Arriving

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I have arrived in Alicante, Spain and am enjoying the city and the beautiful “winter” weather. However, it was a more complicated process to arrive here that what I had expected. My mom and I left Sunday the 11 at about 11 in the morning to head to the Chicago Airport, which we reached at about 2. This left me about 3 hours to check-in and go through security, it took about 20 mins. This left me with 2.5 hours to find something to do, but at 4:00 we were informed that the plane would be delayed a little over an hour. When I finally got on the plane at a little past 5:00, it was a nice flight to Madrid. I thought that since it was a night flight that I would be able to get a lot of sleep, but with the time zones, I wasn’t tired and was more interested in watching the movies or reading, which left me with sleep about only an hour. I flew with Iberia and highly recommend this airline for their amazing service and great on board free food and drinks. However, one in Madrid, the problems started.

The Madrid airport has two terminals that are separated by about a quarter of a mile, but connected by an underground train. One would think that it would be easy to go from one terminal to the other, but this would be incorrect to assume. First I had to walk the whole length of the first airport to get to the immigration place, than down two flights of stairs and half of the terminal again to the train stop. Once in the other terminal it was more stairs, lots of walking, and going through security again. However, I will say that all the airport people were extremely helpful and all spoke enough English to help me get where I was going. This whole ordeal took over an hour of my 2 hour lay-over. During this hour, I got to meet other people in the other CIEE students like me that were heading to Alicante through introducing myself to those that were speaking English. In an Airport that everybody is speaking Spanish, is not hard to determine who the Americans are. When we went to board the plan, first they ripped the tickets of about 10 people, but then a baggage person sent them back saying that the luggage wasn’t loaded yet and there would be half an hour delay. After this delay, the ticket people let us unto the ramp of the plane, but the plane’s crew wouldn’t let us board because the luggage still wasn’t loaded on to the plane. This left us confused because no one know how long the delay would be or if it would be canceled and all the statements were being done in Spanish because there were about 150 Spaniards and only 13 of us. However, a nice woman helped to translate for us and was able to confirm that information with the ticket takers since they knew English when they weren’t answering someone else’s question. Basically, it ended with the plane being canceled because the baggage people were on strike for the afternoon. From here, the 13 of us worked as a group and had some watch the luggage, others trying to contact CIEE and others working with Iberia to catch a different flight. This worked well and we were able to get a 6:00 pm flight to Alicante (originally it was at 11 am) and the guy gave us meal vouchers (I got halibut, steamed veggies, yogurt, a sandwich and something to drink). This process was pretty easy other than some Spaniards got a mad at us when they saw that all 13 of us had got tickets and they were still in line, but after they were able to get tickets on earlier flights, they calmed down (finding connection flights for 2 is easier than 13). So other than turning a 2 hour lay-over into an hour one, it was ok. We got to get to know others in our program eat a good free meal and get some much needed sleep. When we arrived in Alicante, much to our surprise, CIEE had charted a bus to take us from the Airport to the Hotel so that we didn’t have to take taxis.

In Alicante, we quickly dropped our stuff off at the nice hotel downtown and then walked to an almost American like buffet for a supper on CIEE. They chose Italian as to break us slowly into the Spanish food. After supper, I unpacked and then wondered around downtown Alicante with new friends. The weather is cold for the Spaniards, but it’s really only about 50 and warms enough to even use the outdoor patios at night.

This morning, (Tuesday) we got to sleep into 10 am and then had some info sessions on our home stays and health and Safety. This got me really excited for the home stay because although it’s going to be awkward living in someone else’s house, especially since they don’t speak English, but I can’t wait. After this, we went on a walking town of Alicante and got to see some churches, the town center, town hall and some shopping districts. Followed by a large lunch at a cool restaurant that served paellas.
After lunch we had what I think is the best part of Spain, siesta. Basically you eat a huge meal and then take a nap and it happens every day. I didn’t sleep much so I walked around town, all the banks and supermarkets were closed and barely anyone was on the street. It was weird. Following this we had two info sessions and then supper at a Tapas bar. Tonight, I’m meeting some people downtown so we can explore the downtown more.


Disclaimer: These posts are done very quickly, so there will be a lot of grammar and spelling errors.

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Comments

[ROBERT]

Code Word: Blue
Spelling errors are commonplace with you, however, Quinn. Wow, I was trying to visualize you on your trip. That sounds terrible. Needless to say, you need to fast track your Spanish speaking skills. Take and post pictures, by the way.