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Published: January 16th 2009
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Well, these past three days have been absolutely crazy. Let’s go back to Tueday.
My flight left Minneapolis around 2pm. Arrived in Chicago after a very short flight, and practically ran with the 2 other girls on the flight with me to our next terminal (about 6 minutes to the next terminal by train.) We get to the ticket gate (we had to switch airlines, therefore get a new boarding pass) and the lady behind the desk became frantic “I need to get you to your flight!” Making US even more frantic!
The 7 hour flight to London was interesting
The Plane we were on was bigger than any I have seen in a movie! There with two floors. We were on the bottom.. in row 53… the very last row on the plane next to the bathrooms.. and eventually, in front of a group of very drunk men who decided to perch behind us for almost the ENTIRE flight. It was terrible. BUT the plane had a whole list of movies to choose from if you pleased. I spent 4 of my 7 hours watching Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants numero dos! And Moulin Rouge
As
you walked on to the plane, there were these Crazy, even-better-than-first-class seats. They were semi-private, each seat separated by a small WALL, and all were these great seats for sleeping, with foot rests at the opposite side of the wall.. they can’t even be described. Someday, I WILL fly in better-than-first-class.
I had just popped in a piece of gum to land in London when the pilot came on to say we had to circle for another 25 minutes before we could land because the fog was so bad.. Well, remember, without that 25 minute delay, us group of girls only had an hour and a half to switch planes! We finally landed, were the LAST ones to get off the plane, and again, just about ran through London Hethrow airport.
COULD THAT PLACE BE ANY BIGGER??
Escalator, escalator, up, down turn-around, escalator, TRAIN!, dozens more escalators, little hallways everywhere, and a BUS. Yes, a BUS that took about another 10 minutes! Then more escalators, up and down, up and down, waaaaaaaaaaaaalk, up and down, around the tiny little hallways everywhere, and FINALLY to our flight.. and the plane wasn’t even there yet.
Finally, we boarded onto the plane
where we sat for almost a half hour past our scheduled time to leave. The fog was so bad. You could barely see anything outside the window.. But we made it out!!
Our luggage didn’t
But of course, we didn’t know this until we had waited for 2 hours in Madrid airport. After landing, we walked, stood in line at customs, went to the back of the line after waiting to get to the front because we didn’t fill out a sheet, sat at the luggage for another hour and a half, stood in line for another HOUR to tell them our luggage was gone. While doing that, we had to call the people in charge of picking us up to tell them that we couldn’t make it because we had to report our luggage was missing. Finally finished that (There were 6 pieces of luggage missing between all of us-that would be ALL of the luggage we had), and made our way to the spot in the airport where we would wait for another hour. Drank some café, then Miguel came to pick us up. He brought us to a bus where we would wait for another
2 hours.. without moving. Finally, another bus came to pick us up. We switched buses and drove for 1 hour to Toledo, walked a few blocks to the school, La Fundación de Ortega y Gasset, attended a meeting about living in a homestay, then stood in the staircase waiting for our names to be called so that we could meet our families.
I had one! Lucky me
My host dad is Rafael, my mom has a nickname that I don’t know how to spell.. Charla? She has a son who lives at home with his girlfriend- Helio and Veronica. They are nice, I don’t see them much
My host dad took me around Toledo a bit.. SO beautiful! I can’t wait to post pictures. Every building there is hundreds and hundreds of years old.. it is absolutely amazing, and the streets are even narrower than you can imagine. People use them as sidewalks, cars use them as rodes!
Toledo is a very nice, calm city with very nice people. Of course (this is to my family) I will be careful!
I live in an apartment about 20 minutes away from the school-10 by bus, 5-10
Sort of the school...
you need to walk down that little alley on the right to get to my school:) walking. By car, it is less than 10 minutes. It’s only that long because the rodes wind so much! I have my own room, and everything is very nice.
By the time I went to bed, it was 4pm on WEDNESDAY your time.. remember that I left Minneapolis on TUESDAY at 2pm?? Do the math.. Plus, I woke up on Tuesday at 8am. I had been up for… how long?? This is math for the classes of kids that are reading this. 8am Tuesday until 4 pm wed..I slept for about 20minutes total here and there during the whole trip.
Today I got my schedule and hung out with friends. One of my pieces of luggage came.. not the one I wanted! It is the smaller one that I packed with a few pieces of clothes, my straightener!, converter, and the phone I will use in Spain. EVERYTHING ELSE is in the big bag that they STILL have not found. There were 6 pieces of luggage between the three of us girls.. 5 were found and brought to us.. the 6th, mine, is still missing in action. I know this because I can go online to check the status of them. If its not here by tomorrow, I have to talk to the people at the school so they can do something about it. Tiffany might be doing a lot of shopping! Regardless, I will have to do some shopping tomorrow. I can’t live without makeup and face lotion for this long!!
I am back now at the apartment with my family. They don’t have internet here, so I am.
typing this and saving it on a word document so I can add it tomorrow when I am at
school to my blog. Things are going alright. Im really bummed about my luggage. If that doesn’t show up tomorrow, I’m going to be really sad. I won’t mind going shopping for new stuff, of course, but it would just be so much easier right now to have it. I am in a new country where I am speaking a new language ALL the time (my host family doesn’t speak English, all my teachers speak Spanish, and all of us students are supposed to speak Spanish to each other), I don’t have pictures of back home to put on my wall! AND I want my camera chord so I can show you the pictures I have taken so far…
Ok, I need to go to bed! I am going to the school early so I can use a friend’s makeup and all that jazz.. I am taking the bus for the first time, and we are getting a tour of Toledo!
Hasta Luego
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