First Few Days

Wow. I have been in Spain for...five day? First off, it's really beautiful here. Like, super duper "muy bonita." Sorry I couldn't write sooner, but I have not had wifi/I have been really busy. Let me account the last few days.

I left Durham at eleven on the fifth. I actually did sleep really well due to my glass of celebratory champagne from my parents. I bet that they planned for that. I'm sure my emotions were a lot different then, but I remember that I cried. I didn't think I would, but I did. I'm not really a crying type of girl. I wasn't really upset because I was leaving, I was crying mostly because everything that was happening was a big deal. Like it or not, leaving home is a little overwhelming. You will cry.

It was incredibly hard to leave my cat. Why does everyone cry when they leave their pets? I got to the airport, and my darn suitcase was to heavy. I had to take out some shoes and clothes and gifts for my host family right there on the curb. I wasn't expecting it because when I weighed my bags at home they were all perfectly acceptable. But then at the airport, the stupid bags had a difference of like, ten pounds. It was crazy.

Anyways, somehow, in the process of taking out shoes, I ended up here today with only one of two boots...my family will send me the other one.

My father got a special pass and went to the terminal with me. Boy, am I glad he did.
I had about five delays. I would have had no idea what to do with delays. For a while, it looked like my flight would be canceled due to bad weather in NY, but, three hours after I was supposed to board, I was on the plane...so I could wait for one more hour on the runway.

Nevertheless, I arrived safely, but that was the least of my worries. I had called AFS when I thought I was going to get in late at five, but five was two hours ago. AFS is really nice about the travel aspect of exchange. They give you this bright yellow paper with clear instructions on "What To Do When You Get Off the Plane," but I had missed that time slot by a lot. I kindly referred to my bright yellow "What To Do If You Get Off the Plane Late" paper and saw that I had easy instructions getting to the hotel. If I had arrived on time, I would have met AFS staff at baggage claim. Since I arrived...not on time, I had to take something called the "SkyTrain." Don't let the name trick you. The SkyTrain is a full out Metro. I swear, I walked for at least a mile with my ninety pounds of luggage to find the thing, then I wandered around on it for a good thirty minutes, trying to figure out how the hell to get to my stop. By chance, I took a different train at random that ended up stopping at my station. From there I used the courtesy phone to have the hotel pick me up, and I was on my way, safe and sound.

I checked in with AFS at the Hilton JFK which, by the way, is very nice, and the helpful AFS volunteers in the lobby were very surprised with my mode of transportation. Apparently, even though I was one of the last seven students to arrive four hours late, AFS still had a volunteer to meet me at baggage claim....

Oh, well, it made me feel very brave and independent to navigate the AirTrain by myself.

I missed dinner since I was so late, but I was able to scarf down a few bites of Hotel Food before being ushered into an orientation.

Any fellow AFS students not in Spain who were at the orientation and are reading this, I am sincerely sorry. The Spain kids are loud and obnoxious, we know. We totally annoyed the crap out of everyone. We had all met each other on facebook and Skype and everything, so we were already friends and very excited to meet everyone. Again, so sorry.

The orientations in NY were pretty fun. They're incredibly exciting because omigod you are in Nueva York, but also because the AFS staff doesn't mention the rules once. Or, if they do, they're very sneaky about it. We had some time with two people who had been to Spain with AFS, and they were able to actually answer questions about what our life would be like. As Americans, we all found the question about how to greet people with a kiss very helpful. If you're going to Spain, you must know that you greet people with kisses. Women greet men with them, women greet women with them, kids greet teens with them, everyone except men with men. They just do it like shaking hands or hugging. You get in close, but you don't hug. You can sort of grab a shoulder if you need to, and you go left, then right. Remember: LEFT THEN RIGHT. If you get it wrong, the end result is very embarrassing. And it's different around the world, so try and let the other person make their move before you do.

Everyone has a roommate for this orientation. The next day we had a few little games and videos, including the speech by President Kennedy to the AFS students in 1963 with a toast of sparkling apple cider and a reading of our AFS Pledge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E_NWV7LGrw . After that the various Americans going to France, Belgium, Portugal, South Africa, some other place in Africa, Italy, other places, and Spain hung around and waited for their flights. The Spain Kids left at five P.M., the second to last flight besides Italy, and it was torture. At that point, you're so close to leaving, and you're so ready to be there that you are willing to trade flights with the France kids at six A.M.

It was really nice to meet the other Americans going abroad. We sat around for hours chilling, talking, eating, and sharing concerns. It was great talking with the kids who were going to Italy because 1) they were cool people and 2) I have an Italian host family. We did that for a while, then I met some other kids who are in Spain. I have a feeling I made some good AFS friends that day. It's fun to think that when I see them again in a year, we'll all be speaking fluent Spanish.

We finally went to the airport and checked in.

I would also like to apologize to the people at the airport and the hotel. They should get money off their tickets and rooms because the mass of teens in blue t-shirts is cripplingly loud and large.


I got by the weight limit with my bags, but I had to check my carry-on for free :( It had my favorite book (my entertainment) To Kill A Mockingbird in it, so that kind of sucked.

The plane ride to Zurich was...terrible. First off, it was like, ten hours long. We lose a night of sleep, because it is impossible to sleep on the plane. I would also like to apologize to the people on the plane who sat near our group of thirty-two AFSers. They probably didn't sleep either. They probably watched a bunch of free movies like I did.

Thank god for airport food. Not because it's good, it actually tastes horrible, and it carries a certain side of stomach ache, but because on long flights with Swiss Airlines, it comes every ten minutes. It is probably the only thing that kept me entertained, because Harper Lee Collin and Kristin Stewart's SnowWhite and the Huntsman sure didn't. Swiss Airlines also gives you free chocolate, which was probably the highlight of my day.

So, we land in Switzerland, which is so beautiful, and we get off the plane to go through security with our passports. My new friend Reece and I weren't the last ones in line for security, but somehow we ended up being the last ones to be checked. First, the alarm went off. I was led into a little curtained room and I was patted down. Really, they think I'm a terrorist? I tried to remind myself that it was a random check as I laughed and the lady looked down my pants.

Next, Reece had to empty her backpack for security reasons. I waited for her as the rest of the AFSers left for the terminal. We finally were allowed to go, a mere fifteen minutes later, when the AFS volunteer came to get us. I don't know what it says about my friends if they don't realize I'm missing for fifteen minutes. The volunteer took us on another AirTrain, something I never would have been able to figure out without him, and we were led to the terminal so we could wait for our flight to Madrid. Everyone was so tired at this point. We would have loved to sleep, but there was no way that was going to happen.

The flight to Madrid was...also terrible. It was impossible to sleep, and Swiss Airlines only gave us one piece of chocolate in that two hours. We got off the plane, said goodbye to our travel volunteer from America, and were greeted by the AFS volunteers in bright green t-shirts. We waited around the airport for an hour for some other kids from Norway or somewhere. Remember what I said in an earlier blog post about being in AFS and always having to wait for something? Yeah. There you go. Now I'm waiting for that awful day when I have to leave Spain.

During that time we asked the volunteers about the kissing thing again, and we actually practiced a bit. Everyone was red in the face. We also spoke in Spanish a little, and apparently my Spanish is really good? I do not think so, but that's what my friends said.

Mark: three days or so (the hotel, the night we lost in flight, the time we waited in Zurich) of no sleep, wearing nothing but those dirty blue AFS T-shirts, and uneatable hotel/plane food. We were all groggy and hungry.

After everyone was present and accounted for we loaded onto a bus and drove to the outskirts of Madrid for our orientation. Let me tell you about the youth hostel we were staying in: it looks like a prison. There are fences with barbed wire on the inside. You heard me, on the inside. To keep us from going out. It was right next to a theme park, so we heard the screams. It was right next to the Metro, so we heard the metro. It was near a zoo, so we smelled the zoo. And some wild dogs at three in the morning.

Orientation here was pretty great as well. I enjoyed meeting the teens from around the world who were also in Spain. They may not speak like you, act like you, or look like you, but they all know what you're feeling. They're in Spain, just like you are.

I was assigned a room to share with three other people in bunkbeds. Our room connected to another room by a communal bathroom. This bathroom was shared with boys.

I know, I know, it's not too weird. You can shower at different times, schedule when to use the toilet, blah blah blah. But what really got me was the fact that some people shared actually bedrooms with the opposite sex. Total Culture Shock. We would never do that in America. Sharing a room with a complete stranger is one thing, but sharing it with three big American guys when you're a tiny little French girl is...different. I guess it just isn't a big deal in Spain. I should get used to it.

But, once we settled in, we were called outside to do an icebreaker game, just to make the disbelief worse. Here's the game: "everyone hold hands and stand in a circle!" Okay, easy enough. The volunteers gave us each a number or letter, and they put one person in the middle of the circle. This next part was explained in both English and Spanish, but most of the orientation was done in English because everyone speaks it. "The person in the middle will call out a number and a letter. These two people must run to try to be the first to kiss the person in the middle."

...

We were playing a kissing game? This was dirtier than truth or dare. The game was pretty fun, but it was incredibly disorienting to see the Spaniard's casual attitude towards physical contact. I had to remind myself that it wasn't bad here, just different.

No one really slept well that night either. The volunteers came into my room at two A.M. because they thought I was from Germany and if you're from Germany you needed to have given over your plane ticket. I wasn't from Germany, and when I was able to explain this in my half-dead state, the volunteers shrugged and left.

Some students going to the far north of Spain had to leave at eight in the morning after we all woke up for breakfast. Others left soon after that. The Madrid kids, about fifteen of us, had no idea when we were meeting our host families. I heard at one point that it would be at five. Someone else told me we would take the Metro to the AFS office in the city and meet our families there. I also heard we would meet them in thirty minutes, which caused me to run to my room and retrieve my suitcase. A volunteer took us Madrid kids (that is the vernacular language in AFS--Madrid kids, Spain kids, American kids--it's the easiest way to keep us organized) to a field near the hostel where we played more games for a few hours. While we were doing that we actually saw someone practicing bull fighting. No biggie. Just your first day in Spain, and there are some shirtless guys stabbing a mechanical bull a few feet away, the most stereotypical thing you can think of when you think of Spain. We broke for lunch, which was the best thing I had eaten in a long time, and then a volunteer came in and clapped her hands. "Okay! Time to meet your host families!"

We were so incredibly nervous. Just think about it. You're led like a lamb to slaughter to the room where, it turns out, your families snuck in a few hours previous for an orientation while you were watching the death of a fake bull in a field. Go figures. We bunched up in two groups, students and families, and our names were called one by one as everyone watched us meet each other.

I aced the kissing thing. Score!

My host father, mother, and sister, Isabella were there to greet me. My sister was actually wearing a dress that my Mother had made me leave at home because "no one will wear that in Spain!" My host brother, Alberto, was to arrive home the next day from his AFS stay in South Africa! Our new family was growing in a precession of days.

I said goodbye to my AFS friends, promising to see them soon, and I went with my enormous luggage and my family to their car.

Madrid is so beautiful. "La ciudad es muy bonita!" We hadn't seen the city from the airport, but now I can tell you that everything looks like a postcard. The city is surprisingly clean, unlike cities in the US. Pictures are on the way.

My host family is amazingly nice and their apartment in the center of the city is fabulous. Calle Zurbano, if anyone is wondering. I have my own bedroom and shower, something that I wasn't counting on. It's so great. I am fantastically happy.

The first few days are supposed to be really hard, but for me they've been great. I met lots of family, including one of my host father's eight siblings who lives next door and his daughter, who is twenty-one. The first day we walked to a park and took a taxi home when it started to rain. I was given a map of the metro, which I have begun to study. The second day we went to the airport to pick up my host brother. I wouldn't mind if I never saw another airport again.

These last few days we've gone out for dinner to an Italian Pizzaria. The food here makes up for the stuff in the airport and hotels. It is so good. My host mother is an incredible cook, and I'm pretty sure she works at an Italian school for cooking. It tastes like she does.

Meal times here are really different, but I'm getting used to it. We eat breakfast (cereal with coco powder in hot milk) in the morning, lunch, the biggest meal, at four (yesterday it was a rice-stuffed tomato with bread and cake for dessert, the day before that it was pasta with shrimp) and dinner at ten or eleven (the first day it was the best omlette you've ever tasted split between four people with a dessert of any fruit you want, including fig, pear, and yogurt.)

Yesterday I walked with my host siblings to school in the morning. We definitely do a lot of walking, which is good with me. I start school at Fortuny on Thursday. I didn't get to skip a grade like I wanted, but I'm signed up for the most difficult classed in my math track. A schedule should be uploaded soon. When my host father and I went to Fortuny, five minutes away from our house, to sign me up, we spoke with the la directora. The principle. Not some random guidance councilor, the actual principle of the whole school. At first when she spoke she sounded adamant that I would have to appear before some sort of school board if I wanted to attend, and that it probably wasn't possible. A few minutes later she was laughing with us and I was signing up for classes. My host father thought it was hilarious. It's a good representation of how the system here works. The principle liked us, she saw that I was a good student, she said, what the hell, why not? My host brother has some friends at Fortuny, and he has said that they can help me on my first day. I am so thankful.

I went out with Alberto, who is sixteen, at seven to meet some more of his friends. We walked thirty minutes to calle (street) Goya, which is a good place for shopping. We casually met his friends, who all kissed me on both cheeks, Left then Right, and then walked around the city in a circle, just chatting and chilling. We got home at ten or so, and it was no problem. His friends were really nice, and it was cool to be out in the city at night. I shouldn't walk alone at night for fear of robbing, but I definitely like that I'm allowed to leave the house at ten without it being a scandal.

The only downside to this all is that estoy enferma. I am sick. I first realized that my throat hurt in the NY airport, and after that my nose has gotten progressively more runny and my coughs more violent. It has sort of sucked to be sick the first few days, but besides that I'm alright.

Well, okay. That's it. Sorry for the long post, but it's nice to get this all written down. My Spanish is mal, and no me entiendo mucho, pero me aprendiendo. My family speaks english if I need it, but I shouldn't rely on English too much.

Adios por ahora. Vivian.

My Luggage, a lovely assortment of black and blue

My Cat

AFS kids, doin' their thing

...I want to be at the airport

Switzerland!

"Quick! Everyone look tired!" "Why?" "It's for my blog. I want the pictures to correspond with what I write."

AFS!!!!

Shared Baño

That's a shower, if you can't tell

That's the floor of the shower

Our Room

Host Family!

Pizza :)

Pasta :)