Last Wednesday, my Mom and I got up, took Emily and Patrick to school, and then drove four hours to JFK (Kennedy Airport in New York). My flight was leaving at six o'clock, and we arrived at 12:30, so we had plenty of time to travel between Terminal 4 and 7 several times. We went to Terminal 4 first, but then found out that Terminal 7 was where the plane was leaving, went to Terminal 7, found out that all the food was in Terminal 4, returned there, and then back to Terminal 7 to meet up with the other Bucknell students.

The flight went well, although it was long, and I didn't get much sleep. I went to sleep after watching the movie they showed, Waitress, and then was woken up an hour and a half later when they served breakfast. We landed in Madrid, and then after going through customs (where I lost the rest of the students for a little while, since I'm a citizen of the European Union and they are not) we waited for our connecting flight.

Several hours later we got on the plane and, after a 50-minute flight, we finally arrived in the tiny airport in Granada! We were all exhausted from the long day and night of traveling, but were excited to finally have made it.

On the 20-minute bus ride we had to Granada (the airport wasn't actually in Granada, but on the outskirts) I looked out at the countryside and wrote the following in my notebook: "We are in a valley, or so it seems on this bus, that is surrounded by huge mountain ridges. It's really dry and dusty and reminds me of Mexico. Even though I'm trying not to compare this landscape with other countries, and look at it as a completely new place, I can't stop myself from noting differences and similarities. I guess this is what people do, we try to categorize things. The terrain and houses that I'm seeing in the fields also remind me of Mexico. It makes sense that some of the structures I'm seeing would remind me of that country, since Spain is her mother country. It is sort of the way Colonial Williamsburg reminds me of England. There are also some aspects, like the roads, road signs and the buildings that I see as we come into Granada that are very European."

Later I wrote this about the hotel, which I found to be typically European. "The rooms and bathrooms are tiny. The bathtub is so small you can't lie down in it; there is only space to sit. The AC doesn't work very well, and the knob to flush the toilet is on the top rather than on the side. My roommates aren't happy about the room, and I suppose the size of it and lack of AC is a bit inconvenient, but for once in the last 36 hours I'm feeling a bit more at home. It is nice to recognize something, even if it is something as small as the location of the knob to flush the toilet."

That first afternoon as we waited to go to a caf for food at four, everyone was in pretty negative moods. Many of us hadn't eaten since the little amount of breakfast we'd had on the plane at six a.m., and our hunger and exhaustion made us all cranky. After some food our moods lifted, but for the first few days were still very hard for me. I was feeling a bit of shock about being here in Spain, not in the sense of culture shock, but just coming to turns with being away from home. Also, those first few days I dwelt on Nick's death a lot, and really wanted to be home with my family.

Still I'm doing much better now, and am so excited to be here!! Thursday afternoon, and Friday we were given tours of Granada. It is a very beautiful city, with some amazing old buildings, and twisting tiny cobbled streets. It is everything that I was told it would be, and more. I'm looking forward to exploring it from corner to corner, and learning the secrets of all its small side streets.

Now I'm living with my host family, and taking an intensive Spanish class. In a couple of days, I hope to write more, about my family and class, but I think that with this post, the one before and the one I'm about to post about Friday night, I've written enough for today.