Hola Madrid!

My first two days in Spain have been awesome! My flights went from Grand Rapids to Detroit to Atlanta to Madrid, and my Detroit flight was delayed an hour. Since I only had an hour layover in Atlanta, I thought for sure I was going to miss my flight to Madrid. When I finally landed in Atlanta, it was 6:50 and my flight was supposed to leave at 6:55. I texted Bre, the girl that will be staying with me in my homestay, because she was on the same flight to Madrid, and she said I might still make it because they were still boarding. So I got off the plane, asked for directions and sprinted through the airport to the tram and then to my gate. I was one of the last ones they let board. I finally sat down on the plane at 7:15. Thank goodness that flight was delayed too! The flight was 9 hours and it actually wasn't too bad. I didn't get much sleep, but I was able to watch movies and what not.

Once we got to the airport, I met up with other kids in my program and we found our ISA person to take us to the hotel. All the students are so nice and it has been so much fun meeting everyone. We got to the hotel at around noon, 6am Michigan time, and started exploring the city. Madrid is absolutely gorgeous. The architecture and the buildings are amazinggg. There is a huge, beautiful park right next to our hotel, and we walked around there for a while before getting lunch. After spending the afternoon walking around, we had a meeting to get our phones. At around 9:30 (the normal dinner time in Spain), a big group of us walked to Puerta del Sol, the central square, to eat. There were people everywhere. We went to Museo de Jamon, which was packed, where they have sandwiches for one euro. After spending 7 euros on lunch (about $10), we were glad for cheap food. After dinner we walked around a little more and then came back and went to bed early. There are a lot of things that are different here. Bre and I ordered water with our lunches and ended up getting glass bottles of water that cost 2 euros. They don't use ice either. Also, couples here are very into PDA. Even older couples. Most people in the United States are modest about that sort of thing...not here. Haha. The language is really challenging too. It's hard enough hearing everyone speak Spanish, and they speak so fast, but not only that, a lot of people mumble and it's very hard to understand. It should get easier though, right?

This morning we went to breakfast at 8 and then went to two famous museums, Museo Nacional del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia. We had a guide that spoke to us in Spanish about all the artwork. We saw a lot of famous Spanish paintings from Picasso, Goya, and Dali. It was really cool seeing them in person after learning about them in art classes in school. Later we're going to walk around the city some more before going to dinner and then to a famous club in Madrid called Kapital. We leave for Toledo in the morning. Monday we go meet our host families in Valencia!!! I'll write again soon. :)

Besos!