Espana!

My first real night here in Spain was very amusing. In the city of Villaviciosa, it was their annual city fiesta. It is much like our city celebrations at home, with a carnival and fireworks and all that. On Thursday, there was a band called Fondo Flamenco that was performing in the middle of the city. Rogelio invited me to come with him and meet his friends and go to this concert, so I went. I actually loved the music, even though I didn’t understand a word! The atmosphere at the concert was much like it is at home, a bunch of teenagers crammed together singing and dancing to the music.

On Friday, Brie and I went with everybody to the carnival in Villa.

That night we just got to know everybody and stood around in the parking lot all night! Its funny to hear them try to speak english to us, we get a kick out of it.

Everybody here is way nice and tries to help us get around with our awful Spanish. I love living with the Molina’s but I'm very excited to go live with my host family! Sorry if my blogs are very boring, I'm writing it more for myself, that's why it's so long! I'll try to make them more interesting but I'm not promising anything...

Getting Lost...Part I and II

So if traveling to a place you aren’t familiar with is difficult, then living in a country where you don’t know the language is impossible. My goal for the day was to find the bus from Villaviciosa to the Príncipe Pío station in Madrid. I only had two euros with me because I hadn’t taken out any cash yet, but it was only 2 euros to take the bus so I thought I would be ok. As it turns out, I got on the right bus but going in the wrong direction for about 20 minutes or so. When the bus driver reached his last stop, I had to get off and try to find my correct bus, which I found pretty quickly. I was feeling confident this time, and reached into my wallet to give the driver my money. The only money I had was 1.20 euros, I had to pay my other euro to get on the first bus. When the bus driver realized I didn’t have enough money, he stopped the bus in the middle of the street and opened the doors. I couldn’t believe my luck, he was kicking me out! Yup, I got kicked off the bus in the middle of the street with cars behind me honking and everything. I was shocked and embarrassed, so I quietly got off and started aimlessly walking. It sucked. And to top it all off, Brie called me right then to tell me that she was lost too! We were both laughing a lot because it was pretty funny that we were both wondering around places that were very far from our destination. But we got it all figured out and we finally made it to Madrid.
After taking the bus to and from Madrid a couple more times, I again was feeling pretty confident that I knew where I was going. This time, on my way home from Madrid, I got off the bus stop way too early and ended up walking for a ½ a mile or so on the side of the highway. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been a sidewalk or something. But no, just a little dirt strip running parallel to the highway. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty nervous but I just kept walking and eventually I found my house. What an adventure it is living in Spain!

The Molina Family

I am staying with the Molina family for a couple of weeks until I can start teaching with my host family. They live in a really cute city called Villaviciosa just outside of Madrid. The parents are Rogelio Sr. and Maria Asun Molina and they have two kids, Rogelio and Natalia. The son is my age and speaks English and lives at home and Natalia is a couple of years older and lives in Orem.

The parents don’t speak English very well but they are the nicest people ever! Rogelio is a dentist in Móstoles and his wife is a surgeon. We can understand each other enough to communicate the basics but that’s about it. They also have a housekeeper named Susie. She is from Brazil and speaks English as well. I couldn’t have asked for a better family to live with, they are all very nice and I feel so at home already.I have my own bedroom and bathroom while I'm staying here and it is awesome! My room is so sweet, I love the slanted walls and the view. The house is amazing in general, I love everything about it. In Spain, all the houses are surrounded by tall fences so every house is totally enclosed. Its different but I like it. ¡Adoro mi casa en España!

My 20 Hour Flight...

I'm finally here in Spain! The flight here was very long and interesting, I barely made it on my flight from JKF to Frankfurt, Germany on Tuesday. My flight from SLC got in over a half hour late and I had to get all my bags and get to the International terminal to check in for my next flight (because I fly standby) and I didn’t think I was going to make it in time. So I'm running around trying to get there and I, of course, get on the AirTrain that isn’t running. For some reason the one ahead of us was stopped and we couldn’t move anywhere so I had to take the other one all the way around the airport to get to Terminal 1. It took me over an hour to get there, so I knew there was no way I would ever get on my flight that left in less than 30 minutes. And the people at the counter didn’t speak English very well, so it took them forever to check me in and get me ready to go. I ran through security and up to my gate to find out that they put me on the wrong flight! With that flight, I wouldn’t get into Madrid until midnight and Rogelio was picking me up at noon so it would be a disaster. So I walked around looking for the gate from which my correct flight was leaving from and I luckily found it! They were just about to leave but they waited for me to get on and got my bags off of the other flight and I was on my way to Germany! It was really a miracle that I got on. But there were so many different kinds of people on that plane (all of which are on Linsey’s team, by the way) it was so funny to hear everybody speaking different languages and see their different cultures. The airport in Germany was pretty cool, it was super nice inside but I was only there for a short time. I did try to read a newspaper in German while I was waiting without much success, I mostly just looked at the pictures. When I finally landed in Madrid, I couldn’t find Rogelio and Brienne anywhere, so I wondered around forever and tried to get some euros to call them. But I must have gotten the wrong number because a Spanish lady answered and hung up on me when she didn’t know what I was saying. I couldn’t help but laugh at my situation…. I was alone in the airport with all my bags and couldn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t have any euros and I hadn’t slept for a very very very long time. The only hope to finding Rogelio was to call him and when I thought that would work, my lack of Spanish worked against me and I was helpless again. Great. I was so tired and just wanted to sleep but I just kept walking around until I finally saw Brie, it was a very happy moment for me. Between Brie and I, we had 6 bags to fit into two of the smallest cars I have ever seen. It was hilarious trying to put down the seats so that our stuff would fit but we managed to shove it all in there somehow. After the airport, we just went back to Rogelio’s house to met his parents and unpack everything. So the flight was long but it could have been a lot worse, I'm just glad I made it to Madrid in one piece!