Hola de Barcelona, Espana!!!

Hi guys! This is my first real post from Spain, and I will try to at least post once a week so you can have an update on my life.

So far, so good. First, it was really hard leaving my parents on Sunday, especially Mom, for obvious reasons. I was so scared the entire day. My family had dinner at Texas Roadhouse (which I miss already! haha.), and then they took me to the airport. At first, I was freaking out because my flight to Newark was delayed, and so I was going to miss my flight to London (connecting to Barcelona), and I was going to be a day late. Luckily my nice helper at Continental Airlines helped get me on a flight from Newark to Madrid. So anywho, getting to Madrid was fine. I had an overnight flight, and I took Tylenol PM and just passed out. I was actually extremely comfortable. 

I had a layover in Madrid, which was incredibly scary. I had no idea where to go or how to do anything. Luckily I had four hours to figure out where I was going and when my flight was.

When I got here, we went straight to a hotel. I met my roommates and they all seemed really great. We went to an Australian-themed bar that night and pretty much just walked around the city for awhile. 

On Tuesday, my roommate Sarah and I slept through orientation and woke up at 2pm. This time change is really screwing me up! Well anywho, we found a legit Spanish restaurant for dinner. I got veggie paella, which was honestly great. The problem is the service here pretty much sucks. You're not supposed to tip waiters/cab drivers/etc., so they don't care enough to be nice.

We also had a three hour tour of the city, which I absolutely loved.

We moved into our apartments on Wednesday, and ours is beautiful. It's located 5 minutes from the town center, and it's within walking distance from pretty much everything. 

So far, we've spent a lot of time exploring the city and figuring out where to go. I, being the most directionally challenged person alive, am having a really tough time knowing where to go/where I am. Hopefully when I am forced to go somewhere alone I will be able to figure it out more easily. Our intentions have been to spend the days exploring, but the time change has been screwing us up so much that we have yet to wake up before 2pm. Yesterday, we walked around and I got a lot of fresh fruits and veggies.  I made my first dinner!

Last night, we went to a club called Opium. We dressed up and all went out with a group of people. It was a lot of fun, and the club was on the beach, so it was beautiful.

I am really looking forward to getting to know the city, since it is my temporary home. The food is great, my friends are a lot of fun, and the city is just beautiful. We start class on Monday, and I am hopefully going to drop one because there is no way I'm actually going to take five classes. No chance. Also, we are planning lots of weekend trips. We already bought our flight to Paris for February. I am really excited about that. We are also going to London at the end of the month. Yay for traveling! It seems a lot of people came here just to spend money and party. I, however, came for more. I want to see all the sights and be as adventurous as possible in the next few months. When else am I going to have this opportunity? 4 months in Europe. I'll take it.

Also, I found a church that has an English service. I am going on Sunday for the young adult service, and I really hope I find a good, solid community here. I hope I like it!

I miss my family, but other than that, I really am not thinking about home much. I am just thinking about how much I love it here, and how much I have to look forward to.