Arrival in Madrid

Sunday, January 25, 2009
I arrived in Spain at 8:20 in the morning. Having not slept on the plane, I was extremely tired, but too excited to really feel it. My brain definitely wasn’t working though, because I wound up misplacing my passport and spending 15 minutes looking for it before I could go through immigration. I kept thinking about one of the last flights that I took in Spain when I lost my bracelet. I was also trying to get my cell phone to work so I could let the family know I was in Spain safely. Alas, it didn’t work because T-Mobile didn’t give me the unlock code I needed to use a foreign SIM card when I asked them how to use my phone abroad. I felt a little, isolated in the world. Everything else was fine after that though. My luggage came relatively swiftly and I went out through customs to meet Isabel and Juan Jose (Juanjo). Claire hadn’t yet emerged, and her flight arrived almost an hour before mine, so we went off searching for her.
I looked for her with Juanjo, so I got to know him a little bit. He’s studying at Stetson next semester, so we talked a lot about Florida and how we’re going to be neighbors. We didn’t find Claire, but Isabel did wandering around the luggage area. Next, we had to pick up Kristina and Megan at another terminal, so we loaded up the van and headed over. While Isabel waited for them, we ate breakfast, which for me was a tostada with salsa de tomate y aciete and a café con leche. When we were done we met up with Kristina and Megan, loaded the van, and headed off with Juanjo to Madrid. It was raining and cold, but I was really hot from being so emocionada. My casa was first on the list.
Juanjo helped get out my stuff and we met Teresa at the door. I think I must have taken a huge sigh of relief when I met her, my first impression of her was a good one. She showed me to the apt, up the elevator to the 5th floor, last door down the hall, #7, then around the apt, which is small, and to my room. I was worried my room was going to be really small, but thank goodness it’s a good size, plus it has a fantastic view of the city, train station, and a little square with a big obelisk in it. There is also another bedroom where at the time Natasha was sleeping, the bathroom we share, the salon (which also could function as the dining room, but we don’t eat there), a room where Teresa works as a beautician, another bathroom that she uses, and the kitchen. It’s all connected by a long hallway.
After the tour, I started unloading my stuff and met Natasha, who was headed off to church. When I set up my computer I realized there was no internet available at all, not even to steal. Even though I knew that Teresa didn’t have internet, I was still disappointed, and felt even more cut off from the world. When I was finished unloading my stuff, I took a shower, and took a nap. The shower is very interesting. The wall mount is broken, and Teresa asked that I turn the water off when soaping up, so it’s more like a self-rinse. With the objective of saving water it’s perfect, and I think I will probably continue showering like that when I get back to the states. I woke up for lunch, which was lentil soup. Mom should be proud that Teresa serves a lot of lentils and legumes so that I can get all my protein. I had my first semi-conversation with Natasha, since her Spanish is pretty rough, and learned that she’s from Houston, goes to Arizona State, doesn’t study at the same school in Madrid as me, and is turning 21 on Feb 20th – just two weeks after me (she’s not an Aquarius though).
After lunch, I got ready to brave the cold and left the apt with Teresa and Natasha to go to the Ministerio de Agricultura to meet with Isabel and my group. We all gradually arrived and I talked to or met most everyone from our Stetson-Marist group. There are six girls from Stetson - me, Megan Duffy, Jackie Matias, Kristina Tulak, Brittany McCloud, and Claire Armangnac. Thank goodness there are two guys in the Marist group, Dan and Chris, because there are seven girls too – Liz, Jamiee, Emily and Emily, Audra, Stephanie, and Jennifer (who’s studying here for the 2nd semester). When everyone was ready, our senoras left, and we headed off for a “tour” of the metro.
Last summer, I learned how to use European metros, but it was good to get re-acclimated. We went to Plaza de Espana, where I have a picture by the Don Quixote statue with my sisters, all of us waving Spain flags, or wearing them. From there we walked to Templo Debod and the park with a vista over the city and took lots of pictures. We continued our walking tour past the Palacio Real to Plaza Mayor via Calle del Codo , where Isabel told us about the nuns who sell cookies through a revolving door since no one is allowed to see them (they took a vow). From Plaza Mayor we walked to Puerta del Sol and down a side street to Chocoloteria San Ginez (it’s very famous), where we sat outside in the freezing cold to eat churros con chocolate, a typical Spanish dessert or breakfast.
We were free to go after that, so Natasha and I took the metro home. Thankfully she was with me, since I didn’t have keys yet and didn’t really know the way home. Some of the other students got really lost that night. By that time I was exhausted, so we watched TV a little, but I went to sleep around 9pm.