So to recap my first month... yes it has been a whole month!
Upon arriving, I spent a night in a hostel by myself, not too scary since i slept from 1 in the afternoon until 10 the next morning and then checked myself out of the hostel to meet my host family!
My host family is wonderful, it consists of Amalia, a gracious host, an AMAZING cook and a traditional "madrideña" having the past 4 generations grow up in Madrid. (this is apparently rare here most of the citizens of madrid moved here within the past 40 or so years. Also living with us is José, an opera singer from the Canary Islands. (He has an incredible voice)
After meeting a couple students at required gatherings, usually with tapas and café con leche*, we left for Sevilla, located in the southern region of Spain. On our way down we stopped at a Catholic Church in Cordoba, beautiful but cold. It has an amazing history, it was first created as a mosque by Abd... (can't remember his whole name) after his family, the royal family, was murdered. He travelled for 5 years across Africa and the Straight of Gibraltar... anyway very cool history.
We got to Seville and had lots of time to meet the old students and continue to get to know the newer students. Here my main group of friends all started getting to know each other. We went to a horse/bull ranch and ate a LOT of food!
(Pictures on facebook!)
After Sevilla classes started. I'm taking three and they're all good. History of Art (in English), Spanish Translation, and Spanish Conversations and Compositions (both in Spanish).
Two weeks after school began I went with about 12 other students and our activities director to the Pyrenees mountains, located on the boarder of France and Spain. They were breathtaking. The night we arrived we went to Jaca's Citadel. It was fascinating, with its drawbridge, chapel, military miniatures museum (showing the history of Spain's involvement in various wars as well as the changing battle techniques.) Then we went ice skating also a lot of fun! The next two days we spent skiing in the mountains. The first day I had altitude sickness so I stayed with the beginner group to help out. (It was the greatest day though, no wind and clear blue skies!) The second day I was able to adventure a bit more but it was windy and the fog made it so that you couldn't see the person in front of you. Still both days were phenomenal!
This past week I was hoping to go to Paris with my friends however, I wasn't able to because of a small mishap with two of my syringes. I apparently left them on the bus and because we got in so late it wasn't properly cleaned before its school route the next day. A young boy found the syringes and managed to poke himself. The parents, like any parents were scared and asked me to get blood tests done and identify the syringes etc etc. Two days ago I was told that the lab results had come back for the boy, the syringe and myself, all clear. PRAISE THE LORD!
This weekend is a chill weekend so I took a bus out to the mountains near the city of Manzanares (about a half hour bus ride) to do some exploring and climbing and have some personal time where I didn't have to worry so much about appearances but could focus on the one relationship that matters, God and me. It was a beautiful small town, peaceful and quiet, very different from Madrid which is always busy and loud. I'll put up some photos, but unfortunately my camera died about an hour into my trip. Oh and I got to see the castle in Manzanares as well. So great! A real castle, well the building was real and it was set up to imitate a real castle. I hope I can go back again to do some more hiking and get some pictures of the castle, it had some incredible tapestries and other artwork as well.
Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to Toledo for the day! (My camera battery is charging!)
So that catches us all up on my life in Spain.
God Bless!
bec
*(tapas are the traditional "appetizers" of Spain, and café con leche is 1/2 coffee and 1/2 milk. Both are delicious!)
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