We arrived in Spain on the 13th at about 7:00 AM after a very long flight from JFK and went through passport control. There we found out that one of the girls, Kristin (she was in my conversation class this past semester) lost her passport, so she had to deal with getting the embassy to confirm that she´s an American citizen and all...tied us up for quite a while. But in the meantime, I used my first Spanish to order a Coke, and I paid in Euros. Then the rest of us took a bus to the school (Fundación Jose Ortega y Gasset) and unloaded our stuff. It is colder than usual in Madrid, but luckily I have the new scarf that Nathalie made me, so I haven´t felt it. We had a short orientation to the school (how classes work, that we need to speak Spanish the entire time, and if we´re ever drunk, we´re on the first plane home) and then a lunch break, which we all took together at a nearby restaurant named VIPS.

When we returned, our señoras were there waiting for us. I found mine, Inés Días, and we took a taxi back to her place. I unpacked and she fixed lunch (spicy meatballs and potatoes). We walked around her neighborhood. She showed me where the closest bus stop and metro station were and we went to a supermarket to get some things. I also got a 10-ride bus pass. Ines is really nice. She has been a host for the program for like 8 years, ever since her kids moved out and her husband died. She found out about it from a friend who already was one. She´s had mostly good students the whole time, and she really liked Becca. She has two children, one son and one daughter. Both are married with two children. Her son, I think, has some kind of job in television. It seems that he helps make video clips for news shows. And one of her grandkids is lefthanded :) When we got back, she made dinner (an omelette-like thing with rice and tomato sauce) and I met another girl who is staying with her. I didn´t catch her name, but she´s 28 and is working for a telephone company. She´s from Zaragoza, but her company is restructuring and now she´s in Madrid. After dinner, we watched The Weakest Link (La rival mas debil) and Password (Pasapalabra) and Operacion Triunfo, the Spanish version of American Idol. That show ran long, so I didn´t get to bed till after 1:00 AM.

I had to get up at 7:30 to get ready and catch the bus (by myself) to the Fundacion so we could all travel to Toledo for a 3-day orientation. Inés and Cecilia (?) suggested I get to the stop at 8:30 to be at the Fundacion by 9:00, but I arrived at the Fundacion at like 8:45, so maybe I´ll stay in bed a little longer next time. It was a little scary because I have way more Metro experience than bus experience, but the bus is much closer. Also, Inés didn´t actually know which was the closest stop to the school, so I had to ask the driver to let me know when we got there. It turns out that the bus drops me off right at VIPS, so I knew exactly how to get to the school. We left late (had to wait for Kristin to do more stuff at the embassy) and traveled to Toledo, which is a little south of Madrid. It took about an hour but I slept. Toledo is much more medieval and old-looking than Madrid, which is like New York. The streets here are narrow and cobblestone and slope greatly. It´s scary when cars come barreling down out of nowhere. And it´s even colder here. We had some orientation lectures and then free time.

Noemí, one of the directors of the program, said we should take opportunities to get lost in our cities. So after lunch I took a map of Toledo with me and just walked around by myself. I passed a big cathedral, some more churches, saw a large statue of Jesus, got a good view of the newer part of Toledo, took some stairs down to the lower level of the city, got lost, saw the ruins of an old Roman chariot racetrack, took a huge escalator back up to the top of Old Toledo, found a McDonald´s and got a McFlurry, and just barely made it back in time for the next session. Actually I was doing pretty well until I was really close to the place (in Toledo, we are staying in a converted convent) and then I wasn´t sure where to turn, but luckily I found 3 other students and we figured it out.

After dinner, these girls said we were all going out to a bar (ostensibly to celebrate a double birthday within the group: Lauren and Paulencia). I don´t drink so I wasn´t going to go at first, but caved in to peer pressure. It ended up being a lot of fun. The bar was more of a restaurant. Ironically, the birthday girls said they´d catch up and didn´t end up coming. We pushed some tables together and sat and talked. The group ordered 4 pitchers of sangria and I had a glass. It´s all right, but even though it´s sweet, I could still really taste the alcohol. The place was closing at 11:00 PM, so we left and went to a small Irish pub. There everyone else got happy drunk and I had a good time watching people and talking to Kristin and Chuck (Chuck was also in my conversation class) and Aishah. I tried sips of other drinks: a vodka screwdriver, rum and coke, and White Russian. The White Russian was closest to something I´d actually have. I got back at about 1:30 AM. Many of the students were at the pub till 3:00. I´m really upset that I forgot to get a picture of myself with my first glass of sangria.

Today we had breakfast and Noemí told us about the period in Spain and especially Toledo when the three major Western religions lived together. After that, we went out as a group and saw a church, a synagogue, and the city´s cathedral. In Toledo you can see examples of all three religions. And the Jews apparently adopted the style and culture of the places they settled; because of their common restriction with Muslims about not representing human forms, they used similar architectural styles, so the synagogue had the characteristic mushroom-shaped arches of the Muslims in it. After we finished touring Toledo, we had free time, so I bought some presents. Later, I found another student who came to Spain last semester, Jeromiah, and he and I saw a Roman bridge outside the city and walked up to a Moorish castle, but it was closed for repair. Tomorrow we leave Toledo for home.

Anand