In the North

Our orientation trip traveled through the North, from the Cathedral at Burgos (I take really bad pictures, sorry):

To the beach town of Comillas:


To Leon:
This first picture is our hotel!!! The second is the Cathedral in Leon, an amazing piece of gothic architecture.


I pretty much lost any interest in taking pictures after Burgos, but other things on our trip were: lots of clouds, Spanish history lessons, only speaking Spanish, lots of wine, LOTS of jamon/anything pig, Tapas in Leon's Barrio Humedo, los Picos de Europa (Beautiful mountains that were actually freezing. Walking in the clouds sounds awesome, but chills you to the bone), almuerzo in a cave, churros y chocolate in our director's tiny home town.


I've caught some kind of cold and I'm off to the Farmacia now. My antifitriona (host mom) taught me how to say "I have lots of mucus".

Hello, World.

Hola! Acabo de conectar la red en casa y quiero mostrar todo que me pasó aquí. Pero, ahora, lo que quiero mostrarles es esta foto de como me perdí hace unos días. Estaba tratando de ir hasta punto B (el Instituto Internacional) a punto A (mi casa). No tuve miedo y no me preocupaba, porque tuve la opción de tomar el metro, pero decidí gozar la ciudad.

I've just gotten the Internet hooked up in my house, and I definitely want to share photos, etc. But first I wanted to share this little picture of how I got lost the other day. I was trying to go from point B (el Instituto Internacional) a point A (mi casa). I wasn't super worried, because I went by several metros, and I could have taken them home, instead I just sort of wandered about. I think it's very Family Circus.

Leaving

So, here I am in the San Francisco Airport at 8AM, on my way to Madrid. I really can't believe that I will, by this time tomorrow (or something like that, timezones confuse me) I will be in Spain, and I will be living there for three months. It boggles the mind.
Since I've gone through security, I should be able to stop worrying about whether or not I should have packed an umbrella, but I'm still really worried about what rain in Madrid will be like and how cheap umbrellas will be and whether there was more room in my suitcase.

Umbrella obsessions aside, I think I'm ready to be setting off and I'm excited to share some things here. My goals for the blog are too keep it not boring and mostly true.

I can't do any kind of forward-looking expectations post because I can't even imagine Madrid, but I can say a few goals: I plan to only speak Spanish, to make lots of new friends, to get out of my comfort zone, think critically about Spain and myself, and have lots of fun. Plus other things, I'm sure.

Fun facts:
Suitcase weight: 52 lbs
Number of times the AA voice recognition thing misunderstood me: ~5
Hours of sleep: 2