September 2, Granada to Madrid

Not a ton of stuff going on today. After breakfast and sandwiches (bocadillos) to go for the train later, we walked the two blocks to the station with our bags. Getting on the train and storing our bags was no problem since we were at the front of the line, and then during the five hour train ride I was able to catch up on my journal/blog, take maybe half an hour nap, and watch the end of Invictus while reading the Spanish subtitles.

The train ride was actually quite nice and once we got to a certain point we started going faster and through the hills instead of just around them making my ears pop and we went through the dark tunnels. The view out the windows until the very very end when we got to Madrid was of rolling hills, some covered in lines of olive trees, and little white towns that occasionally popped up and one even had a large castle and the top of its hill.

Taking the taxi with my parents from the train station to my host family’s house wasn’t a problem at all and my parents waited to make sure that I got buzzed in before they headed off. I’m on the seventh floor out of eight and thankfully they had an elevator for my 50+ pound bag. Thank you so much to my friends who told me to only bring one- it saved so much hassle!

My host mother is named María and she is very nice and welcoming and along with her elderly mother who is there most of the time, they are my company in the house. She offered me lunch, but I had already eaten, and then I was able to move into my little room and unpack. It is very cute with a little bed and desk and a closet with drawers. There are also bright pictures on the walls, black frames for me to put my pictures, and two book shelves full of books, traveling and novels, that I’m guessing are a collection of books from her and what students have left for the next students over the past ten years. I had a bunch of extra time to relax and get settled, but I’m nervous.

Later in the afternoon María went with me to show me how I would get to school in the morning. The house is right between two different stations and both are very close. We went to the train and got on there, then got off at another really big stop with the train, metro, and bus, then bought another ticket to take the metro to the stop I get off for my school. She walked the two blocks with me to show me where the school is and then we took the bus back so that I’ll know how to get there in all of the different ways.

While some people have specific times that they have to be at their house for meals, for me breakfast will be me just getting it on my own whenever I want it in the morning, lunch will probably be some time around two, but when I want it, and for dinner I just tell her when I want to eat each day and she will make it for me. Lunch is the largest and most important meal of the day, and dinner is usually smaller and a sandwich or salad or something like that.

Later in the night I was able to skype with River, and having skype is going to make this time in another country a whole lot easier.