Bienvenido a España

Hello Everyone! You are currently reading the first thing I have ever written from another continent. I am going to try my hardest to keep the posts coming on a semi-regular basis, but I will admit upfront that I do not have the best track record for maintaining journals over long periods of time. Demand from others should keep me on track this time though, so please feel free to read as much or as little as you desire.

I also apologize in advance if any post (including this one) get to be ridiculously long, but I do hope they will be entertaining for you. I cannot entirely believe the whirlwind that has been the past few days, but I will try to capture it for you.

Tuesday (the day of my departure) I woke up from a rather unsatisfying night’s sleep. Of course, my good luck, I had developed a cold the day before my flight and ten-day orientation tour in Spain. I spent the morning finalizing my packing, buying decongestants, and steaming in a frantic attempt to lesson the pressure building up in the sinuses.  Despite my sniffles and headache, I was ready to go nice and early and Mom, Dad, and I left for the airport at 3pm, a whooping 5 hours and 20 minutes before my flight was set to depart. Second stroke of luck, despite the 50 degree weather on Monday, it was snowing on Tuesday and so all precautions were taken to ensure that I would not come anywhere close to missing my flight. Luckily despite the snow, the roads were fine, and we did not hit much by way of traffic. We got to Newark airport and Mom and I went in to check in while Dad parked the car. Mom then went on to fill our a slightly excessive number of luggage tags (incase any fell off), Dad returned from parking, and then it was time to say goodbye. This goodbye was more like the typical “dropping my daughter off on the first day of college” goodbye, then the one that actually occurred on my first day of college. At college I am only an hour and 15 minutes away from home. This trip is my first time being away from home for such a long period: exciting, but also slightly intimidating to the traveler who has not yet departed.  Mom and Dad stood and watched as I went through a quick and easy security check and then I gave them a final wave and started off towards the Gate in the Boonies of Terminal C. C 98, it was actually the farthest gate possible.  There were only a few people at the gate when I got there (I was really quite early) but I quickly realized two girls a row away from me where PRESHCO students and I introduced myself. From then on the hours in the airport were full of introductions, as I was taking a group flight with many other students from my program. Because of the snow our flight was delayed 40 minutes.  Not a huge deal, but the hour and a half that we spent on the plane itself before actually taking off was more aggravating. Somehow we landed in Madrid only an hour late. I am not really sure how that worked out since we left at least two hours behind schedule. The flight itself was not that bad. I took Nyquil, watched the Secret Life of Bees, and was able to sleep a bit (though certainly not a full night’s worth). My running nose and clogged ears were bothering me, but not too unbearably. That is, until the landing. As we started to descend I felt like me ears were going to explode. It was terrible and took quite a while after landing to wear off.  I didn’t feel very well, but who cared, I was in Spain!

After baggage claim, we were met by several members of the PRESHCO staff, who were standing just outside the exit with big signs and extremely bright yellow baseball hats. Everyone was very friendly upon our arrival and we handed much-appreciated water bottles and then shown to the buses: one for our luggage to be sent off to Cordoba and one for us to embark on our tour. We were also each given a personalized bag that contained an orientation binder full of information, maps of the cities that we go on the tour and a huge map of Spain and Portugal, and a sort of directory with name and picture of everyone in the program this spring. It seems like a really nice group of people and I have met several people I really like. As I was told to anticipate, the program is almost entirely made up of girls, with a ratio of about 35 to 3, girls to boys. This makes sense when you realize that the school that sent the greatest number of students to this program is Smith.  In addition to the orientation manual, the welcome bag also included a travel sized umbrella, our pay as you go cell phones (complete with modest balance), an adapter plug, tissues, a poncho, a lanyard with a name tag on it, and the most exciting item of all, our very own bright yellow PRESHCO hat.  Everyone played with the phones, figuring our how they worked, and I among others called home to say very quickly that I had arrived safely.

As we drove out of Madrid I tried as long as I could to observe the scenery, before I fell asleep (everyone passed out on the bus ride). We are going back to Madrid tomorrow and will actually get to see the city, but for now and from the view from the highway, it seems to me that Madrid is covered in Graffiti. And it looks great too. There is a lot of graffiti here and it is in all the right places. It never looks like vandalism. It looks like art. I should now note that when we arrived in Madrid the weather was mild. Not warm by any means, but not particularly cold either. After about an hour and a half on the bus, I woke up to find snow both on the ground and in the air. This was a little disorienting. I fell back to sleep for a bit and then woke up just before we arrived in Ávila. Ávila was merely a pit stop and a chance for lunch when we were all told we had to wear our sweet new hats to get food.  Though we had no time to explore, we did get a really great view of the walled section of the city. The walls were built around Ávila in I think the 12^th century and were quite a site to behold. It was the first of many things that I learned about in my Spanish class last semester to appear on this tour.

After Ávila we continued on to Salamanca, where I am currently. Salamanca is gorgeous. I love it. Though there seems to be plenty to do, I am trying to fight off my cold as quickly as possible and so I have be playing it pretty low key since we have been here, but I still feel I have seen a lot and I have certainly enjoyed all of it. We are staying in a absolutely beautiful hotel. It is one of the examples of old buildings that have been converted in recent years into a hotel. The center of the building was once an outdoor patio and is now a furnished indoor lobby with a high and huge skylight. My roommate in the hotel is Viola. She is also going to be living in the same homestay as me and it has been really nice being able to get to know her a bit over the past two days. She is a student at Smith and her family lives in Boston, though she is originally from Albania and moved to the US when she was 15. She is nice and I think we will get along pretty well. I have also made several other friends and seem to have a group already forming, though I am trying to get to know as many people in the program as possible. Yesterday we has a few hours of free time when we arrived at the hotel. Viola and I explored a little bit around the area of the hotel, but mostly staying in. I took a nap, as did many of my fellow travelers. Then we had a group dinner at nine (this new eating schedule definitely takes some getting used to). After dinner we had surpise entertainment from a musical group called a “Tuna.” A tradition in Salamanca, the Tuna is a group from the Universidad de Salamanca, the oldest university in Spain. The city is very much centered on this university. The group that we saw perform was from the Facultad de Derecho (Law School). They were great and incredibly entertaining and interactive.

After dinner a few people were going out to bars, but others of us were a bit too tired to venture that direction. Instead we decided to just walk around and explore a bit before bed. The city was beautiful at night and remarkably well lit. My friend Mary commented that she felt like she was on a movie set.  All the stone buildings are so remarkable and intricate and have really stood the test of time. We walked on to the Plaza Mayor, another incredible piece of architecture and a famous aspect of Salamanca.

Luckily I slept very well last night for a full eight hours and am now feeling considerably better, though I am still stuffed up and taking it easy. Today we had an orientation meeting that lasted for two hours and nearly put me back to sleep. Afterwards we headed out on our own for lunch, a much needed pick me up.  This afternoon at four we had our formal tour of Salamanca. We were divided into two groups and my group was guided by Lorenzo, a very entertaining guide, who was very good at interacting with us in a completely understandable way. On a side note I am finding most of the language understandable which is a good sign and even as I have been writing this post I have thought a few things I was going to say in Spanish before I typed them for you all in English.  That sounds impressive, but take few to really mean a very few. Still, it is a promising sign. Back to the topic at hand, Lorenzo showed us all the sights and told us the history of this incredibly old student city. The tour ended back in the Plaza Mayor and afterwards I headed off with Mary, Laura, Rachel (all three from Smith) and Sarah (from Trinity). We went into a café for some té ,café, y churros, and we ended up staying for quite a while just talking and getting to know each other. I have really liked spending time with all of them.

We then went back to the hotel with just enough time before dinner for me to now be sitting in the lovely lobby of the hotel writing this post.  We leave Salamanca tomorrow to travel to Segovia and then on to Madrid and our next hotel (where I will actually be when this post reaches you, as I do not currently have internet access).

Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope you enjoyed it. I hope all is well with all of you and I will write more soon to tell you more of my travels!

Adios