I made it!!!

Word of the day: yerno=son-in-law
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Oh man, (and this time it´s in a good way!)

I have so much to say and so very little time to say it all. I am sitting here, in GRANADA SPAIN (!) at an internet cafe/pool hall where it seems to be the local youngsters hangout (18 and under about) Anyway, that is not important at all.

I made it here by way of 3 lovely flights where I had two great seatmates. PDX to ATL was a doctor who works in MA and was telling me about this new kind of acupuncture with a laser that he is doing. Pretty cutting edge. My second seatmate was an awesome woman who was going to Palma de Mallorca and reminded me very much of Dr. Julka.

Anyway, flying in to Madrid I was amazed to see how orderly everything was. I mean the streets and houses were in ROWS and it just looked like an incredibly planned city. It was kind of eerie. There weren´t many trees, that is to say there wasn´t much green on the ground-mostly kind of dead looking trees. Hmm-def. not like the NW.

Had a mixup with my luggage in the Madrid airport. I thought I was going to need to collect it before going through customs...so I waited...and waited...and waited (over 45 minutes) and was able to get one bag but not my suitcase. Hmm. Not cool. So I went to the counter where of course, there was a HUGE line, and asked what I needed to do. Where was my other bag? Turns out that the bag I got wasn´t actually su`pposed to have come off the plane it was supposed to have been checked straight through and I was to have gone through customs without baggage at all. Go figure. So the guy said he would get it on the plane and all was cool except that my plane took off in oh, 40 min and I wasn´t even in the right terminal. So I sprint thgrough the Madrid airport and make it jsut in time for the 45 min flight. Get to the tiny Granada airport and find that lo and behold my suitcase was there but my duffle was not. Um, okay. Apparently, after telling my story later on and meeting some of the other students, I foudn that this isn´t uncommon for them to lose luggage. I was freaked out. ALL my clothes were in that bag. THe suitcse I had only had shoes and toiletries so I could brush my teeth, yes, but chenge my underwear I could not. I finled a complaint and crossed my fingers (and toes!) that somehow that bag made it´s way to my home ASAP.

I actually met another student at the airport (she lost her bag too!) and so we headed to the meeting spot and got picked up by our families. I have a FANTASTIC AMAZING WONDERFUL host mother. She is more of a grandmother to be precise. She is probably about 70-75 and lives alone but her daughter and son-in-law and her two granddaughters live right around the corner. I actually met the younger one last night and the older one, Ana, today. They are really sweet and I think that it´s going to work out well. She has a rather large apartment and I have my own room for which I was SOOOOOOO grateful. (Did I mention that I was grateful???) Some of us have to share rooms and I just feel lucky that I got my own. So happy about that. Anyway, she has a lovely home and I am feeling pretty good about it. My roommate is nice. No huge roommate friends forever sparks flying yet, but we get along and for that I am grateful as well. I think she is more of a partier that I (she said that she is going ot drink as much as she wants while she´s here...) but hey, whatever floats your boat, eh? I have my own room! Ha!

So yes, things are good on the home front with the exception of the temperature. Um, yeah. I am definately regretting not bringing more heavy clothes. It gets below 0 at night here and well, she doesn´t heat her house, which, well, isn´t uncommon. So yeah, that was quite a shock. Wandering around the house in a coat and trying to keep warm. Especially last night when I didn´t have anything to wear to bed (Luggage update: I was super worried that they weren´t going to get it for me but they brought it by in the middle of the night-was Ihappy to see that bag!) So yes, it´s quite cold and I feel like an eskimo. During the day it´s pleasant but at night it really really cools down. Brr. Anyway, I can bundle up tonight under my 5 blankets and hopefulyl be warm. The other slight difference between here and the US is the water situation. Here the water is very scarce since it doesn´t rain. So people conserve...a lot. I mean we´re talking hardcore water conservation. My shower this morning was, shall we say, quite refreshing, and I know that I will be happy to return to showers that you stand up in. This one is more like a sqaure and you sit (at least I do, I suppose you could stand but water would get all over because there is no curtain...strange) and you have one of those shower heads that you can wave around in all directions and you do it like that. So basically you turn off the water when you aren´t rinsing which makes it quite chilly. I miss my long standing up showers already and envy those of you who can take warm ones...lucky!

Anywho, the food is going okay too. Cena last night was a vey interesting slice of turkey that seemed very "put together" and well, it was okay but I wouldnt´hope for it again. We had mashed potatoes and bread and yogurt. Okay, not too bad I think. Breakfast was very light. I mean we´re talking 2 pieces of bread and marmalade and cacao (which is like hot cocoa). Yeah, I was slightly hungry while we were in orientation this morning. We ate lunch which was rice soup, salmon and potatoes and tomatoes in a casserole thing, bread, and oranges for dessert. I can see that potatoes are biug here already.

So yeah, things are going well. THis afternoon (well this evening actually) there was a parade for the Dia de los Reyes Magos which is tomorrow. It was called the Calagata I think. SOmething close to that at least. It was super cool. Think 4th of July combined with Halloween kind of and throw in some kings and you ahve how it was. There was so SO much candy being thrown all over the place but the people on the floats. IT was so neat but I was slightly concerned that I would get hit in the eye. A guy next to me actually got one stuck in between his glasses and his face. I felt bad but turned and laughed for which I am slightly ashamed... :) The national holiday tomorrow means everything is closed because people are celebrating the coming of the 3 kings to Jesus in Bethlehem after his birth. So we don´t have anything to do and have a day off to explore. Niiiiice!I am excited.

I´m headed home now. I am still pretty exhausted from the trip and want to finish unpacking. We have out big placement test on MOnday and I´m kind of nervous but I htink it should be okay. I have been getting compliments on my SPanish and already feel ver ycomfotable speaking. We have talked in SPanish all the time we have been here with the exception of mauybe 30 sentences. Pretty good, eh_?

Please please mail me...I love having something neato to read when i make it out to one of these internet cafes that have the strange european keyboards that I don´t like one bit because in order for me to write this fairly mistake free post it took my quite a long time. Yes, be grateful that I made it fariyl easy to understyand at least in the beginning.

Hope all is well across the Atlantic. :)