Mi Familia y Una Semana Despúes

It's been so ridiculously hectic I have not had a free chance to write anything about my trip since the flight.
On friday I met my family. They live in a rather tiny apartment on Calle Fernandez. I have a host madre, padre, y dos hermanas. One of the daughters is 23 and is mentally handicapped. She spends everyday in front her own little tv that they play videos on. She doesn't speak besides Hola, Mama, y Papa. She can't quite stand correctly, her eyes are crossed and the only emotion we ever see from her is crying or screaming at the screen. It's really difficult and it makes me feel terrrible. The other daughter is 20. Now you would think "oh nice, you have an instant friend to take you out..." WRONG! She just does not seem to like my roommate and I. Besides the fact that we can never understand her she gives us one word answers and avoids our presence at all costs. Her boyfriend Martín basically lives with the family. It's like also having a brother in the house. He eats meals with us and sleeps on the couch pretty much every night. We try to talk to him and he seems really nice but he's very much influenced by the daughter. Also there is un perrito. A little dog name Jury? Judy? Jooey? No sabe. But it's adorable
On friday night we went out but we were so exhausted it wasn't anything special. On saturday we went out though. First we botellon'd which is basically when everyone drinks in the streets/by the river. Then at like 1 we started going to bars.. One called the LONG ISLAND CAFE. They had shots for every sate. I took NY, PA, FL, and MI. Michigan was a whiskey it was gross, Florida was Mailbu/Martini, PA was something like a candy cane which was good and NY of course was the best, carmel! After we went to few other bars. There were some creeper situations but everybody knows that thats just the story of my life so I won't bother to write about those. All night though we became accustom to the dos besos policy. Meaning that every time you say hello to someone you have to give a kiss on either cheek. We called it an early night after one of the clubs tried to charge us and started to head home at 4:30 a.m
Last night (sunday) was the superbowl. I spent the day walking around Nirvion (the area where I live) with Tommy and Joey and found some cool stores...but everything was closed! The only thing opened was a movie theater on the roof of the mall and and ice skating rink on the 1st floor of the mall. None of the stores or cafes were open. We found an Irish Pub that played the superbowl so we went to watch it at midnight when it started. It wasn't very exciting. There were no commercials, we couldn't hear anything, and no one was really into it. We were talking to this two older guys that were spanish teachers and learning english through the intercambios program at my school. I was paying so much attention to the game that I was pretty much ignoring them and they kept telling me I was to serious....SUPERBOWL HELLO!!
Finally, today I've started classes, kinda. For the next 3 weeks I have 1 language class from 9-12:45 with an hour break everyday, and a cultural realities class for 1 hour every monday. I had to sign another contract saying that my spanish only policy was starting today and that I could be released from the program with no refund if I do not abide. SCARY!

So, I didn't even have a chance to talk about all the places I visted or the food yet but I can not get started on that now...I should leave a daily menu, if anyone reads it they'd be sick by the amount of food we get. I'll start that tomorrow!
HASTA LUEGO AMORES <3

El Vuelo

Today was a very long day...probably because it was like 2. I arrived at JFK airport at around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday Feb 3rd. checked my luggage, said goodbye to my mom and went on my way. I met up with Ursula then Bridget and we ended up meeting about 7 or so other kids that were with our program and on our flight. We sat together and talked for about 2 1/2 hours until our plane boarded.

I got super lucky and had no one sitting next to me on the plane so I was able to lay down and do what I want for the 7 hour flight...yet of course I didn't fall asleep. I tried to watch Where the Wild Things Are but the sound wasn't working. So I listened to music and rested my eyes but was awaken twice for dinner then breakfast.

After landing in Madrid we went to Gate HJK. Little did we know that the numbers on top of the gate meant how long it was going to take us to get to it. The first one I remember seeing was 36 min. We went down escalators, took a shuttle, went up escalators and then got lost when gate HJK turned into 3 different gates. We asked the lady at the information desk and she laughed in our faces. Apparently we had to wait in the middle of the airport and stare at the screen until the Gate was listed (like when you wait for the track your train is going to be on at Pennstation). We went to H18.

Finally after boarding I instantly fell asleep, I have no recollection of take off and I woke up when we hit the ground. We all went and claimed our luggage at 10 a.m. and then sat in the airport waiting for someone from CCCS until 12. At this point the entire section of the airport was filled with CCCS students.

We boarded a coach bus with all our luggage on a truck. The city of Sevilla is beautiful . Were staying in the NH Plazza Hotel (a lot nicer then I anticipated). After lunch, orientation, dinner and an outing across the street to McDonalds to find internet its finally time to go to bed. 11:30 p.m. Thursday Feb 4th.