First 72 hours!

Hey everyone so what an experience this has been already. To begin my flight was delayed from Atlanta to Paris. We arrived in Paris to tons of snow and ice and a two hour wait for our next plane. The flight to Paris went well. I got a free bottle of wine which put me right to sleep! We boarded our flight to Madrid from Paris and again I went right to sleep but not after meeting my French companion who is Catholic and also studying in spain. (she knew I was American immediately) We arrived in Madrid around 6pm to no luggage (which still has not come) It is stuck in Paris somewhere. But no one really cared because we were so excited to finally be here. We then took a bus to Alcala where we met our host families which was an interesting experience. We stood in the middle of Plaza de Cervantes and a lady called out our names and our families claimed us. Me and Devin unfortunately had no family by the time everyone was called out. Our mother never showed. So we carried the luggage we had all around Alcala with Teresa (from the school) to find a lady to stay with. It all worked out well. I got to stay with one of the Directors, Jessica, she is from Arizona and has an apartment with two extra beds for me and Devin. Our mother is coming today to pick us up from school. she was confused about the dates. I was not able to take a shower last night due to no hot water but Devin and I washed each others hair in the freezing cold sink...I must admit I had the thought "what the heck am I doing here" while doing this but it was an experience!

There are a lot of cool things I have already noticed about Spain. Everyone says "Buenas" instead of "hola", they drive on the right side of the road just like us, there are no street lights really so people drive when they want to and people walk across the street when people want to and every bedroom has a light switch right next to the bed so you do not have to get up and turn the light off...or buy lamps. I am using my teachers computer to write this while we had a break!

Today we are having orientation. We had to take a placement test and I placed in the avanzado or advanced group which is good. I signed up for my classes that start Monday and now we are having a break until our mothers come to take us to lunch. When we come back we take a tour of the school and the town. This town is so old and beautiful. Becca would love all the historic buildings. Alcala is known for having Storks everywhere. So yes all the Storks make nests on the tops of the buildings. I have a picture I will post later. All the bars are coffee shops too and have wifi so I hope to be able to use that later today or tomorrow. People are already making plans for my birthday for me so thats exciting! I hope to write more later and sorry this is so choppy and random but I wanted to write some stuff while I had the chance! Hope all is well back in the US!!!!