I HAVE ARRIVED IN SPAIN!

I have officially been in Spain for 8 days now and I am loving it!  It has been a very, very busy week because I have been all over the place, dragging my luggage from here to there and have slept in three different beds already.

On the 14th of September, I took an Iberia Airlines flight from Boston to Spain.  The flight was pretty uneventful.  There were no delays or issues, which I was very thankful for.  I received a decent meal of chicken with peas and carrots and desert was a mediocre, cold apple pie with whipped cream.  I sat with another girl from New Hampshire who was on her way to study abroad in Italy.  She told me she was really nervous about going and that it was her first time out of the country.  I told her that I knew exactly how she felt because I had been in her shoes just a year and a half ago.  I made sure to tell her that she was about to start something that was going to change her life in ways that she could never imagine because that is what my study abroad experience did for me.

The virgin and the floral offerings

I arrived on on the doorstep of my old apartment in Granada at 2pm on Thursday after dragging all of my bags from the taxi to the doorstep.  I was so, so excited to see Maria, my host mother from study abroad, again!  She was nice enough to take me in to her apartment for two nights.  As soon as we walked into the apartment, it was amazing to hear her say, "I prepared tortilla española, are you hungry?"  Qué sííííí!!!  I spent those two days eating more tortilla española than I could handle, a heaping pile of spaghetti, a delicious ham and cheese bocadillo, baked chicken, potatoes and drank lots of delicious wine and beer with lunch.  Let me tell you, I jumped right into taking a siesta my first two days.

Thursday, after siesta of course, I joined Maria and her friend for an iced lemonade and then waited in line to offer flowers to "Our Lady of Sorrows."  Apparently the 15th of September is a special day where people from the city line up with bouquets of flowers at a certain church and pray for their children and families.  We stood in a line that wrapped all the way around the Corte Inglés to the church for two hours.

On the beach with spanish amigos (stolen from Vanessa)

Friday I spent the day running errands and then relaxing with Maria and her two friends in the plaza.  These two days were really overwhelming and tiring for me because it had been about a year and a half since I had been speaking Spanish regularly.  Needless to say, I was struggling and my brain was on overload.  Luckily a lot came back to me, but at the same time I felt like I lost a bit of my ability to speak Spanish.  I think those two days were exactly what I needed to get myself immersed into the spanish language and culture again.

Then, I took two days to visit my friend Vanessa who studied abroad with me and is living in the city of Granada this year.  We had a great time visiting, siesta-ing, going out for tapas, taking advantage of the menú del día, hanging out with american friends and spanish friends at the beach (Salobreña, with waves up to 15 ft high!), listening to house music and barbecuing.

I had a great weekend in Granada.  Walking around the city brought back so many memories from my semester abroad.  I think I had a smile on my face the entire time I was there.  Again, I am so thankful to be having this experience because when I left Granada in May of 2010, I had no idea if I would ever be able to make it back again.

Coming up next...

A blog about orientation in Sevilla and my first impressions of Baza!  I won't post them all today because that would be information overload.  I will schedule these two posts to publish in the next two days.