 20 minutes was vale (which means okay) but I think I just said okay more because there was so much to retain. I unpacked my stuff after that and just fell asleep.
Luckily I have internet in this house, so I will be able to post some more blogs for you all eventually, but that was my week´s update. I´m going to explore more of the city today, but after having a quick walk around with my group yesterday, I am already super satisfied with my decision to study here. My friend Alli is starting a blog too and once she figures out how to put images up, I´ll try to do the same.
Hasta luego my friends!
Haley
