Hola from Spain!

Mom, if you read this, I have forgotten twice to tell you now that Yvonne ended up being our attendant for our gate in that flight to Newark- isnt that strange and cool! Anyway, so she was excited to tell us that she thought we were going to make the flight to madrid, and she even gave us a map of the Neward airport and highlighted where we needed to run to as soon as we landed. So we ran and got to the next gate just as they were boarding! whew! Betsy says she is naming her first child, Yvonne

The plane to Newark was only an hour and 15 min. The flight to Madrid was sooo nice. Free movies, we watched Bridge to Terabithia and Music and Lyrics. We had the option to watch both of them in Spanish too. The airline food wasnt bad. We got a snack, dinner at about 10, and then 4 hours later were fed breakfast when it was about 8:30 spain time, 230 ohio time, haha. When it was one AM on my watch, 4 hours into the flight, dawn came. We met the sun over the atlantic ocean. Which meant that we got about 4 hours of night. Oh well.

Going through customs in Madrid took all of 30 seconds, haha. The airport is huge! I got some euros and discovered the american dollar is not doing that well. One euro equals 1.41 in US. So for my 50 bucks I got 35 euros. Oh well. Spain's climate is different than I pictured. It looks almost desert like. It has trees, but the fields and hills are rolling, with not many plants. The mountains are sooo cool. Madrid reminded me of miami. Everything is nice loooking. All the cars that we on the road were nice too.

Our host, Piedad, is nice. She is single with one daughter. Her apartment is small, but has 3 bedrooms, so Marleen and I get our own. The food here is sooo different, and half the time I am either hungry, or full and wanting to throw up. but they make you eat and they make you eat large amounts, and if you dont eat all of it they get upset. She was complaining about something in the dishes, so I offered to wash the dishes twice, but she got angry about it. Oh well. The bathroom is quite like ours, the toliet flushes from the top and you pull it up. The shower is alittle different too, but it felt nice!

Today our teacher took us around Segovia (its a small town in area, but the population is 40,000 so its densly populated. everyone lives in aparments thats why) The aquaduct is sooo cool, very romanesqe. We went inside the castle, and saw the moat and the throne and everything is soooo neat. I am so excited about all the touring things.

I am not that excited about the language. I am able to carry on conversations, but there are still so many things I do not know how to say, and things are lost in translation, and its frustrating. I am scared that Piedad does not like me becuase she yells alot, but I think that might be a cultural thing.

Its just so neat and pretty. We dont look that out of place. Until we open our moutbs and our accents are different. I dress nice becuase all the people here do. Because I have dark hair, I do not stand out as foreign as my blonde friends do. I am glad I didnt bring flashy clothes too- that stands out less as well.

Well, I am at a cybercafe y ¡no tengo mas tiempo! ayy

Hasta luego, amigos