Made it to Spain...finally!

After spending 30 hours in the Newark Airport, we finally boarded a plane to Madrid. Here are some memories of our time in the airport:

Every 15 minutes we heard the “special message” read by a woman across the pa system reminding us to keep our luggage with us at all times.

That message was followed each time by a man with a British accent announcing to the “ladies and gentlemen” that we should know that 50,000 security personnel are working to keep us safe and we should read the information about security at the various “checkpoints” in the airport. We were really looking forward to the last time we would hear those messages…almost had them memorized!

Bev taught me to put baby powder in my hair to keep it from being greasy.

I read The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Max Lucado all in one day! I LOVED the book!!

Last night after we found out our flight was delayed by 4 hours, I went to buy a cell phone charger and met a lady named Elena at the kiosk. We got to know her and her daughter Jimena who were flying to Madrid as well. Elena is from Texas and Jimena is from Mexico. I told her about my spring break trip last year to Oaxaca and she knows where that is but has never visited. She and her mother are taking what they consider to be a “real vacation” and spending a couple weeks here in Spain. They were both super nice and we even took pictures together :)


The flight to Madrid finally left around 1am today and was 7 hours. It was a good chance to get some sleep. The plane was very nice…each one of us had our own tv screen and pretty big seats with pillows and blankets. I was too tired to even think about watching a movie, so I slept most of the way. When we arrived in Madrid, we were very happy to have all of our luggage show up at the baggage claim!! We took a bus to the train station and bought tickets for the 7pm train to Caceres. It was a 4 hour train ride and we stopped in lots of cities along the way. Everyone looked at us funny because of all the baggage we had but oh well. We saw some students on the train who we assume were returning home from school since they were dressed in uniforms. Can’t believe they don’t get home from school until 9pm at night!

Once arriving at the train station shortly after 11pm, we called Toni, our program director who lives here in Caceres, to let her know that we were here. She called our families to come pick us up at the train station. My family was the first to pick me up. I have a mom who goes by “Espe”, a sister named Clara, and another sister named Maria. Clara is 23 and is studying Civil Engineering at la Universidad de Extremadura here in Caceres (the same university I will be taking classes at). She says that my Spanish is very good so that’s a relief! Maria is 18 and is studying pharmacy in Salamanca, Spain. She will be here for the next 10 days because she just finished her final exams and has a break from school. I don’t know much about my host mom yet. She told me that she wants me to tell her if I have any problems because we are a family now and she wants to make sure I am feeling well and doing well. When I first got to the house, I had a tour and then had dinner (at 11:30pm nonetheless). We had tortilla de patata which is like an omelet with chunks of potato in it. It is served warm. We also had bread and small tomatoes. It is 12:30am right now, so I think I will get to bed. Sooo excited to shower and sleep in a real bed!!! I’ll write more soon!

Love,
Annette