We got into Madrid on Thursday morning, Jan 22, after a nice 5 and a half hour flight over the Atlantic. The drive from Madrid to Caceres is about 3 hours, but we stopped at a roadside café to get lunch. Other than that I don't remember much of the bus ride, I was catching up on the sleep I missed on the plane.

It was rainy and cold when we arrived, but all our host parents were waiting for us. I'm living with a single mom, Manuela 'Manoli' and her daughter Sara. I couldn't ask for a nicer family. We live in an apartment in what's known as La Parte Antigua, or old city. Our back terrace is against the wall of the medieval city, and every day when I walk through the old city to get to where we all meet, I walk under an arch that was built in 34 AD by the Romans.

The apartment has 3 bedrooms, living room, 2 bathrooms, dining room, attic/office, kitchen, sun porch, and a ROOF TOP TERRACE that I'm excited about. Its kind of like being in the visitors locker room at Iowa since the walls are all painted pink, but I think the calming effect is a good thing.

The food is great, unfortunately I'm allergic to all the stuff that's 'the best' but don't worry, I haven't tried it. Manuela likes to eat healthy foods, so we eat a lot of fruits and veggies and beans with our meat. There's no way I can remember all the names of the dishes, but I've had vegetable puree soup, a dish with lentils, some tortillas espanoles which were like fried eggs, and a lot of dulces (sweets). We drink hot milk, which takes some getting used to, and orange juice and water.

And we eat at RANDOM times. Breakfast is normal, cereal or eggs in the morning, but we don't eat lunch until 3:30. Before then it's just snacks (and a nap) and yes, everything does close for siesta from 2 to 4 or 5, and nothing is open on Sundays. We eat supper at 9:30 because Manoli has to be at work early in the morning Monday-Friday, but most everyone else eats at 10 or 10:30.

So the first few days, to sum it all up, has really been a group of 24 Americans blocking the street as we walk around the city learning our way around. There are some university students that are our guides, showing us where we can get food, hang out, the LIBRARY, movie theatres…

Friday night Sean, Kathryn, Ginny and I went to a restaurant that had hamburgers big enough to feed 10 or 12 people. We polished off the four person one no problem.You'll have to check out Kathryn's blog for that picture. We took too long and missed meeting with the group going to a concert, but we ended up finding another group of American students that had been here a long time and they showed us a few places and had some tips about traveling around Europe.

Long story short we met Elvis and the rest of his bachelor party and had a great time. We left at 3, which was embarrassingly early—none of the locals even think about going home till 5 or even 6 am, and they usually don't get home til 7. Its tradition to bring home breakfast for your mom because she'll be waking up when you're getting back.

Yesterday was more of the same, but I did get a converter from Debbie so my fam could play WII!! They said the Wii costs 300 E, which is like 500 dollars US, so no one has them but they aren't hard to find. Oh and a note to travelers, store owners see you coming. I wanted to buy one, and they should cost around 20$, but the airports were 40$ so I passed. When I got here I went to an electronics store where they would sell me one for 150 E, over 200 USD, since they thought I had to have one for my computer. But the Wii was a great idea, I'm glad I brought it because we played for a long time last night and they loved it.

Today's been pretty relaxed. I went to church in the cathedral at noon with Sean, that's a beautiful place, and I'll put pictures up when I can. Mass is the same here, and I don't sing any better in Spanish when I don't know the words than I do in English. Now I'm heading out for tapas (snacks) with some friends to plan a couple weekend trips.

Hasta Luego!