�Hola!

This has been a CRAZY week.  I finally arrived in Seville this past Monday night, and I have had limited and weak internet connections for most of this week.  Now that the internet is all sorted out, I can finally share everything that has happened since this adventure began.  Because there is so much to tell, I’m going to split it into a couple entries about the topics.  Now, where to begin….

I guess the best place to start is back in Pittsburgh.  I turned 21 one week before I left for Spain, which made it a pretty hectic week.  After my birthday with my amazing friends and family in Pittsburgh, I went up to State College before the big snowstorm to say goodbye to all of my Penn Staters.  They had put together a birthday/going away party for me, and everyone was so sweet.  It was definitely very hard to say goodbye and leave State College, and I miss all of them so much. 

When I got back to Pittsburgh, I had about 2 days to pack and prepare for my first trip out of the country…talk about stress.  Packing four months into one medium sized suitcase and backpack is not what I would call an easy situation.  Suitcases fill up much faster than you would think.  Thanks to a lot of help though, we managed to zip my bags shut.  I said my goodbyes (which are definitely not one of my strengths) and before I knew it, I was in the Pittsburgh airport.

 My boyfriend of almost 2.5 years and I are both studying in Seville this semester through two different CIEE programs.  Even though his started a few days later than mine, he left for Spain with me last Sunday so that we could fly together.  It’s a good thing we did, because it was one of the worst travel experiences I have ever had.  First, we flew from Pittsburgh to Chicago, where we had a layover for a few hours.  In those hours, I was really nervous about going to Spain.  It was not until we arrived in Seville that we scheduled classes or found out where we were living, so there were a lot of nerves about the unknown.

From Chicago, we flew to Madrid.  Our somewhat short layover in Madrid turned into a miserable 10 hours as our flight to Seville was delayed and then canceled without any notifications from the airline.  After the cancellations, the line for the airline was hours long.  Luckily we were placed on standby and quickly bonded with the other CIEE students that we found.  We finally arrived in Seville many hours late and with only half of our luggage.  Because we were late for orientation, we started the second we got to the hotel at about 8:00 pm.  By the time I had gotten to bed that night, I had been awake for well over 30 hours.  We started the next day at 8 am. Talk about a whirlwind.

Below is the Madrid airport, which was modern and beautiful.  My first reaction was that of surprise at the huge number of things from home that I had recognized.  Scarlett Johansson was featured in the ad campaign for Mango (a popular store in Spain), not to mention McDonald’s, Starbucks, familiar make up brands, etc.

Location: Seville, Spain