Bienvenidos a Espana

Hola a todos,

This is overwhelming already. Luckily, I think this will be the worst part.  And I haven’t slept in…25 hours? and counting haha. So I know that tomorrow will be better after I’ve slept all night.

Alright, so from the beginning:

I was sitting in the Chicago airport, waiting, bored, when an Iberia employee said something over the loudspeaker and the girl behind me, Selma, asked if I understood him. I didn’t. But, either way we realized that we were both going to the la Universidad de Deusto and that we were both living with families in Algorta, so we were on the same flights all the way to Bilbao. Selma even ended up sitting right behind me on the flight to Madrid, which was very long and boring. The food was disgusting and the movie was played at like 3 am (Spanish time) so thank god I brought my own entertainment. We arrived at the airport an hour late, but I had a four hour layover anyway so it was fine. We had to go through immigration there , which consisted of me showing them my passport and leaving haha. It sounded much scarier than it was.  Then we went to buy food but I wasn’t feeling well from the lack of sleep so I just bought a coke and sat with Selma, which was nice. We get along great and we started talking about traveling together and are planning to go shopping and to the beach Sunday since we leave very close.  Anyway, when we were done with breakfast we went to find our gate. Our boarding pass said gate HJK, so we followed the signs to HJK through the entire airport. We literally went through the entire Madrid-Barajas airport, we took a train, took elevators, went up and down escalators and then through security again, which I was not expecting. Apparently since our first flight was international and the second was domestic, we needed to go through Spanish security as well. Then we continued to follow the signs to HJK, only to find that H was pointed to the left, J to the right and K down. So finally we asked an airport employee and she explained that gates aren’t assigned until 30 mins before boarding time, so H, J, and K were our options. So we sat and relaxed for 2 hours before finding out our real gate. Then we finally boarded our flight to Bilbao, which was pretty much take off and descent and then we were there! Selma and I were both really nervous about going through customs and meeting our families and leaving each other, since we’d been helping each other the whole way so far. But customs was probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I got my bag, walked up to a man who asked me where I was from, I told him the United States and he said “Ok, enjoy Bilbao.” Then I walked up to a man holding a Deusto sign and he checked me and the other three students in and then went to get our families. It reminded me of Matt and Jessy’s New York Reception. All of the sudden there were a bunch of older men and women rushing at us with their arms out, yelling our names.  I met Carmen and her husband(???) Ricardo and kissed them on the cheeks. There is sooo much kissing in Spain! They are such nice people, and when we got back to their apartment I met their daughter Paola, and their grandson Iker who visits everyday. I think Paola is 26 but she looks much younger and Iker is 3 and absolutely adorable.  Right when I got there, Carmen made us lunch. She made some sort of soup with beans and sausage that I can’t remember the same of.  Then she made fish, which I know she didn’t tell me the name of, but it was caught fresh from the Bay of Biscay and is only available from July-September, so they pickle it for the rest of the year. It was really good, but I was still nervous so I couldn’t eat much. Now, after playing with Iker for a while, I’m just trying to settle in. I need to go out and buy things (like the lotion that airport security confiscated) but I’m content to just sit here for now. Anyways, I have orientation at Deusto tomorrow at 9, and it will be comforting to speak English again. I know that I said I want to only speak Spanish while I’m here…but I think maybe I’ll start that next week lol. It’s all just a little overwhelming right now.  Love you all and I’ll update soon :)

...and it says i wrote this at 8 something am, but its 5:35 pm right now haha