Finally in Madrid

Hey everyone. I cant tell you how excited I am to finally be here! My flight from Newark to Madrid was fine. I was tired, since it left at 8:3opm, but I couldn't sleep much. I was too excited, anxious, and crammed between two people. I sat next to an older Spanish woman, AnaMaria who spoke very little English. She is from Mexico and was going to visit her daughter in Madrid for 2 months. She was adorable, and we made friends throughout the flight. She understood that I am not a very strong Spanish speaker, and was teaching me key phrases that I would find useful during my stay in Espana. As the flight neared its end, it was about 7am in Madrid, and as we flew over Portugal the sun started coming up. I was watching Life as we Know it, cute movie actually, and AnaMaria was gazing out the window. She taps me on the hand, and says, "mira" (look). I lean over to look out and I could see all the stars, it was beautiful. Then she gently grabs my head, and pulls me closer to the window, so I could see the horizon and the beginning of the sunrise. I look at her and she says, "que bonita, si? (how pretty)" She was enthralled by the sunrise, it was the cutest thing. Watching her watch the sunrise made me realize how you need to just stop and look at the little things more often, and really appreciate them. I learned a lot from AnaMaria in that 6 hr flight, and before we landed, she pulled out a tiny notebook in her purse, and gave me her name, address and phone in Mexico, and told her to call me whenever I am in the country, and that she hoped I would come visit. She also gave me her daughters address and number in Madrid, so I could contact her if I needed. I stumbled while trying to tell her, "my mother would say thank you," and she understood what I was trying to say, and helped me out, and said "mi madre le dire a gracias." So, mom, I am getting by, and remembering my manners along the way!

Our first day here was a blur, since we got here at 9am Madrid time, and were extremely tired since we hadn't slept at all, but we had some time to rest during the afternoon which was nice. We had a nice dinner with the other students from our school last night, the food was good, I ordered chicken of course. Not too ready to step outside my food boundaries yet.















This morning we had a tour of the old town Madrid, where we saw beautiful buildings and different plazas, such as the Plaza de sol, and the plaza mayor and the royal palace. We had to be very aware of pickpocketing, and we spotted a few pick-pocketers along the way, as we grasped our purses and cameras with our lives. We then had lunch outside in la plaza mayor, I had my first tapas! We had ham tapas, and beef tapas, which were interesting, but filling enough for lunch. And then we went to a local marcado FULL of food of all kinds ranging from raw fish to helado, where we got some helado chocolate. It was delicioso!


I move into my apartamento tomorrow, cant wait! Thats all for now.

Besos de Madrid,
Liz