Arrival and Transitions...

Well,it has definitely been an interesting couple of days. Yesterday (or Monday I guess) I left for Madrid. The plane ride was pretty uneventful, except for the fun fact that the guy that I sat next to was from OSU and his father was the pilot of the plane.

Once we got to Madrid, it was the entire process of getting suitcases, etc. The bus ride from Madrid to Toledo was about an hour, an hour and 15 minute with traffic. There are a bunch of people who know people that I know. Some have lived or worked in Allentown along the way or live in Ohio and have friends that go to Xavier. Most people are from OSU, University of Minnesota and Notre Dame with a ittle group of people from Purdue. A large chunk of people know each other from their home universities.

Toledo is beautiful. It is basically encased by what seems like a large fort. The school is tucked back in the city. Once we got there, those of us staying with families (a lot of people are staying at the school) met them. My family is very nice. The mother's name is Juani and the father is Luciano. He is a police officer in Toledo and she stays at home. She also watches her friends kids during the day. Her daughter is Claudia, she is 13. Her friend is Irene and her brother is Alex. They ar 13 and 8. They also have a dog named Sara and thought it was so great that my sister's name was the same as their dog. I have my own room in their apartment, which is in a large building in the suburbs of Toledo called Poligno. I have to take the bus to get to and from school, it is about a 30 minutes ride and then a 7-10 minute walk from the bus stop to the school. After I met my family I just went back to their hosue and got unpacked. I was exhausted so we mustly just hung out. They also showed me downtown Poligno and how to catch the bus, etc. They do everything on a later schedule. We ate lunch around 2;30 and dinner around 9:45 pm. That will definitely take some getting used to but I'm sure with time I'll adjust to it.

Today was the first day I had to catch the bus by myself. I found someone that actually goes to the school that lives in the same building as me, so tat was nice. We had a written test and then an oral interview to place us. Then we got our class schedules. I am taking Phonectics, Intro to Literary texts and an architecture class that will involve going different places in Toledo. Each class meets 4 times a week. For example, my phonetics class is 2 times on Monday and 2 times on Wednesday. The classes start tomorrow, so we'll have to see what they'll be like.

Tonight is our welcome party and final orientation meeting...then we get down to business.

It is certainly going to be an adjustment I kind of realized that I generally pack my life with things at school so I'm not really accustomed to all of this free time that I will have, even with 12 class meetings a week. As far as travel plans, I haven't made many yet, but since we have so much time off, there will definitely be some traveling. There is talk of Morocco and Portugal for sure. A lot of people here want to go to Pamplona for the running of the bulls and that requires dedication, as the only place to sleep is on the street or in a park.

i don't get internet at my house and my computer doesn't connect at school so I am having to be a little more creative when it comes to updating. I will put up pictures sometime but to be honest, I haven't really taken any.

I hope all is well with everyone.

Love,
Emily