Fin de Semana numero uno

It's hard to believe that it has already been one weekend here in Spain! At the same time, I feel weird typing this out in English since I have really only been here for a few days yet I am already fully immersed in the language. This weekend was definitely one I'll remember for years to come, but both days were polar opposites of each other.

Saturday, I didn't know what the custom was on sleeping in yet, so I got up at about 1030 and went out for breakfast only to have my host mom say "Oh wow, I thought you would have slept longer!" Needless to say, I now know that if I'm given the opportunity to sleep in while here, I'll take it. After lunch, I met up with some amigas so that we could go explore the city.

This is the Ayuntamiento (city hall) and is pretty much our unofficial meeting spot because we all live in different places across the city and we all know where this is! Anyways, we just wondered around the city until we saw a little boat dock and hopped on a ferry that took us around the perimeter of the bay, across to the neighboring bay city and then back. The waters got a little dicy out there, but I loved every second of it, laughing every time Heather, unas de mis amigas, made a face as the boat dipped down with the waves! Here are a few pictures of our maritime adventure 

Palacio de Magdalena 

Lighthouse at Cabo Mayor 

After getting off the boat, we continued to wonder por las calles and discovered a little French themed cafe offering a deal on tapas so we took advantage of that. To add further to irony of a French cafe in Spain, they were playing American music like Creedance Clearwater Revival among others. It was a great life decision to go there basically. Again we found ourselves wandering and ran into another small group of students from our group so we joined up with them, met more at the ayuntamiento, and then found a bar to watch the Champions League final in. With 10 Americans filling the small room, not many locals ventured in, but the bar was split about 50/50 over who they wanted to win the match. My favorite rivalry had to be the two brother bartenders. Eduardo is a Real Madrid fan and Nacho is a Atletico Madrid fan so that was a good time watching them throughout the match. Unfortunately, and for those that don't know, Real won. Despite the outcome, I had a lot of fun and we met 3 other locals and chatted with them for a long time before leaving. To give you an idea of what fútbol is like in Spain vs America, take a quick look at these:

ESPN fail

OLE OLE OLE

As you can imagine, all the excitement of yesterday sort of took it out of me today and I didn't wake up and get moving until about 1230 today so breakfast was simply coffee. My host sister also went out to watch the game last night and was tired like me today as well. Lunch was muy delicioso! We had some pork chop like things with peppers and french fries and then some fresh strawberries. The rest of the day, I had my cultural intake by watching lots of movies and TV programs. I really enjoy watching Criminal Minds because I've seen most of them and can follow along rather easily, however, by the end of today, I was tired of translating the TV. It's not the easiest thing to do you know? Dinner tonight was PIZZA!!!!!! My house sister is the pizza expert in the family and she prepared it for us and I scarfed it down and then topped it off with a nice little serving of flan!

Now I'm just sitting here in my room, writing this blog for y'alls (wow I miss saying y'all on a regular basis) enjoyment, and preparing for my first day of class tomorrow! 

my room 

Spanish word of the day: Que sueño! A way of saying, I'm sleepy. Ana and I said this all day today.

Ciao! 

Ana(s)

Oops. Looks like I'm not off to a good start with updating my blog. I guess I should anyone who doesn't know, that I indeed made it to Santander! My flights over here were actually not too bad, shout out to mi madre for putting me in the bulk head seat (extra leg room) for my flight from DFW to Madrid. That was fantastic. However, I did not sleep as much as I would have liked, only about an hour and 45 minutes, but I'm functioning so that's a good sign. Upon arriving in Madrid, several other UT students were on a flight leaving in 2 hours while myself and a new friend I made were not leaving until 4 hours later. That time passed quickly though because after exiting the plane, we had to walk all the way down the airport to go through passport control, then security again, then take a train across to the other terminal, and then our gate was of course at the very end. Who knew and airport could be that long though? It was insane. Most importantly, we sat next to an outlet and used our 15 minutes of free wifi to chat with some folks (so Texan I know) back home. Eventually it was time to move towards the gate to board. I learned very quickly what Spanish time means. Usually boarding is about 40 minutes prior to scheduled take-off, but we boarded at the scheduled time for take-off because the plan was late. Then we adventured down the jetway to the plane. Plot twist, we left the jetway and walked on the tarmac to board our little plane. It was very 1950's style boarding and exiting that plane as we walked up the steps onto the plane. Anyways, I passed out on that short 45 minute flight and was ready to go upon arriving in Santander!

Enough about flying, after I arrived at the Hotel for our first night in Santander, I relaxed  with the window open listening to the waves crash right outside my room, took a small nap, and then enjoyed a great dinner (already starting off the trip with 9pm dinner) with the rest of my group. It was so exciting to meet everyone and then we were given our to-go flip phones from 2007 and I think I almost lost my mind I was so happy to have a flip-phone again. I mean come on, you have to agree that flip phones were awesome right? Not too long after, I went to sleep only to wake up an hour later and not fall asleep again until an hour after that so that was fun. The hotel provided us with a fantastic breakfast, I was most excited for the huge assortment of fruits (Rebecca Teng would have been jealous of that). We then had an orientation and then were introduced to our host families! My Spanish mom is Ana and she lives with her two children, Ana is 21 and Javier is 24 or 25 I think. Not going to lie, I'm confused as to if mom and daughter have the same name or not, but I think that's right. Javier also doesn't really speak to me or anyone for that matter, but that's ago because host mom chats with me a lot. I was even complemented on my Spanish so we are going places. Lunch was a big meal, but was very rich and I felt bad I couldn't eat it all but my body is still adjusting to the differences. Then my Spanish mom and I met up with two other mom/students pairs to walk to the university. Yay for having morning walking buddies! I thought the hills in Austin were bad, but the hills here in Santander are so big that they installed outdoor elevators, escalators, and moving sidewalks in the city! Our two college guides, Gabriel and Paula, gave us a tour of campus and then of the city. We were then turned loose and a group of us bought bus cards, then walked around a bit and discovered an orchestra playing live music in the plaza. Before I knew it, it was time to head back for dinner, so my two walking buddies and I made our way back to our homes.

When I arrived home, my mom and sister were watching a Spanish gameshow that I was intrigued by. Then Family Guy came on. Fun fact, they really like Family Guy and the Simpsons over here. For dinner we had Spanish tortilla which is a thick tortilla thing with potatoes inside. We had fun dinner conversation, yes it's all in Spanish, ALL, about how Americans don't use the metric system and me explaining how inches and feet and yards compare, and then explaining that "no, Texans don't all have horses and wear the cowboy getup everyday." That seemed to make them laugh. After dinner, I watched the Mel Gibson movie, Get the Gringo, with my family. Kind of ironic. It was a weird movie, but hey it's just one more way to learn Spanish. I realized how tired I was again, and got ready for bed. The shower however doesn't have a curtain or glass. It's just a tub and it has a hand-held shower thing so that will be an interesting adventure for 6 weeks. This morning, I slept in a bit and then had typical breakfast that you might enjoy of toast and coffee, and FRESH SQUEEZED ORANGE JUICE. I chatted with my Spanish mom about what travels I've done, how my real mom uses lots of spices in her food unlike in Spain (something I'm still getting used to), and how the United States really is a mixture of so many cultures in one place.

Sorry that was so many words, but as you can see I'm already gaining a lot out of this experience! As weird as it sounds, I 'm looking forward to class starting up on Monday because then I will be able to have a daily routine and I think that will help me adjust a little better to eating and sleeping. Check back tomorrow because for anyone that cares about soccer, or understands how big a deal it is in the rest of the world besides the US, the Champions League final is today (Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid) so basically all of Spain is pumped for that and I hope to watch it today with the rest of Santander!

Spanish word of the day: Vale--okay. Almost every other word used is vale. It is usually thrown in at the end of a phrase as "vale?" to make sure you understand what they are trying to say.

Hola todos! (hello all)

As most of y'all may know,  I am traveling to Spain for study abroad this summer with other students from UT! I actually fly out tomorrow so you're reading this as I am scrambling at the last minute to run to Target one more time and make sure I have everything packed--I may have packed too much because a zipper already broke. Fingers crossed my suitcase lasts on this exciting journey!
I've contemplated over the years about writing a blog and I never have because I didn't think I had anything worth writing about. Well, I think 7 weeks in España will give me plenty to say! I will do my best to keep this updated throughout the summer with stories from my travels and maybe even some pictures here and there. 
While abroad I will be living with a host family in Santander and taking two classes at the University of Cantabria. To give you an idea of where Santander is, it's located up on the northern coast of Spain, and to give you an idea of what the city looks like, I did my best to select a picture of where I think I'll be spending most of my time.

I don't really have too much else to say before I head out other than I'm extremely excited and thankful for this opportunity and I can't wait to see what this aventura has in store for me! 

If you want to contact me while I'm gone, my home stay does have wifi and I will spend time at cafes I'm sure so feel free to email me at emilyreding11@gmail.com, my email is linked to the side also, or I have Skype and Viber so you can contact me that way as well!

Gracias y hasta pronto!