First Post - 2nd Day of Orientation

Hey All!

Well as you know, I made it to Madrid safe and sound!  Although, on our flight we had turbulance over the atlantic which woke me up and caused me to freak out just a little bit... Luckily, Colleen and I were sitting next to a priest which I took to mean that if the plane was going down, we had the best chance of being saved!  During the turbulance, our media system went down on the flight which made me most nervous I think!  When we arrived in the airport in madrid we didnt have to go through customs...they just stamped our passports and that was it.  Also, got to our senoras house just fine!  Our senora wants us to call her nena!  She seems really friendly like to talk a lot which would make me feel better if I could understand what she was saying! 

To recap from yesterday;

It was so cold and the snow we got last night was melting all over the place making everything really slippery!  Everyone is so nice here and it was good to be with people i recognized. they took us on a tour of campus and the surrounding neighborhood which was really nice. Lots of bars and places to eat. We also stopped inside a cheap junk store which was ran by Chinese people. Reminded me of the junk shops in NYC. We also were able to make it back home using the Metro by ourselves - and so far no pickpocketers victimized us yet! Last night we were having trouble with our internet connection but it started working again today which makes me happy! Tomorrow we have our academic orientation and then they are taking us on a tour of Madrid! I cannot wait for that!

As for today, Well, I am still fighting off the homesickness...I talked to Elena last night for a little bit...it helped some i guess.... It is just so hard because I am having a hard time finding a routine to get into. Also my nervousness and homesickness is making me feel really bad which doesn't help my mood. I felt a little better when I woke up this morning. We went to orientation and took a bus tour of Madrid. That was fun except it was raining so it was really hard to appreciate everything that we were seeing - not to mention it prevented me from taking any pictures.  It was fun because we got to talk with some other people from our school which I enjoyed.  Afterwards, they dropped us off at principle pio which is a big bus/metro/train station plus a big shopping center. We walked around there for a little bit and then headed to el corte ingles which is a shopping megastore which is like a department store meets supermarket. There were like 7 floors...it was crazy. I got some shampoo there which i desperately needed. Colleen and also needed more passport photos...I swear I am sick of having to track those down.  Although it is much easier to get passport photos here in Spain...they have photo booths to take them at all of the metro stops and at el corte ingles.  Also, I only had to pay 3 euros for 6 of them!   We had to get some passport size photos so that we can apply to get our unlimited monthly metro passes which we are definetely going to make use of seeing as it is too long for us to walk to school.  I tried to nap for a few minutes when I got back to the apartment.  I know it probably isnt good for my sleep schedule to nap but on the other hand, I am having such a difficult time getting to sleep at night anyway i feel like i need to get some sleep when i can!  Our senora is making us tortilla espanola tonight which I am told is hash browns mixed together with eggs.  I hope I will be able to eat it tonight.  Couldn't eat lunch again today.  For breakfast I was able to get down half of a banana and a glass of orange juice.  Lunch consisted of some cheetos and some of the meat from my sandwich.  I also started on a tobelrone bar which I still have in my bag.   Hopefully something fun will come up for tonight and keep me busy.  I don't have class until 2:30 tomorrow so I need to sleep in so that I am not bored enough tomorrow morning to think about home...especially since you all will be sleeping and I will have no one to talk to!