Let's talk my first weekend in Spain...

My first weekend in Spain was…exhausting, but still a lot of fun. I touched down at the Barajas airport after a somewhat rushed morning in Paris and a hectic incident at the counter. By “hectic” I mean “I had to pay a lot of money in over-weight charges because they lowered the weight limit.”

Let’s not talk about that.

My two cousins (really, they’re uncles, but so close to me in age that we just call each other cousins), Gonzalo and Claudio, were waiting for me at arrivals. I hadn’t seen them in about 8 years, so you could say I was super happy to see them. Claudio took us to his house, which is a little outside of Madrid, so that I could greet Katty, his wife, and meet his three kids.

I already knew the eldest, Kira (9), but the last time I saw her was when she was a baby. Man, I felt so old when I saw her. She has two younger siblings, Fernanda (6) and Claudito (4). They’re all quite energetic and talking a mile a minute once I walked through the front door. Super cute =). I’ll need to get pics of them once I go back to visit.

We went out to eat and then for a brief tour of Madrid. We hit the main sights: The Royal Palace, Cathedral, Plaza Mayor, and such. Look at the pictures that I took on my other trip to Madrid and pretend that I took them that day =). Claudio also took some pics, but he still has to e-mail them to me.






Unfortunately, it started to rain so we headed back home. I spent the night repacking my summer clothes into one suitcase while watching Hannah Montana in Español with Kira and Fernanda. Hannah Montana dubbed sounds CREEPY. Click the link below to get a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNDZQfXurhU

Later that night we took a tour of Alcalá and ate a tapas dinner at this really fancy restaurant. Check out some of the delicious seafood!

Anyway, we ended up having a midnight dinner, which seemed odd to me but is actually pretty normal in Spain. Nice.

Sunday, I got up really early to go to the Barajas airport and meet up with the rest of UA in Spain. Stephanie Bailey and Trevvor are on this trip, so I was super happy to see some Bama friends. I also met some new ones: Brooke, John, Alex, and Trey. More on them later.

We headed out to meet our families in Alcalá de Henares. It’s about 30 minutes outside of Madrid, but we can take trains and buses at any time to go into the city.

My family is really Spanish and crazy, which is awesome! They even have my last name, but it’s actually pretty common in Spain. Here’s a briefing on them. I really want to do a post just dedicated to them soon.

Javier (Javi): My host dad. He’s really cool and has a black belt in Karate.

Mari: My super talkative and lovely host mom. This woman never fails to keep me entertained.

Cristina: My eldest host sister. She’s 16, really nice, and has a crush on Hayden Christensen.

Sandra: My 15 year old host sister. We watch Desperate Housewives together.

Marta: My adorable 5 year old host sister. She’s convinced I’m lying to her about being American, because I speak Spanish so well.

We also have three dogs: Chispi (a Westie who is my constant companion), Benji (grey terrier of some sort), and Guafa (a 5 month old lab mix puppy).

I also met my roommate, Danielle. She goes to Bama, too, but with having 24,000 students at our school I’d never met her. She’s really nice, and we get along really well. I don’t think we’ll have any major roommate issues this summer =).

Later that night we took a tour of Alcalá and ate a tapas dinner at this really fancy restaurant. Check out some of the delicious seafood!