It's Been Great!

Hey everybody!
I've been back in the States for over a month now and so much has changed. I was just talking to Mom about how it feels like I wasn't ever in Spain. I'm so integrated back already, that that was just an experience that has shaped me and I've taken it in stride.
Because I received several scholarships from the university, I've had some requirements to fulfill since I've been back. One of them was to write an article for them to use in promoting the programs. I thought you would all like to read it as a final salute to my wonderful journey. Thank you all for your love and support. You don't know how much each of you mean to me. I love you so!

            Studying abroad is something that I have always known I would do and in my 4 years at Western Michigan University, I have been fortunate enough to be able to study abroad twice. After my freshman year at Western I went to China for a few weeks and had an amazing experience. This pushed me even harder to study somewhere for a longer period of time and really soak up the culture and experience. Santander seemed the perfect opportunity to live with a host family, experience the Spanish lifestyle, and travel.

            Living with my host family proved to be one of the most beneficial parts of my study abroad experience. My host mom has had many host kids, so she knew the right balance of spoiling me and pushing me to be independent. The first day of school, I had only been in Santander for about 6 hours before getting up and heading out to find the school. Before leaving I had these visions of my host mom walking me to school or taking the bus with me, but that was all wrong. She told me which bus I should take and that I would be able to see the university when I got there. When I asked if I would have enough time to get there, she said “I hope so,” and I left. Of course I got there with the help of a Spanish friend I met on the way. I think that was her intention all along. The whole time I was there she challenged me to use my Spanish and work on making it better.

            Another great thing about living with my host family was that I was able to experience the wonderful food in a real context. It may seem like a small thing, but I truly believe that the food helped me understand Spanish culture so much better. My host mom cooked so well and so diversely. There were a few things that she wouldn’t tell me what I was eating until after I had eaten them. One of those was morcillo which means “pig’s blood.” She cooked rice in pig’s blood and added sausage. At first I was horrified that anyone would eat an animal’s blood. It just didn’t seem right, but then she explained it. Not many years ago, Spain was an extremely poor country and that was the best way to store meat and then not be wasteful. Food turned out to be a great way to learn about Spain’s history and culture.

            Finally, not only did I live with my host mom in Spain, she also has a granddaughter that lives with her. This was one of my favorite parts about my entire time in Spain. Daniela taught me more than any of my classes or any of my Spanish friends. When I spent time with her I didn’t worry about being judged or corrected, I just spoke. She and I both received a grammar lesson at the dinner one night and I don’t think I’ll ever forget how to use the imperfect past tense! Daniela and I developed a great relationship by experiencing the world of native and nonnative speakers together. Her intuitions in Spanish far surpass mine because it’s her native tongue, but I’ve been speaking the language for longer than she’s been alive so I was able to teach her new words and fun things to say. We also bonded over the small amounts of English vocabulary she has learned. It was truly a beautiful experience.

            Traveling with our group throughout Spain, and learning about the famous areas was another really great aspect. We had a culture class that taught us the basics of Spanish history and art, but deeply focused on the places we were going to travel. There was something about learning about something and seeing pictures, and then going and experiencing it in real life that made me truly appreciate not only the sights, but also our classes and teachers.

            Overall the experience really benefited me in many ways. I learned so much about who I am and my potential, as well as a new culture and a different lifestyle. After all of that, however, I really did improve my language skills. Our classes were actually pretty low level classes, which surprised me and frustrated me at first. I had taken classes for native speakers before going to Spain; I didn’t think that I deserved to be in grammar classes now. I quickly learned, though, that I did need to be in those classes. Though my comprehension of spoken Spanish was excellent after several years of being lectured completely in Spanish, my written and spoken Spanish still weren’t up to par. It is amazing how much I still have to learn; the trip to Spain taught me a good lesson in humility. I think this is the first and foremost reason that study abroad should be mandatory for all language majors.

Besos y abrazos, todos! 

Happy August!

Ugh, guys, I don't know if I can do this. There is so much to tell you and it's so hard to describe without being boring! I know I'll be glad (and you'll appreciate it) that I wrote this eventually, but how do I explain every cool detail of my awesome life right now? Maybe I should write a book, haha!
So I left off with Mondays in Spain which aren't getting much better. Except now, I always remember that Mondays mean I'm exactly x amount of weeks from being home, so that helps. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving Spain and I'm loving being here, but I'm pretty homesick. I think I had to get over a homesick hump this week, but now I'm doing much better.
Last week we finished our culture class, and though I wish we could have learned more, it's really nice to have one less class. I got 100% on my presentation and the only other grade is from our final exam, so I'm sure I'll be set in that class. And now that we're finished with classes this week, we only have 11 more class periods left. Isn't that crazy? I can't even believe how slowly and quickly this has gone. I love figuring out all the weeks and days. It makes it easier to not be homesick and easier to make sure I do everything here that I want to.


Today is day #37
Starting week #5
Weeks left in Santander: 3
Days left in Spain: 24


We had a lot of changes happen in our group once the end of July got here. We took our last excursion (details soon) as a whole group, the grad students left, and so did our director, Pablo. Pablo had told us (and reassured our parents) that we wouldn't need him after the first month because we would be pros at living in Spain by then. He was pretty much right! ;) We can get around on our own, we want to make our own plans now, and almost everybody is traveling for the last 3 weekends. So far we have a few things planned for our weekends. Today we're taking the bus to go to the mall which we haven't been to before. My goals for today and tomorrow are to start finishing up buying gifts to bring home! Tomorrow we're headed back to a little town called Liérganes about 40 minutes away from here by train. It's a super cute little town that has different kinds of tourist shops than we've been seeing, and there are some mini-mountains we want to climb.

This mini-mountain!

I have to go eat some lunch now, but I'll try to get a post up about our trip to Santiago de Compostela this weekend before I forget all of the cool things.

Love & hugs!

Oh Monday, I'm so glad you're over...

Let me tell you, Mondays in Spain are just as bad. Maybe even worse, because the whole time we're here the universe is tricking us into thinking that we're on vacation. Until BAM! here's a Monday and you have to go to school and think. And when school is in Spanish, you don't zone out. Now, I'm not saying that I'm one of those students who sleeps in class or uses it for things other than learning (occasionally some extra homework gets done, but I'm still learning!), but classes in Spanish are serious. Mostly because if I miss 2 words in a sentence, I very well may not know anything the teacher said. And I'm not to the proficiency level that I can fill-in-the-blank with Spanish words (on tests, yes) so zoning out is not an option. Also, our Spanish teachers are CRAZY! Like bonkers type of crazy. They are SO excited about teaching "extranjeros" (foreigners) that they are almost too much. One of them has the worst voice. I'm assuming it's for everyone, but there is like one pitch that seriously hurts my ears to listen to and that is the exact pitch of her voice. At 9:00 in the morning (or 3:00 for you) it's a little hard to handle. Mostly, they are obsessed with love and sex. So we have had long conversations about our perfect date, the best physical features in the perfect man/woman, etc. If they catch you looking up a word in your dictionary or reading from your notebook, you have to answer some "hot seat" question and good luck with that! Moral of the story: forget that it's Monday and dive in.
I was planning on having an incredibly wonderful post about my weekend ready for you, but my weekend wasn't incredible. Haha, we had a good time on our excursion, but it wasn't climbing mountains or anything. We visited a couple of really old towns and saw some old buildings. I know this sounds really snooty of me, I mean how lucky am I that I get to come on this trip (lucky is used lightly here, I have strong feelings when tells me I'm "lucky" in that snarky tone, but I won't continue that rant here)? But I've been here for 26 days now, we've done a lot of sightseeing. And once you've seen one Roman cathedral, you've pretty much seen them all. So, like always, it was beautiful!

We also saw "El Capricho," which is a building by Gaudí (Google Antonio Gaudí and be amazed). It was really beautiful and I would love to live there. This was definitely the highlight of the trip. The best part was, the whole upstairs was Sydney sized and there was a princess tower!

Gaudí used sunflowers to capture as much sun as possible.

Seat on the balcony

(Please note the roll cage foam used to protect heads!)

Princess tower!

Super tight, skinny stairs!

More princess tower!

Lastly, we visited the Caves of Altamira. They are only replicas of the real caves because the real ones are too fragile to be visited (unless you have lots of money of course). They were okay, but were pretty much just some plaster and fake paintings. Not too impressive.

That was all on Friday, so Saturday we visited the beach and did lots of homework. Sunday was pretty chill too, which was a blessing because I am always tired here. We've come to the conclusion that it's because our brains are c.o.n.s.t.a.n.t.l.y working overtime while using Spanish because we're all just exhausted and I never know what time it is. That may be because I feel like I'm on vacation though. It may also be that we're at a higher altitude than we're used to, but I don't actually know how true that is or how it works.

The best news of the day: only ONE more day of school this week! We're currently celebrating Semana Grande (literally "Big Week," haha) which is the festival of the Saint of Santander. So we get Wednesday off of school and then we leave for Santiago de Compostela on Thursday morning. I think it will be a fabulous trip! I'm not sure exactly what it's going to include, but the Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage that covers the northern part of Spain into France. We're staying in a monastery, but that's about all I know. I will be there from Thursday until Sunday afternoon, so I probably won't be able to contact anyone during that time.

For now, I have to study as we have our final exam for culture class tomorrow. I'm stuffing as much Spanish history, government, and art as will fit in my head and I think I already know more about these in Spanish culture than I do about the States. Cool beans.

Congratulations on surviving Monday, and bueno suere para mañana!

Besos y abrazos! (Literally "xoxo" : D )

Sydney

Things I Miss and Things I Don't!

Here's a quickie to hold you over until this weekend's post. It was supposed to include some pictures, but I accidentally deleted them completely off my camera and the computer. Ugh! I guess it has to happen once, and it could have been worse. We went to a lighthouse, but it wasn't open so we just explored. And luckily it's really close and we already have plans to head back.
I want to start a list of things that I miss and things that I will miss when I have to leave and it commences here.
Things I miss from the US:

1. Fresh flowers in my house
2. Hamburgers with LOTS of cheese
3. Daily chocolate
4. Sanitary use of the toilet/bathroom/streets
5. Juice
6. Cheez-Its/Potato chips/

Things I don't miss from the US:

1. Saying "thanks" or "sorry" all the time! Haha, I'm going to be super rude when I get back
2. Cooking (surprisingly enough)
3. The fashion sense
4. The heat
5. Driving
6. Having to go to work everyday, I like work, but the beach is so much more appealing!
7. Pop

That's all for now. I'm still adjusting to things being different (even after 3 weeks!), but it's getting better. Though, I do have to have something sweet every day (besides cookies for breakfast), so I usually end up getting ice cream! : )

Love, love, love you!

P.S. List number 1 is a great place to get ideas (**hint, hint, wink, wink!)

Los picos de Europa

What a day we had! Sometimes it's almost sad to try to put into words how amazing something was, but I'll try my hardest. Yesterday, I climbed a mountain. The peaks of a mountain, yes, but a mountain nonetheless. 
Our program has 3 scheduled trips that are planned by our director and count towards our culture credits. This first one was to the "Peaks of Europe," a cute little town, and a monastery. We got to the peaks around 11:30 and Pablo (our super great director) was hurrying us like crazy because he was worried we wouldn't get up there before the clouds covered everything. You have to take a cable car to the top unless you are a mountain goat or something, because it would take forever to actually climb, and the good stuff is all at the top! : ) The cable car is a little freaky because it's tiny and they pack you in there so you can't hardly move, but it's a super pretty ride. It seriously felt like I was in a helicopter, though. We were so high up that the  cows looked like little bugs on the ground!
We only had just over an hour to explore around, but we were all wishing we had like 10 hours! I think they do it for our own safety, because we did all suffer from some mild altitude sickness. While we were in the bus we were all getting kind of achy going up so high, but then when you ride the cable car, you go a lot faster than your body can climb. I didn't really feel bad until we were coming down. It just made me really sleepy so I was a little out of it. 
Anyway, one of the guys in our little group just took off and started running up the mountain! I think he must be part billy goat, or something. The girls and I would be quickly (what we thought was quickly) climbing and feeling like we were at a good pace, but then we'd look up and see Dustin waiting for us at the top. Every. Time. We stopped for about 10 minutes in the beginning to eat some lunch (we're still not fully adjusted to this 2:30 lunch time) and just enjoy being on the side of a mountain! And then we ignored the trails (sound familiar, Grammie?) and followed Dustin through the peaks of this mountain! At first we told him he was crazy, the girls all just wanted to follow the trails and see the normal stuff, but we followed Dustin. In hindsight, I don't think we really had a choice, he just forged ahead! In the end, though, we were so glad we did! We found these horses that belonged to a farmer in the mountains, but he just lets them roam around without fences. I mean, who needs fences when you live alone on top of a mountain? They were so beautiful!
We spent the rest of the time exploring with the big group and showing each other our favorite places before Pablo made us start heading back down. We're trying to make plans to go back, or to find mountains to explore in Santander one weekend. I would go back in a heartbeat, it was so, so wonderful!
So that was amazing, and we were all exhausted, but we weren't done! We had a half an hour drive down to the cute little town of Potes. We finished eating our lunch (because it was lunchtime by then) and took short little siestas and then were let loose to explore the pueblito! The first item on our agenda: chocolate. Poor Dustin always gets pulled along on the girly trips, but he really doesn't seem to mind. Boys like chocolate, bookstores, beaches, and shoes too, right? There was a sweet little bakery that we decided to try and we hit the jackpot! There were all these homemade little cakes and truffles and cream puffs. We all got something different and got to try them all. We definitely deserved it after our mountainous trek, but the display case did look a little empty as we left!
Then we lazily walked around town, enjoying the beautiful weather, and we bought our first souvenirs! It was fun to pick things out to bring home. I think that's one of my favorite parts of travelling when I can actually find gifts that I know people will enjoy.
Even then we still weren't done with our adventures! We drove another 10 minutes to a monastery. It was really, really beautiful, but I decided not to take pictures. For one, I had already taken a couple hundred and I was done for the day, 2 sometimes I like to just preserve the memory in my mind and I feel like I forget about the real thing when I take pictures. It's easy to just remember the pictures you took, not the actual thing. And 3, I kind of wanted it to be a less touristy moment. Sometimes it's nice to not be caught up in the fact that I'm an American and just enjoy living in Spain. I did, however, steal some pictures from my friend so you can see some of it.

This monastery is really special because it has what is believed to be the largest piece of wood from Jesus' cross. Because of this it is a common resting point and passing point for pilgrimages and has been for hundreds of years. Above is a picture of the gold display case they keep it in. 

They also take it out so people can see and even touch it.

This is the outside of the monastery.

That's all. It was a lovely day and I can't wait for the other trips! Next weekend we're going to go explore some caves and the following weekend we're staying 3 nights in a different monastery and walking part of the pilgrimage of Santiago.

I hope you're all still satisfied with life in the States after this, but if not, just come visit! :) Love you all mucho!

Excursion Day!!

Again I am so tired that I can't even think about telling you about my super, wonderful, awesome, glorious, perfect day! We went on our first group trip to Picos de Europa, Potes (a town), and a monastery. They were all incredibly beautiful and I can't believe this is real life. Bonus for the day: I had a hard time when I thought about having to leave this place in 6 weeks. It's the first time I've felt like that, so apparently I'm starting to feel at home here! I really had an amazing day and I promise to tell you all about it when I'm not so sleepy! 
For now pictures :)

I live a wonderful life!

We got lunch on a mountainside! 

We got to see horses!

And I love horses!

These hills were ALIVE with the sound of music!

We surfed on rocks!

Got windblown with one of my favorite chicas!

And had lots of postres!

What a wonderful day! 

I love you all, and I'll love you more if you comment so I know if you still love me! 

xoxoxo

For today, photos, for I have few words

Please enjoy the following photos of our boat trip around the Bay of Santander. 

¡Viva España!

Starting Week #3!!

Today is Day #14 of travel! In some aspects it feels like so, so much more than barely 2 weeks, but sometimes it feels like it's been way less. The first 4 or 5 days that Kelsey and I were trying to travel were so exhausting that I think it makes it feel like I've been away from everything I know for months. But when I start to think about how much I still have to learn and get used to, it feels like I've only been here a few days.
I've been falling into more of a routine now, so I'm very grateful for that. I now can take the same route to and from school every day and on purpose. That's a huge improvement! I'm also starting to get used to the food schedules, but that one's a little bit more of a process. They say it takes 3 solid weeks to make something a habit, but I think I'll be pushing the boundaries come the end of July!
In the past few days we've had a lot of rain and it's been pretty cold. Risking looking like a complete American, I wore a sweatshirt and tennis shoes today. I just couldn't handle it anymore. Plus, I inadvertently bought shoes that have canvas bottoms. So even though I was particularly carefully not to splash in the puddles, they still soaked up water from the bottom. That was yesterday, and they're still really wet. We did, however, see a little bit of sun today: 

We went to a festival called Baños de Ola. A long time ago it was considered very healthy to bathe (bañarse) in the sea, but the waves (olas) were so big that there were these men whose job it was to hold a long rope from the coast all the way into the deep water so people could get in the water and hold on to the rope. Now they have a big festival for it and people dress up in traditional clothes and old-timey bathing suits to celebrate. It was very fun. Plus, we got churros which are more than fun:

(Sorry for the repeat Facebook photos.)

So, for the most part it's been a good week. My host family situation has been interesting, but I don't spend a lot of time here and they're still really nice. I think it's mostly that people are just super direct here and don't try to hide much. 

I don't have much else to tell you about, but we're headed out on our first "excursion" to the "Peaks of Europe," on Friday. I should have lots to tell and lots of pictures to show after that.

Have a wonderful rest of your Wednesday!

Love, as always!
Sydney

Starting Something (everything) New

So, now Santander. We got here at 1 am on Monday morning and went straight to our host families' houses. It wasn't as awkward as it could have been, mostly because I just went right to bed. We had class in the morning at 9:15 so I didn't even take a tour of the house or anything. That morning my host mom told me to take the bus to school. It is not as easy as just taking the bus. Luckily, I was brave enough to ask a girl on the bus if she was headed to the university and it so happened that we were headed to the same building. Even so, I was probably 10 minutes late to school which was pretty bad. My classmates were taking a placement test so I just snuck in and tried to act like nothing was wrong.
The first day of school was pretty intense. We didn't have actual classes, but we had to listen to a few different people explain Santander and school and living here for 2 months. I am not a person who falls asleep in class, but I sure wanted to then! It was useful information, but between jet lag and general confusion, time difference, and mostly no sleep, I couldn't hardly function! We also got a tour of the university and later that evening a tour of the city. I think the best thing the university has done so far is to hire a few "guides" for us. They are 2 college aged girls (Andrea y Marta) who gave us the tours, but also plan stuff for us to do after school each day. So with them we've gone to the beach, the Magdalena Palace, the maritime museum of Santander, out for tapas, and out for dinner.

Our schedules here are really weird for us, but very normal for Spanish culture. We go to school at like 9:15 in the morning, but very few of our host parents are actually up. I had to tell mine that I could get my own breakfast because she always went right back to sleep after I ate. So we have class from 9:15 until about 2:00 and we get soooo hungry because we're used to eating around noon! Then we rush home for la comida. It's lunch, but it's the biggest, most substantial meal of the day. So far we've always had 2 courses, usually pasta, a vegetable, or salad for the first course and then fish or eggs and lunch meat with French fries for a second course. And we always have plantains or yogurt for dessert. (Bonus, the yogurt is 1,000,000 times better here than at home, and plantains taste like bananas, but don't make my stomach hurt!!) Afterwards is siesta time. Sometimes we take naps, usually I just read or enjoy some down time before we go out and do something. Around 5 or 5:30 all the shops open back up and everybody is back on the streets meeting friends, shopping or just getting a drink or coffee. Everybody stays out pretty much all night from there. We always come back to our houses for dinner at 9:30 or 10:00 and stay home for the night then, but most people (even in our group) leave again and stay out way later than in the US. I'm not a party-er back home or here, but I know that it's late to come back at 2 much less between 4 and 6 like is normal here! My host family thinks it's weird that I don't go out all night. One night we stayed out until midnight, but a lot of that was because we got lost and then were really hungry so we didn't want to just go home and not eat for the night. We actually ended up at this Mexican restaurant that was delicious! I had the best chicken flautas ever, it made me want to be in Mexico, but then I remembered I was in Spain and I was okay with that.

Okay, I'm cutting this one short (well, shorter than expected) so you guys can hear some more. I'll try to keep updating more regularly now.

I wish everyone of you could be here with me so we'd be a big happy family! 

Love you all, always!

Home Sweet Home

Stories to come, but for now some pictures of my house. It's hard to explain it, but I'll try. It's an apartment building and you rent the whole side of one floor so it's very long and narrow. 
This is what you see when you first walk in:

To the immediate right is the living room:

And farther up is the dining room. This is the door that you can sort of see on the right in the very first picture.

Next, you turn the corner and there is a long skinny hall. The first door on the left is the kitchen. Yes, it has a washing machine, a dishwasher, a sink, a stove, a fridge and a table in the smallest space possible.

On the same side, the next room is the bathroom. It's efficient and that's all that's necessary.

Now it gets confusing. There are 4 bedrooms in the back of the house. The one at the end of the hall is mine:

That's all I have pictures of, but there are three more rooms strategically placed around the corner much like the dining room and living rooms. I really like it here, it's nice to have a good sized room and furniture to store my things so I'm not living out of a suitcase for 2 months. It also helps me remember that I'm here for a long time and I have to do a lot of laundry here, instead of just being here for a few weeks.
Have a wonderful Friday, and be on the lookout for a post this weekend!
Love you all!!

Los primeros días a Santander

From June 29th:


Truly,  I don't even know where to begin on this crazy, scary, confusing, hard, seemingly impossible trip. I'm feeling a million things, but mostly am just feeling lost. It's not even the Spanish (which is a struggle) that's the worst, I feel like I'm not equipped with the problem solving skills, knowledge, or even brain power to be able to handle all of this.
The layover in Toronto was alright, more boring than anything. I was really grateful to be able to email, Skype, and Facebook around. We woke up feeling more disgusting than I think I've ever felt so we checked out and got the rundown on how to get downtown. All in all we only made it about halfway downtown and decided it was too hot, and too not worth it so we found the nearest dollar store and enjoyed its A/C. We got some necessities, most importantly including new T-shirts! They were like the best gift in the world! After our not-so-adventurous trip downtown we had only killed about 2 hours. It was around 2 and we had to wait until 8 to even begin boarding our plane. Kelsey decided that we should go back to the airport and see if they would let us spend a few hours in their lobby, and to our relief they let us spend 2 more hours in our room! We got another blissful shower, some more chill time, and then dinner in the hotel's restaurant. Even after all that we still arrived for our flight 3 hours early, but again, enjoyed the boredom.
Written July 3


This seems like it will be impossible to keep up on; I'm hoping now that I'm settled I will be able to get into a routine and post shorties regularly.
Picking up where I left off last time, we got on the plane to Madrid and arrived in Madrid safely, but by that time they had lost our luggage. It was then that I finally broke down and wasn't able to handle all the emotions anymore. I felt bad for the poor lady in baggage claim and Kelsey, they were like "don't cry, it's alright," but we all know that that never helps. I just need to cry when I cry, like right now. Usually it doesn't mean that anything is super wrong, I just need to get it out. I don't really understand why it is so hard for me to be away from everyone for so long. I'm grateful that I have people to miss and people that love me at home, but I wish that I could just have fun and be satisfied with talking when we can.
Anyway, we had to file a claim with the lost baggage people who told us to come back at 2 the next day to see if it made it on the next flight from Toronto to Madrid. That's right, there was a good chance that it wouldn't come in the next day and we would have to have it shipped to Santander (where we are staying for the full 2 months, Madrid was just a stop in passing) and that might take a few WEEKS! That just added to everything, but we caught a cab and headed to our hotel. I was able to get through the ride and checking into the hostel (even with a mean guy checking us in). By that time it was around 2 pm and we got to talk to family and another one of the people in our group who was in Madrid too. After that we realized the most important thing was sleep, so we took siestas and finally got ourselves together and braved the metro (aka the subway).
That was definitely a difficult trip, we had to walk about 25 minutes to the bus station and Kelsey is just as bad as directions as I am. Then we had to figure out the ticket thing and figure out where to get off. Let's just say it was a miracle we found Katie. Once we had someone who was more comfortable with the city it was a lot of fun. We had to work our way around the Gay Pride Festival and Parade, but eventually found a place to eat. I'm sorry that I don't have a picture of the food, but it was delicious. We had paella, egg rolls (what?), flan with chocolate AND chocolate mousse. We were that hungry. Afterwards Katie was gracious enough to hang around H&M with us until we bought some new clothes because that was day #4 of the same clothes. I was starting to feel like one of those cartoon characters that always wears the same clothes. I mean, it is pretty convenient!
The ride back to our hostel was just as eventful as we took it all the way to the wrong end of the city before realizing it and taking it all the way back. Luckily, the roads weren't too creepy and we just booked it home. That was the second time I really lost it. I was scared because I knew that getting our luggage was going to be a struggle in the morning and we still needed to book tickets (plane, train, or bus) to Santander. The main problem was that all of the modes of transportation seemed to be booked through the time we needed to be there. It was all a mess.
Speeding things up a bit, we got good sleep  (and Kelsey informed me I talk in my sleep) and figured everything out for the next day. Getting our luggage was a mess, but it turns out the easiest part was getting a bus ticket to Santander even though we didn't arrive until 1 am.
To be continued, this is already too long and I don't have more time to write!
Hasta luego, todos. Y buenas noches
:)

Stuck in Toronto

Long story short, we're supposed to be in Madrid in 3.5 hours, but we're actually still in Toronto. Long story to follow, beware.

So Ira and I got on the road this morning at 8:00 (I'm not bothering with time changes, just remember Chicago is an hour behind Michigan). It was fun, we drove to Chicago, walked around for a while, sweated a lot in the 107 degree weather, got super yummy pizza, met Kelsey (my Spain buddy) and her boyfriend, got her luggage and headed to O'Hare. The traffic was nuts and I was very sad to not have air conditioning, but we managed. Unfortunately, being parent-less nothing seemed to be nearly as easy as it should have been, so we stumbled around the airport for a while trying to figure things out. I had forgotten my phone which Ira had to rescue from the Jeep for me. Anyway, we did boring airport stuff. I said goodbye to Ira with just a few tears and lots of hugs. Much better than expected at least! 

Pictures from Giordano's-the famous restaurant in Chicago that was, in fact, delicious!

Then Kelsey and I began the long wait. We got to our terminal at 4 for our 5:30 flight that was boarding at 5.  At 5:15 we were told that our plane had landed in Chicago and were going to be boarding soon. That was a lie. The plane landed in South Bend (what?!?!) and we learned later that the pilot had lost control of the plane so they made an emergency landing. We only had a 1 hour 40 minute layover in Toronto before our connecting flight to Madrid so we were hoping for a quick fix, but that was a no go. Over the course of 3 hours the flight was delayed 4 more times. So we left Chicago at 8:30 and got to Toronto at 11. Most people were overly friendly and helpful-much more than expected! We even got chocolate for a snack on the airplane! Who does that??? 

So because of all that, they have put us up in a hotel in Toronto for the night and given us meal vouchers. It's not the best situation because of 2 things: our flight doesn't leave until 10:00 pm tomorrow night and we have to be out of here by noon meaning we can't use meal vouchers after noon tomorrow and we don't have our checked luggage. So guess who is wearing the same clothes two days of traveling in a row? This girl, and the girl sitting next to her. We're gross. Together we have most of the necessities and the hotel is giving us some complimentary stuff, but I should have taken the travel advice on packing for a day in your carry on. 

Below you will see what we're living on, please notice the all necessary chocolate!

Sorry this is so, so poorly written, but I'm pretty pooped! Enjoy your Friday, my well loved Michigan companions!

<3 Sydney