¡A España!

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It’s round two for study abroad, this time in Granada, Spain. I flew out Friday afternoon from Cedar Rapids to Dallas. I was a little worried about delays since it had been snowing the last two days, but everything worked out well and I made it to Dallas in plenty of time to catch my next flight. I had talked with two girls from Central (Emma and Amber) who were also going to Spain and had booked seats next to them. I didn’t know how many others were on the same flight, but when I got to the gate there were maybe twelve others from the group. That was helpful because I hadn’t really been in contact with anyone from the group besides Emma. (Over my short three week break between countries I wasn’t really feeling up to doing anything, meeting anyone, or talking, reverse culture shock and all.)

Our flight went well, except it didn’t have little TVs on the back of each seat like our plane to China did which was very disappointing. I guess it was a smaller plane. And I had a horrible night because I couldn’t fall asleep. I don’t know who makes airplane seats, but they really need to rethink the design. The headrest is to far forward and the back makes you slouch, and with only a tiny lean back, there’s no way you can sleep. I either got a crick in my neck or my hand fell asleep from holding my head up. So after that lovely flight, we landed in Madrid at ten this morning. The airport reminded me a lot of Shanghai’s airport—it looks like a giant aircraft hangar with the high, swooping ceilings. It’s much bigger though; one of the largest in the world. None of our luggage was lost which was a huge relief. That was one of my biggest worries because I have heard of a lot of people losing their luggage that went abroad.

Most of the others were flying to Granada, but five of us took taxis to Estacion Sur, and bought a ticket for the bus to Granada. We didn’t really think this through the first time though. We bought our tickets for the 11:30 bus even though it was leaving in five minutes. We thought we could make it. The problem was, we couldn’t find the bus. There were several numbers on the tickets, and we ran to each numbered platform, but none of them were right. When we finally asked someone and they pointed to the place, we saw our bus pulling out. So we had to go back and exchange our tickets. At least we didn’t have to pay for a new ticket. The next bus didn’t leave until 2:00, so we sat in the cafeteria for two and a half hours people watching. We were all too tired to do much talking.

Once we got on the bus, I immediately fell asleep. When I woke up, we were driving through some small mountains, and it was beautiful. It was a little scary going around turns and looking down the side of the mountain thinking we could very easily topple over and die. But we made it safely after five hours to the bus station where we got a taxi to our hotel. Now, I thought the driving in China was crazy. Well, Spain comes pretty close. I wasn’t so much worried about hitting other cars like I was in China, but hitting people. The streets are so narrow here, and with many crosswalks for pedestrians and sudden light changes, I was afraid we would hit someone. And he was going extremely fast. But we made it to Hotel Dauro (aka Best Western) and got checked in. It was difficult getting our luggage there because the hotel is tucked away from the street by a little alley which is uphill and cobblestoned. We had to take the elevator as we were on the third floor, but it could only fit one person with their luggage at a time. I barely fit with my two big suitcases and backpack. Then our room was all the way down the hallway, down two little sets of stairs (those won’t be fun to go up tomorrow when we leave). It was such a relief to finally be done with travelling and settled into our room. Although it was difficult to find everything I needed for that night because I couldn’t remember where everything was in my bags and of course didn’t want to unpack the whole thing. I showered and we went to a nearby pizzeria for dinner, and it was delicious! It is now 9:00, we’re back in our hotel, and we’re going to bed. Tomorrow we meet our families! I’m trying not to freak out too much.

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