¡Estoy en España!

Well here I am, safe and sound in Spain. I left Wednesday morning at 9:25 from Boise and flew to Denver. There I had a 2-hour layover before boarding a 10-hour flight on Lufthansa Airlines for Munich, Germany. As a sidenote, why don't we as individual countries call other countries what they call themselves? Why is it Munich in the US and Munchen in Germany? Why is it Spain in the US and España in Spain? Hmmm? Can anyone answer this question? Why not just have all countries call España, España and be done with it? Thankfully that flight went pretty well. I had two seats to myself (yeah!) and the first movie was actually pretty entertaining. It was a British movie called "Mr. Bean's Holiday" and it was hilarious. Y'all should watch it some time. And the food was good too. I was a little worried because I had forgotten to request vegetarian meals but I was just fine. For supper we had a choice between chicken/rice or pasta with marinara and then for breakfast it was an omelet and potatoes. So I had no meat issues and all the food was really tasty besides.

Anywho, moving on. From Munchen (ha! even if no one else does, I'll use original names), I flew to Valencia. This was AFTER sitting in the airport for four hours and working on intensive development of smoker's cough due to the smoking that was allowed in certain areas of the airport. Even though it was only a few small places where you could smoke, as Mike Dewey says, having a smoking section in a building is like having a peeing section in a pool. Grrrrr....
Moving on again. My apologies for the rants. You would too though about the smoke. I arrived in Valencia and found some other ACA students in the baggage claim area that had been on the same flight. So after we walked out of the airport (no customs or passport check whatsoever…really weird), there were five of us waiting around trying to figure out where the people from ESDES were to pick us up. After waiting awhile, we decided to call the school. Once we figured out how much to pay for the phones, we finally were able to get a hold of the director. Apparently they were confused about when we were coming in so they were hoping that either we would call them or they would see us when they came to pick up other students who were coming in at various times that day. Thankfully they already had someone on the way there since two others were coming in an hour after us. So we found them when they got off the plane and then all seven of us waited together until the school guy came and got us.

And so now I am living in the girls' dorm at Colegio Adventista de Sagunto (CAS) and am enrolled in the Escuela Superior de Espanol-Sagunto (ESDES).


Woot woot! And thankfully my roommate, Saray – a Spaniard, is nice and we've got a balcony with an amazing view (I can see the Mediterranean from my room!!!!).


Unfortunately, as most of you know, I'm not a great conversation initiator and when that's combined with poor Spanish skill…..you get my drift. But Saray's nice and so I'm sure we'll be fine.

And that's about all for now. Look for more updates later telling of the first full day and then the first day of classes. Love and miss you all! ¡Que tenga un buen fin de semana y feliz sábado!