so the hard part now is when i talk to my friends i'm explaining all the things that are going on. and after like the 6th person i've explained it to i have no patience to explain indirectly to anyone else (aka here). but so here's a brief - although it probably won't end up that short - summary of what's been going on!
saturday: we left for spain. the plane ride sucked. i was in the aisle so it wasn't so bad, but i couldn't sleep, and the plug outlet for my headset wouldn't work so i got to watch johnny depp instead of hear him and enjoy his abounding sexiness.
sunday: after very very little sleep we arrived in spain at 9:30 which would be 3:30 am at home. i was muy tired. went through customs - no problem. lost my bags - grande problem. yah i had no luggage for like 30 hours. on the way out of the airport to meet our advisor (which turned out to be our advisors boyfriend cos she was at a different terminal picking up other students) i had only my carry-ons and the smallest smile i could muster. i almost lost it a few times but haha all that kept going through my head was the little box i checked in my application that says "deals with unexpected diversity well" and i generally do, but i did not want to be "that" girl who cries the second she steps off the plane. plus i'd cried enough in the week beforehand (thanks andrew). so i held it off, the kids from the other school made me laugh - particularly this kid andrew. no spanish accent, and doesn't even speak the language very well but it works for him and his humor = hilariousss. so then as they said the best way to fight jet lag is to stay awake, so upon arriving in the morning we couldn't go to sleep til the night. i say so a lot... anyway. so (haha) while everyone else went home to unpack... i went home to eat, which i couldn't do a whole lot of anyway - i dont' usually eat an entire meal at 4 in the morning - and sit awkwardly with my senora who repeated "tranquilo tranquilo" which means basically calm down. around 5 we all met to take a little tour of madrid and that was okay, i got some coffee which was excellent (love cafe con leche) and saw part of the "carnaval" that ended actually yesterday. and then finally went home, ate dinner, and passed out at 10.
sunday night: welcome to my first misadventure. i woke up a few times (and by few i mean a lot). the worst was around 6 am, when i realized my nose ring had fallen out. so i went to the bathroom, groggy, and attempted to put it back in. not a hard thing to do, but when i'm tired, well i know now that i drop things. and oops, there went my nose ring down the drain of the sink = freak out. so i hadn't started crying yet but decided to use one of my earrings to subdue until i could buy one the next day. dropped that = crying hysterics. all the while i realized that my senora was sneakily talking on the phone at 6:00 am - NO idea why. so i went to bed, bling in my nose, bawling, listening to one of the mixes tater made me and suffocating lambie. after like an hour i finally fell back asleep - needless to say crying tires me out.
monday: woke up, and upon arriving to our meeting spot with my classmates explained the cause for my nose accessory. went okay, and jade (a girl who was also here last semester) told me that we could go later to plaza del sol and visit one of the many piercing places they have to buy another nose ring. so i was okay. took a tour of the campus. got news of my bags and 3 hours later they showed up at my house. it was fantastic to unpack. i left around 4:30 to meet in sol and had another panic attack while realizing that all the piercing/tattoo places are in what's called the red district (pretty self explanatory... ex. hello prostitutes) so i found one place, and bought a nose ring = three euros. but it turned out to be too thin and went straight through the hole. i cried. so i went to another one, with my nose like red and bloody and the guy understood me and let me buy one of the studs they use when they first pierce it (the same thickness as my first one) except it wasn't the same backing. it had the curvy one so i stood outside what they call a "sex shop" haha no explanation needed using one of the reflective windows (the ones where you can see through from the inside) to shove something in my nose. that was awesome. it finally went in and the grey clouds began to part. i had my bags, the nose could finally get better, and all i needed was to find a plug adaptor for my computer (which obviously i now have). lightning struck, however, (and take that as figuratively as you may) when this girl kelli and i realized that i had a vodafone sim card my friend gave me, and she had a vodafone telephone with no sim card. so we figured we'd put the two together and split the cost of one more phone... way cheap yah? no. the sim card turned out to be from freakin portugal. and i ended up somehow with a non-returnable phone that cost 40 euros. nooootttt happy. went home and turned on my computer to use what 20 minutes was left of the battery and it was amazing to hear from andrew. i love that kid :)
tuesday: first day of orientation. went well, easy just getting used to the customs, language, anything we needed help with. and we had a presentation from a phone company that's really cheap and i was, well, pissed cos i had a phone that was expensive, didn't know what my rates were, and it wasn't the same as everyone else (which of course ms. ocd hates). but it turned out that with my phone i got 12 euros free, even though i still don't know my rates, and i could just purchase a sim card from the company everyone else has and have the same plan as them once i use my 12 euros. perfect. it's like 16 cents to call home, and i get an hour free to call the united states. muyyyy happy. isabel (our director) also gave me a plug adaptor to try after many attempts and failures, and upon arriving home it worked and i got to skype andrew... and once again there was sun :)
wednesday: more orientation, a pretty normal day. we went to the movies in the afternoon for our first spanish cinemagraphic experience = sad. we saw this movie called las trece rosas. it's about thirteen girls in their twenties, around the end of the spanish civil war (1939). franco was confident he would win the war (which he did and ruled until like the 70's) and these girls were serious anti-facists = anti-francos. so for their innovative and contraband political ideas, he had them executed by firing squad and it was really sad. i didn't cry, although i think if it were in english and i understood everything they said, i totally would have been bawling. after that, just went home, did homework and went to sleep.
lastly...
today: well our last day of the first round of orientation. easy enough. those chairs, however, kill me. i don't know if it's just cos we've been walking so much but my legs are like aching. and i feel like the chairs (which don't have as rounded an edge as the ones in the states) just cut off the cirulation in my legs. so i have issues sitting for that long. came home after class, ate with emilia (totallll sweetheart btw, i forgot to tell you about her. she's awesomeee and so understanding. she doens't speak a drop of english but she's very patient and desperately wants to make sure i completely understand what she says. she's always trying to make me feel comfortable like if i don't want to eat something, i have to tell her, or if i've had enough, just eat what i want, etc. adorable! <3) and actually i'm leaving in 9 minutes to meet everyone in plaza del sol just to check it out, nothing heavy haha.
so there you have it - my life (thus far) as a spaniard :)
ps. guay means "cool" haha
