17 hours later...

Hola desde Espana!
Right now, I am sitting in the stairwell at el hotel Rambla in Alicante. The internet is splotchy here and we can't get a good connection in the rooms. The past two days have run together into a big blur of airports and planes and mixed emotions. It seems like days ago that I was in Memphis running to Target before my flight to buy a new spanish to english dictionary since mine mysteriously disappeared. Since then, I have spent three hours in the Memphis airport (my first flight was delayed an hour), two and half hours on a plane to Newark, about an hour there, then 7 and a half hours on the biggest plane i've ever been on to Madrid. It was an overnight flight, and they gave us dinner and a small breakfast, which i was pretty impressed with. I couldn't really sleep becaue my legs were all antsy, but I did get to watch House, and I made a friends with the girl sitting next to me. After that I fumbled through the Madrid airport attempting to speak and understand spanish as quick as they speak it.. needless to say i felt a little inept. But i managed enough to get myself through security. Then i spent three hours waiting on this little digital board to tell me what gate i needed to go to.. There i met up with two other girls in the program, as well as our profesor. We all shared the one hour flight to Alicante, on which i completely knocked out. I was in the middle seat, and apparently i was tired because i sat straight up and fell right to sleep, i don't even remember taking off.. the next thing i knew we were making our descent into Alicante.
The city is bigger than i thought it would be, and on the taxi from the airport there was tons of graffiti. Once we got into the town, you could smell the ocean, which made me really happy :) we checked into the Hotel Rambla, and spent the next two hours walking around the blocks close by, trying to decide where to eat later. We had a quick info session about the next couple of days events, and then a big group of us went down the rambla to a place called Miami to have dinner. My first meal in spain was pizza.. lol. but it was covered in ham that was different from what i expected it to be, so i guess it was kind of authentic.. Our director told us it would be better to eat something we were familiar with starting out, before we try the local fare (which i have heard takes a lot of getting used too.. like we're talking fish with the eyeballs and antennae stil on.. im a little nervous.) after that some of us went to a little place near the hotel and got churros and sangria (both of which i am a big fan..) churros are these little fried bread things, kind of like funnel cake, that you dip in warm chocolate and roll in sugar (i know...) and sangria is red wine mixed with sugar, fruit, and like 5 different kinds of rum (yum.)
So.. after about 17 hours of travel and lots of information and walking and food, i think i am going to take a nice, not so warm, not so long shower (as i am told is custom here, the shower "door" only covers half of the shower, its kind of strange) and then relax. Tomorrow we are touring the city, and i am sure I will have lots and lots more to share :)