Hello!
I'm drafting this e-mail at 4am on the 13th of January here in Alcalá de Henares. I guess I'm too excited to sleep! Which is weird, since this all still seems like some crazy dream! I'm here. In España. With excitement in my heart and a smile on my face. What more could I ask for? nada más, digo yo.
January 11: The flight to Newark went alright. I sat next to a brotha whose earphones produced more sound than Katie's do. I enjoyed the thumping bass as I read through some of the books Adam gave me for Christmas on Spain. My layover in Newark was only an hour, and before I knew it, the plane was leaving American soil. I'll admit, at this point I felt a little stab of panic. Why was I doing this again? Am I crazy? These thoughts quickly escaped as I started talking to Cody from Indiana who was also going on a study abroad with his school. And then two brothers (Gamaliel and Juan) from Puerto Rico sat next to me. It was funny when we started talking because I would ask them questions in spanish and they'd respond in kind, but it was much too fast, so I would just stare at them with a blank face. Then they would try to speak in broken english while I spoke in broken spanish. I sure hope my vocabulary expands beyond the word "bueno". haha. By the end of the flight, we were all chummy as I patted Gamliel's back when he was throwing up (the turbulence was like a roller coaster), and I handed him a piece of chicle. We land at 9:30am on the 12th with a blanket of snow covering the land. Apparently it had snowed 5 inches the previous day and something like 300 flights were cancelled. They don't know what to do when it snows.
January 12: Thankfully, I got all my luggage safe and sound. I bid adieu to my flight friends and went to find a place to sit down. I was the first person to arrive in Madrid out of our group, with the last person arriving at 4pm. The plan was to wait for everyone and go as a group to Alcalá. As I sat there in the terminal, I wanted badly to sleep (only got a few hours on the flight), but I also wanted to keep all my luggage in my possession. Then it was a whole other story trying to go to the bathroom with 2 big suitcases and a carry-on. Trust me, it's not easy. @11am, the director of our study abroad, Landes Holbrook, found me and we chatted about this and that. We walked up and down the terminals 20 times trying to spot any other American girl. Everyone else's flights were delayed, but finally @6pm, all 11 of us girls were sitting there slap happy and laughing. This is going to be fun.
A bus picks us up and drives us to Alcalá. With the traffic it takes us about an hour to get to the center of the town, Plaza de Cervantes. There's a little crowd of people on the curb awaiting our arrival. Las Familias. For some reason, I knew just by looking at her that she was Juana Lordén Rodriguez, the woman I was going to live with. She wore a glorious fur coat, brown hair, probably in her 50's or 60's, and she's quite short. I get off the bus and the first words she says are, "Hemos estado aquí por dos horas en la nieva. ándale!" meaning, "We've been here in the snow for 2 hours. hurry up!" She quickly gave me and Riley (my roommate) dos besos (2 kisses) and kept hussling us along. Her car was pulled up by a man who jumped out and loaded all our bags. The three of us women sat in the back, and she introduced the man driving as her oldest son, Dani. He is a pleasant fellow. We talked in the car about the weather, our names, and a few other things. Señora Rodriguez is a real spit fire! She talks pretty fast, but most of the time I understand her. I've never listened so hard in my life. She doesn't know a lick of english and for this I am grateful. I hope she doesn't mind that I ask her to repeat herself a few times.
Her house is lovely. It was bigger than I was expecting it to be. There's a main hallway, a teeny tiny kitchen, and a little TV room on the main level. You go up some windy stairs to the next level and there are 4 little bedrooms with 1 bathroom. Riley and I share a quaint little room and we have super nice closets!! I was so happy to see them. Señora Rodriguez gives us the tour and also tells us to be careful when using the water & lights. Apparently those are real expensive things to have here.
Oh! And she has another son. His name is Guillermo (roll that 'r'!) and he is 20 years old. Very handsome. It seems it wasn't enough for me to just go to Spain. I also have to live under the same roof as a dashing Spaniard. He speaks far too fast but I understand him alright. My roommate, Riley, is taking introductory spanish courses here, so it's been kind of fun to translate for her if she doesn't understand something.
The mother made the three of us (Guillermo, Riley and myself) dinner @9. It wasn't anything too fancy since she says she wants to ease us into the spanish flavor. first it was a simple sopa (soup), then "filletes de pollo" (chicken fillets) y tomatoes with oil&vinager. and bread, of course. I loved it! The mother mostly asks questions, I give my 2 sentence answer, and she continues to discourse. She's way proud to be a Spaniard (with good reason), sort of straightforward, but also very nice. By the way, they only speak SPANISH!! Even though the sons took English in high school, they said they never studied. I was once stuck on a word, and they whipped out their phones to translate it to spanish. It was funny. I've decided to just laugh at myself when I make these mistakes because they laugh right along with me and help me! It's grand.
Today, January 13, will be spent exploring Alcalá. Guillermo offered to take Riley and me around this morning sometime. Then @2 in the afternoon, we're meeting up with the rest of the group a la Plaza de Cervantes. The director will show us where the school is (Alcalingua is what it's called), and we'll walk around the historic district.
The rest of the week is not strictly planned out yet. There's one day where we'll go as a group to Madrid, one day of free time, and another of who knows what. Then there's church on Sunday and classes begin Monday! Wooooo!!
By the way Mom, they LOVED the gift. Great idea! The mother is already hiding the peanut butter from her sons.
Please e-mail me if you want! I don't know how often I can get to the internet (I hope I can send this email off today sometime!), but we'll keep in touch!
Love you all!
Me despido de ti,
Meredít
mere.wis@gmail.com
p.s. I am now sending this at 7:30pm on the 13th. Today we explored Alcalá with Guillermo. It's very pretty! And it's been raining all day! We're back now. Guillermo wants to play Monopolía (Monopoly) and then we have dinner @9
No comments:
Post a Comment