I am now officially in Madrid after a VERY long day of traveling. Megan and I left chicago at 6 pm (1 am Madrid time) and were excited and nervous at the same time. When going through security Megan had to be patted down, and I had to be patted down when we had a layover in Brussels. Apparently we appear to be very threatening (yeah right- I was wearing bedazzled skinny jeans and a t-shirt). But nevertheless, Megan and I had to entertain ourselves for 8 and a half hours on the way to Brussels. Which started out fine because as any other 20 year old would do on an airplane, we started to color in coloring books (yes we are 20 although sometimes have the mentality of 5 year olds). But thennn all the lights in the cabin went out for the rest of the flight, so we had to settle for watching movies. We watched "what's you're number" and "crazy, stupid love" and I attempted to watched "Moneyball" but I am not as avid of a baseball fan as Megan, so she watched that movie and I tried to sleep but really just ended up listening to my ipod. The food was a lot better than I expected, and besides the dude in front of me leaning too far back into my personal space, it was a pretty decent flight. We sat next to this really nice girl who graduated from Notre Dame and is teaching in Belgium for a year. She was really friendly and gave us some helpful tips. We landed in Brussels around 8:30 their time (1:30 am our time) and then had to kill time until 2:20 before our next flight.
At Brussels we went through customs which was surprisingly lax, and security, then discovered that their airport is much different than ours. Instead of just little airport shops, they have a full blown mall which was really nice since we had a large amount of time to kill. We switched our seats so we could sit next to each other and then got some smoothies. Then we went exploring through the stores. I really wanted to get some Belgian chocolate as a present for people at home, but Megan pointed out I would have it for 4 months, so I decided against it. We both bought magnets though because we don't plan on going back to Belgium and we wanted to show we had been there. The stores were interesting to go through but nothing really caught either of our eyes. We only looked at stuff until around 10:30 and then we got bored. So we read a little and walk around and attempted to sleep. Finally we got on our plane and headed to Madrid.
By the time we had boarded the plane, Megan and I had gone 22 hours without sleep so we both passed out on the flight. We woke up as we were arriving in Madrid. When we landed, Megan and I discovered that our Spanish was not as good as we thought, and having a discussion in Spanish in a classroom is entirely different than talking to fluent speakers. Our luggage somehow ended up in a different terminal than the one we landed in so that was a little confusing. But alas we got our bags and headed out to find a taxi. Of course our driver didn't speak English and didn't know where our host mom's house was located. But we got there alright and were greeted by a very excited Maria.
Maria showed us to our room and then showed us around the apartment. We met one of our other two roommates, Stephanie, and she seems really cool. I'm looking forward to meeting our other roommate, another Megan, who is currently in Hawaii because her sister got married today. We all went on a walk to the park nearby right when the sun was setting. It was so beautiful and I'm really excited to spend a lot of time there. You can see a palace and a cathedral from our balcony and the river. It's a gorgeous view. Then when we got back, Maria had made us an amazing dinner of chicken, salad, a potato pancake and chocolate cake. We have all been bonding quickly and I think we are all going to get along really well. And in case you would like a little laugh, Megan just locked herself in the bathroom, that doesn't actually lock. It was a very funny sight. But that is definitely enough for now so I hope you enjoyed this post because I prolly won't update for a couple of days because I have orientation Monday and Tuesday and classes starting Wednesday. We shall see what I feel like.
Adios for now,
Ashley
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