Homestay!

Hey guys! Day 2 meant homestay day!  When I woke up this morning, I wasn't very nervous.  However, after breakfast, my stomach was in knots!! All I kept wondering was: will they like me?  will they think I'm some crazy American? and why does my Spanish suck?!  Luckily, I had an hour long meeting to sit through that took my mind off of meeting my host family.  During our meeting, Veronica, our Granada advisor, told us all about what we would be doing for orientation, what excursions we would be going on in the next to weeks, and who are homestay families were.  I was nervous I'd be alone and have to figure out what my family was saying and struggle like none other and I'd have to walk alone and I'd get lost and then tears and sadness.  If you can't tell, I have a tendency to over think and over react.  It's a true skill.  Anyway, I found I was put with a girl named Meera.  So when our name was called we got up and walked to meet our host family.  My host mom is a precious little gem of an older lady named Maria.  Thank heavens that she is very patient and does not mind repeating things once or twice until we understand.  Sometimes I have been struggling to understand what Maria is saying, so I look to Meera who usually gets it (thank heavens, again!).  We ate lunch here with Maria and her husband.  It was a simple lunch, just pasta and an apple, but yummy!  We just finished dinner.  It was.....interesting.  We had a cold soup.  It was...interesting.  I didn't hate it, but I also didn't love it.  But I did stomach it! We also had a potato cake like thing and a san jacobo.  The san jacobo was really good!! It was a fried ham and cheese.  Sooo good!!  Eating here is very different.  Their kitchen table is in the living room in front of the television.  So while eating, we watch t.v. and talk.  It's great! Here's pictures of my room.

My bed

My desk



 After we had lunch today, my roommate, Meera, and I walked to a park nearby.  Some other students said that they were going to meet there so we figured we'd see if we could find anybody.  Well...we couldn't.  We walked around the park anyway.  It was beautiful!!

As we were heading back to our apartment, we saw a few girls from our program.  So we stopped to say hi and decided to get something to drink at a tapas place across the street.  I had a delicious cappuccino! Before dinner, our host mom walked us to our school so we knew how to get there tomorrow.  It's only a 20 minute walk or so and the walk there is lined with wonderful shopping!!!!  Once we got to the school, we found some other students in the program.  Our host mom walked back home with one of her friends, and we stayed and decided to check out the stores.  The stores we went into were awesome!! One store we saw had a cow sitting in the door.  So naturally, I had to take a picture with it!

We finally made our way back to our apartment in time for dinner.  Now it's just relaxing.  Tomorrow we have a meeting, a tour of Granada, and a level test.  Should be a good day!! Buenas noches!