Orientación

So, today we had orientation after lunch and a relaxing morning. We played a lot of fun icebreakers including one where we laid down on the floor in lines and bounced giant yoga balls back and forth. Zulayne made the comment "I've never had so many balls coming at my face!"

They went over the basic stuff: don't speak in English because you'll get targeted/robbed, be respectful to your host family, don't be obnoxious, etc. The program also FINALLY gave us information about our host family and I am living with a single woman right in the center of Spain, about a 15 minute walk from the university. Zulayne, Sabrina, and I all live relatively close together, which is really nice. I'm excited to explore Madrid once we get there tomorrow.

Last night, we went out for dinner and to a few of the places around the city. There were some really cool bars all down one street. It's so much more relaxed here than it is in the US. There were no cover charges for the bars, everyone just kind of did their own thing and wandered around from place to place. No one goes out until like 1 or 2am. When we went to the bars at like 11 or 12 there was almost no one there but it did fill up around 2am. We did met these really cool older women in one of the bars who gave us tips on places to go when we got to Madrid. It's really awesome how open everyone is here and how willing everyone is to help.

We're trying to find a Karaoke bar for tonight or the near future, we need to get our American Idol on...

I still haven't bought a phone but apparently you can have your cell phone unlocked and buy a European sim card so I might do that instead.

The Spanish accent is getting on my nerves a little bit. It's kind of cute but at the same time, I miss the accent at home. There is of course the lisp but also the tone/inflection of the words is a little bit different. It is really nice to hear Spanish being spoken all of the time though. I missed being surrounded by it.

I think I'm starting to get used to being here and skyping in order to be able to communicate with the family back home. I think it will be much better once I get settled in with my host family tomorrow!