Spain, Day Three

Hello faithful readers. So don't hate me but I decided not to make a post yesterday. Trust me, it would have been a waste of your time to read it anyways. I was stuck in my hotel literally all day so the only things I did were eat, read, sleep, repeat. Although, at one point in the day, I did attempt to run on the treadmill at the hotel gym and boy was that a mistake. Apparently there is a huge altitude difference in Spain than there is in the United States, so when I tried to run, my lungs just about collapsed on each other because I wasn't receiving enough oxygen. I had to stop when I was only at about a mile. Hopefully my body can get used to this altitude change because I would really like to continue running in my spare time while I'm here.

Today, however, was much more exciting. I woke up around 8:00 a.m. to have breakfast and get checked out of my hotel in order to go meet up with the other students from my study abroad group at the airport. After about thirty minutes of searching and two failed attempts to receive help from airport workers, I finally stumbled upon my group just in time to board the bus to head into the city.

Madrid isn't your typical big city. The best way I can describe it is like the difference between shield volcanoes and strato-volcanoes. New York City would be like a stratovolcanoe–very tall with all its skyscrapers. Madrid is more like a strato-volcano in the sense that many of its buildings–and I do mean many because there are a lot–are much shorter than what you would find in a big city. It stretches for miles and miles though. I would say it has a much larger circumference than other big cities. It is just not very tall. There are only four "skyscrapers" if you can call them that, which are in the very center of the city right next to each other. The rest of the buildings are about six stories high. That's it.

At about noon today, I got to meet my host mom, who was very welcoming and friendly. She is an older woman with full grown grandchildren whose husband died many years ago in a helicopter crash and sings and talks to herself a lot. So far I have had two meals with her and they are what you would expect of grandma food, well-prepared and of excellent quality. She also does the grandma thing where she gives you way too much food and wants you to clean your plate. I have no trouble with that though considering how great everything is. I have actually been more open to trying new foods since I have been here and I have already enjoyed a salad with tomatoes AND onions on it. Who would have thought that a picky eater like myself could enjoy such veggies. All of the fruits and veggies here are very fresh though, so if there is any place that I will like them, its here.

After my roommate and I got settled in at our home stay flat, we took the metro to El Plaza del Sol to meet up with the group for our trip orientation. There we learned the basics of everyday Spanish life, how our excursions would work, and some common phrases in the Spanish culture. This brings me to our palabra del dia (which means word of the day right, faithful readers?). Today's palabra is "guay' which means "cool" like in the sense that someone tells you something really neat. So you told someone "Vamos a Madrid" (which translates to "We are going to Madrid"), they might just reply with "guay." Simple, right?

Now I am winding down in my flat and preparing for my first day of class tomorrow. My professor told us today that we will only be having eleven formal class meetings throughout this whole trip which is nice. The rest of the days will either be free days or excursions, which, to me, sounds like a blast. I can't wait to see what kinds of "guay" adventures I end up having.