Friday, May 23, 2008 / Saturday, May 24, 2008

Today was the first day on my trip! I was so excited but at the same time really stressed out. I headed to the airport at one (after a quick stop at REI to get a much needed new jacket). While checking in, I was able to meet Amanda’s parents and her little sister. The seem like a great family and I was that much more exited to be traveling with Amanda.
When we got up to the counter, we started talking to the woman checking us in. She asked us why there were so many people traveling to Madrid and we told her about the study abroad program. Suddenly, she turned to my father and asked him if he would like to walk me to my gate. This was a total surprise! After running to the car to get some drivers licenses, both of my parents were able to go through security with me! Unfortunately, the woman who checked Amanda in was not as nice. Her parents, nor anyone else’s, were able to come with us. Apart from getting to stay with my parents longer, we were also all able to go into the Crown Room (our very favorite places) to get a quick glass of wine and some snacks!
After saying goodbye to my parents, I board the plane. I was a little frustrated that I was sitting in a middle seat, but that quickly changed. I was able to sit next to two very nice girls from our group. (Not fat smelly guys like I had feared)! Hilary, Kayla, and I talked a good bit on the flight over. I tried to sleep, but even with the glass of wine from the crown room, the ambien, and the half a glass of wine with dinner, I was only able to sleep for about 2 hours.
We landed in Amsterdam about 7 am local time. We had just the right amount of time to get through security and grab a quick croissant before boarding (or a quick beer in the case of most of the boys).
While standing in line to board, a man with dread locks started talking to me about my travels. I told him that myself (along with the majority of the small plane that we were flying on) were traveling through Europe for school. I asked him about his meaning of travel and I got a quick, and creepy, response that besides “having the pleasure” of meeting me there that day, that he was in a band. I assumed that it was a small band. He said that he was had preformed in Amsterdam the night before, performing in Madrid that night, and then Barcelona the next night. I asked him if I had heard of his band. Turns out he was pretty famous! He was the man who wrote a popular song a while back called “Freak Out!” I am pretty sure that the people most excited about this would be people my parents age cause no one else seemed to know the song. But I sure was pretty excited!
On this flight, I again was sitting between Hilary and Kayla (we so happened to be in alphabetical order). I was able to sleep about an hour more on this flight.
After a total of about 15 hours of traveling, I had finally made it into Madrid! We grabbed our bags and found the bus. We were presently surprised having a very new and nice and clean Mercedes Benz Bus. We had a very short ride to the hotel, which was very centrally located.
We were a little ahead of schedule, so the hotel had not made our keys yet. Amanda and I ended up being one of the last to receive keys, and therefore had no time to eat before the walking tour. That was a little sad, but I was more than ready to go and explore!
The group walked for about 1 hour and 45 minutes. We saw some amazing places around the city! I was very excited and took a ton of pictures! After the tour, we were set on our own for a couple of hours before the welcome dinner. We walked around trying to find a phone store in order to get a SIM card. That didn’t really work out, but Amanda and I got a good sense of the city. We made it back to our hotel and had about 2 hours to get ready before heading to the welcome dinner. We had a huge meal there! The first course was a salad with tuna which turns out to be a very delicious combination. We then had one of the biggest chickens that I had ever seen! We each got our own chicken in a great sauce with sides of French fries. The was followed by a very rich chocolate desert. After heading back to the hotel, several people decided to meet and try to go out for a little while.
Even though Amanda was tired, I decided to go to try to meet some new people. I went to someone’s room while we all had a glass of wine before heading out. We meet the group in the lobby (which ended up being I think about 25 people). We wandered around for a good bit (with that many people, it was hard to find a place everyone would like to go to). We ended up in a small bar where we had the whole basement floor to ourselves. There I got one drink (I didn’t think I could afford much more since the drinks were 6 euros a piece!). We called it a night relatively early and headed back to the hotel. I was in bed a little after 2 for some long awaited sleep!