Day 1 Recap

jonathan_kopp — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 15:32:00 GMT

It is 7:30 AM and I am wide awake unfortunately, so I will give an update as to what I have been up to the last long while. I left for Spain wedensday morning, and arrived there at about 8 AM local time in Madrid. The Madrid airport is beautiful, extremely huge and very cool to walk through. I found my luggage and went to the waiting spot where I had to wait for a few hours until our RD Curra arrived with a bus to take us to the hotel. I was sitting alone for a long time until eventually myself and a few other people sitting around this meeting place finally asked each other if they wer also API study abroad students (they were), so we all sat by each other and introduced ourselves. After a while, we got on the bus and went to the hotel and met a few more students in the program.

Everybody is extremely nice and I am really looking forward to getting to know them better. Unfortuantely nobody is really a soccer fan EXCEPT for my house-mate, who I get along very well with and am excited to hang out with more.

We got to the hotel and then had 6 hours to go do what we wanted until a meeting at 6 PM. We decided to rendevous in the lobby in an hour, and then we walked around the streets. Our hotel is very close to a wide variety of sights, and we enjoyed just taking it all in. Madrid is a beautiful city, lots to see. There are a ton of shops and people everywhere, and the architecture is gorgeous. We eventually stopped at a tapa bar for some lunch. My food was not the greatest, but the sangria was particularily refreshing. Afterwards, some people left to the hotel to sleep (after waiting for the rain to stop), while myself and two other people went to walk around some more. We went to the Plaza Mayor, and just around some neighboring streets before heading back to the hotel.

Unfortuantely, my room mate had fallen asleep and did not wake up when I knocked on the door (there is only 1 room key to these rooms) so I was temporarily locked out. I went and found a chair in the hallway and rested there until two other API students joined me and we talked for a while until it was almost time to go to the meeting.

The meeting was good, Curra gave a presentation on some basic things about Spain which was helpful. We were all falling in and out of sleep because w were exhausted. After the meeting, my room mate and I went to our room to catch the end of the USA Germany game, but the only game showing was Portugal-Ghana (not that we missed much because USA lost, but we still moved on to round of 16 so that's great news). After the game was done, it was 8 PM and time to go to dinner, which was API's treat. I don' remember the name of the restaurant, but we went and there were absolutely no other people eating there for whatever reason. The menu was simple, we chose between salad/Gazpacho, 1 meat dish (there were a lot of options) and then we all had the same dessert.

Well.

This dinner was one of the most delicious meals I have had recently. I had the Gazpacho, which I had never had before. The owner/waiter brought out a bunch of fresh chopped vegetables that we could spoon in our soup if we wanted (onions, green bell peppers, etc) and it was extremely wonderful. Cool soup with a rich tomato flavor (but definetely very different than tomato soup) with the crunch of some fresh chopped onions/peppers, absolutely wonderful.

I then also had duck with raspberry sauce. It also did not dissappoint, the saltiness and flavor of the duck went very well with the sweet raspberry sauce and was absolutely wonderful. Then dessert, we all had this pastry-thing with some mango sorbet. The pastry was good; however, the mango sorbet was extremely wonderful. Overall a wonderful meal to end the first day. I will have to get the name of the restaurant so I can go there again.

After dinner, we were done for the day (which means we could do what we wanted) so a few people went back to the hotel, then there were two different groups of people who went to walk around Madrid in the evening. The people I was with went to the palacio royal, which was extremely cool. It was very pleasant, because it was nice and cool, and it was fun walking around these magnificant spanish buildings when there was not a ton of people around. Right next to the palacio royal is a giant church, which was very nice (love me some good architecture, columns are awesome). Walking around at night was probably my favorite part of the day, good people, good temperature, and adventuring around is always a good time.

Today will be another busy day, we are going to a museum and then the royal palace. Then there is an academic meeting, and then I am not sure what we will be up to this evening. Regardless, I am excited and I am sure it will be a wonderful time.

58 hours until departure

jonathan_kopp — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 14:25:00 GMT

Today is Sunday, June 22 2014. My flight is wedensday morning at 8 AM.

I am getting more and more anxious to go. Since I got out of school, I have been sitting at home, watching a lot of world cup (still bitter about the spain loss, but alas) and twiddling my thumbs as I wait impatiently. I am extremely excited and anxious to leave.

It is nerve racking because the most memorable parts of travelling are the unexpected things that happen. The first time I went to Europe was three years ago, and a huge variety of unexpected things happened (some good, some bad) that are some of the most memorable parts of the trip. The first night of the whole trip was in London. I ended up getting locked out of my hotel room for 3.5 hours because long story short, my assigned room mate fell asleep in the room and had the only room key.

At the time, it was frustrating but I was able to have a really good attitude while we waited and tried to figure out how to find my room mate (we did not know he was sleeping soundly in the room during the whole 3.5 hours). Here I was, first time travelling in Europe, and not even one full day in the country and something bad had already happened to me; however, despite this unexpected misfortune, I remember thinking to myself 'I could let this bother me, but I am not going to. Instead, I am going to have a good attitude, and make this a fun night even though I haven't slept in over 48 hours'. And I did it! In the process of trying to 'find' my room mate (who we assumed had left to go someplace and had not come back) I ended up getting to know the people in my own group more, and I met two new friends from a different group that was on the same tour as us. My group and those new friends ended up hanging out together for the rest of the whole trip, and it was a blast. All of this happened because of my good attitude, and not letting getting locked out of my room stop me from enjoying my time in Europe.

"Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God" -Kurt Vonnegut

I hope I can have this same attitude in my Spanish adventure coming up. I have absolutely no idea what to expect: I don't know who I am going to befriend, who I will get along well with, how my host family will be, what I am going to enjoy/dislike, and in general what's going to happen. This is intimidating, because I like to think things out and plan ahead and know well in advance what's going to happen, in all things in life. However, going to Spain is something I really cannot do much to prepare for, other than have a good attitude going in. I want to be open to everything, whether that be trying new things, stepping out of my comfort zone, meeting new people, and going to new places. I know there will be times where things won't go according to plan, and when that happens, I hope I can have the positive/go-with-the-flow attitude I had that first night in London three years ago.

Most of all, I want to have an amazing time. I hope more than anything that when my time in Spain/Europe is done and I come back home, that I return wanting more, longing to go back. That is when I know that I had an amazing experience. This is going to be something I remember for the rest of my life, and I am so excited for that.

My Spanish Adventure

Day 1 Recap

58 hours until departure