Greeetings from Valencia!

!hola chicos!

i have made it safe and sound to madrid and have since moved on to valencia spain. the trip was rather interesting and i lost my luggage thanks to the recent terrorism in the UK and my heathrow connection. owell, i get money for them and should also get them back in the next couple of days! shopping spree, here i come. that is if i can figure out my size in spain!

i have now been in spain for about 24 exciting hours. we were greeted at the airport by maricarmen who will be a psuedo mom for the entirety of the trip. she is super sweet and helped me fill out paperwork for my luggage. NY Katie and I then took a car ride with Rafel to the hotel. Rafel doesn´t speak english very well and I don´t speak spanish very well so it was an interesting ride but i got most of the conversation about muisco (music) and was feeling rather confident.

i then got to the hotel and had to think when they told me my room was cuatro tres dose (432) but i was able to figure it out! it wasnt until the walking tour of madid (they pronounce it without the r) that i realized how lost i was going to be in spanish! we saw a beautiful palace and cathederal but i dont know what he told us about them, he spoke too quickly. the only thing i caught was to hold my purse in my lap when i set on the metro and at dinner.

after the walking tour we proceeded to dinner (at 10pm) at a cute spanish restraunt. they were clearly prepared for us and didnt even offer ham (a spanish staple) but instead steak and potatoes, yes my first meal in spain was very similar to every meal i eat in KS! we drank a lot of wine, ate amazing dessert and then headed back to the hotel to crash thanks to our serious jet lag.

this morning we took a bus to valencia on the mediterranean coast of spain for our spanish immersion course that we thought was going to be in granada. i have already discovered the spanish have no sense of urgency or planning so this will be a fly by the seat of your pants type of trip. we are now checked into dorms at the school in valencia and i should be taking my spanish profenciey exam but i decided just to enter into level 1 becuase i know nothing. tonight we are going out to dinner as a group and walking on the beach. the locals also invited us out for drinks and churros and chocolate so i have a feeling this will be our first big party of the semester! i think this is the begining of a great thing! the people are awesome, 22 girls and 3 guys, smaller than i expected but all super relaxed and fun. The country is beautiful. Dry, warm, sunny, and perfect! i should sign off now and go get shower before heading out again. we hopefuly will find some clothes tonight so that i dont feel so gross. keep your fingers crossed that my bags come in!

I will have email access all week here in valencia so please stay in touch, im me and email me! have a great labor day weekend and i will write more soon!

!hola!