Friday, September 26, 2008

I made it!!!!!

Hey everyone! I made it safely to Spain. I am in Granada with my friends Juanmi and Toñy. Tomorrow I am going to Cordoba to look for a place to live. I wish I could stay here in Granada longer, but I can come back any time I want to visit. Juanmi and Toñy have been a HUGE help. Today, Toñy and I went around town. To my benefit she is sick and didn't go to work, but not so sick as to stay in the house all day. Now I have a spanish cell phone! I wasn't looking forward to figuring all of that out in Spanish. I'm still a bit rusty when it comes to communicating. It gets easier all the time, though. We had breakfast at a local cafe where I had my FAVORITE thing... toast with tomato. It is way better than you are thinking. It is fresh baguette bread toasted with tomato that is prepared more like applesauce. Put some olive oil and salt on top and there you go. Mmmmmmmmmm. After breakfast we even bought the tool for me to try to make it myself. Granada is the same as I remember. I love turning a corner and remembering something from one of my visits. So far I don't feel overwhelmed in the least. How wonderful to have a support system already in place. I'll be living a couple hours away, but I'll never be alone. They have already invited me back for Christmas so I won't be by myself. Yea!

Tomorrow I'll catch a bus to Cordoba and stay in a hostel for a couple days. I can go to Puente Genil from there. I still haven't decided which city to live in. For now I'll walk around to check out different neighborhoods and collect some numbers. Like buying a cell phone, I haven't been looking forward to making phone calls about housing. It is hard for me to understand Spanish on the phone. But I'm in luck! My friends are going to help me with this, too. Hopefully by Wednesday, when I start my job, I will have figured it out and will have a place to live. For now I'm going to leave the majority of my luggage here in Granada. This is great because I have everything I could fit on the plane with me. I'm sure it was a sight to see me lug it all from the airport baggage claim to the bus and then down the street to a taxi and into the apartment. Ay!

It is amazing how quickly my brain is switching over to Spanish. After two days here it is hard to think in and write in English. So, bear with me if I throw in some Spanish words once in a while or get creative with the grammer and spelling. I'll try to explain as I go. If you have ANY questions along the way, ASK! It is hard for me know what to tell you. Email me, leave a comment, whatever. I haven't quite figured out my phone system yet, but as soon as I know, you will know.

Hasta luego! (literally, 'until later' or See ya later)

Haley

No comments: