Hi! So we have been in Spain for a couple days now, and it has been amazing!

We arrived on Thursday morning in Madrid, Ivy (one of the other girls on the trip with me) randomly had the same second connection as I did, so we were able to navigate the airport together, which was really nice! We of course got lost for an hour in the Madrid airport, but there were plenty of cute European boys to check out along the way, so it was all good! haha.

We met up with our group and headed to Cáceres on a bus, and finally got some sleep! it was about 11am local time, which is 4 in the morning at home! I actually wasn't too tired, even though I didn't sleep on the plane (9 hour flight=not my cup of tea). We stopped on the way at this small roadside restaurant where we had our first Spanish food. Once we got to Cáceres, we met up with our host families. My roomate, Megan, and I have the besttt host mother ever, she is incredibly sweet and welcoming, and a great cook! She is always calling us "hija" (daughter) and teaching us all the little words and vocabulary that we don't know.

Yesterday we walked around, Cáceres is small, which is really great, because its safe and we can find ourselves very easily, which makes exploring that much more fun! The cafés are really cute, and "café con leche" (espresso and milk essentially) is fast becoming one of my favorites!

Luckily, there are some Spanish students here that we have been hanging out with, so our program coordinator Toñi has let us all off on our own, and we´re learning soo much about the language and culture from them. Most of them are studying to become English teachers too, so our conversations are always lively and interesting on both ends. And my speaking abilities are far better than I had anticipaed! it´s SO much easier to speak when we´re here, and when the people we´re with are so willing to help and correct us.

Today we went up the mountain that the town is kind of on, it's got a pretty church at the top, and we saw "La Virgen de la Montaña" (Virgin of the mountain) which is a statue of the Virgin Mary, she's kind of a patron of the city. Our host mother told us that when she was young, they used to walk up the mountain every day for church (she is a devout Catholic). We can see the statue from the windows in our flat too, which is, by the way, really pretty! Our rooms are really big, and there is a little courtyard in the middle of the building for clotheslines and stuff. I know this is normal here, but I think it's interesting!

Anyway, the whole trip so far (besides the actual flight getting here haha) has been really fun, I love being in a new place! I didn't sleep that well last night (night time here is around mid afternoon there) but besides that I haven't been terribly jet lagged, which is really nice! Anywayy, this is a novel so I will end it here, but there will be much more to come I am sure! :)