posted by: Lyndsey
¡Hola! Hopefully all of you know that I survived my first international plane ride! We arrived in Madrid, and I was pretty surprised by how big it was and how a lot of the names of the shops and restaurants were in English. There weren't a lot of English speakers working though, as Nick and I found out during our first lunch. We had sandwiches that reminded me of Dukes but I couldn't figure out what was in any of them so I just picked one, and it ended up being some sort of cheesey cream-type substance..it was interesting. I ate quite a few questionable meals... un bocadillo de salmon (a french bread subroll with smoked slash raw salmon), squid heads, STRONG-tasting tuna and mushroom pizza, y otras.
Madrid was cool though, except the cloud of cigarette smoke that hovered EVERYWHERE. Our hotel was in the middle of the Plaza del Sol, one of the main downtown areas of Madrid with LOTS and LOTS of people walking around...a lot like NYC! The rooms were way smaller than what you would see in a nicer hotel here, but it was definitely a nice hotel.
On our way to Granada we stopped in Toledo, an old city that used to be the capital of Spain before Madrid. We saw some really old and cool-looking buildings, and went into the king's vacation/retreat palace. We ate lunch at a tapas bar where I finally found some hope in Spanish food; I had crunchy jumbo shrimp with guacamole, and this fried cheese called croquetones (I think)..muy bueno! Oh, and I had a postre (dessert) called a pepito that changed my life.
So after a loong bus ride that had to make a special bathroom stop JUST for me (seriously. i was the only one who could get off the bus and go), we made it to Granada. Our host mom Victoria was there waiting for us. She took us to our apartamento where she fed us cream of zucchini soup with fresh bread. The food has been muy deliciosa.Victoria speaks zero English, so it's been a pretty quick transition from having to understand and speak only Spanish.
Ashton and I have yet to be on time for a meeting (go figure), and we MAY not have looked like locals as we were running through the streets with our huge map. She also had a pretty funny spill yesterday, but I'll let her describe :)
I am definitely already learning the city and where everything is though, even though it´s a lot bigger of a city than I expected.
I got a cell phone yesterday, and having to deal with a phone person that spoke no English made me never want to speak Spanish again, but I recovered. Nick´s español is coming along nicely; and I scored an invite to have dinner with his host mom sometime...sweet!
I´ll end with some cool pictures from my experiences so far. Thank yall so much for the prayers...they are felt, and I miss everyone a lot!
Hasta luego!
-lyndsey
my room!
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