Hola España. ¿Que pasa?

I have arrived!

The day has finally come when I can call this country my home... and to be honest, it's becoming just that much more quickly than I thought! I forgot how lovely the Spanish people are... there's something so warm and welcoming about this place.

Where to begin? My flight here is a boring subject to blog about so here are the highlights: Empty seat next to me- double the space, double the pillows and blankets! and... plane food is ass (to quote one of my favorite tv shows). That's about it!

The weather: another boring topic to blog about so here it is briefly for anyone who is interested- the weather here is so perfect right now I don't even have a comment about it. You know how when it's just right, it's unnoticeable? Yes. GLORIOUS!

I settled in a little at the hostel and then went for a stroll around the block. It's kind of a bummer that today is Sunday and I can't accomplish any of the things I wanted to because everything is closed [almost] but it's also nice to not be that pressured to run around in such an exhausted state. So, since I haven't eaten real food in a while, I stopped in a little place that looked promising. I ordered a queso brie empanada which sounds delicious basically because the description contains the word brie. Turns out, it was little bite-sized nuggets of fried brie! Gross in the most amazing way possible. Am I still in America?

(Shout out to lisa: these things ALMOST put mozzo's to shame. almost.)

Anyways, the cafe con leche at that place was unbelievable but the best part of the whole thing was the bar-tender/server guy named Javier. It was such a slow day that he was just kind of hanging out behind the bar and I decided it was a perfect time to take my Spanish for a test drive. Success! He was so nice and really understanding of my sometimes needing a moment to conjugate verbs into the subjunctive in my head before spewing out some atrocity that shames anyone and everyone who ever spoke this beautiful language. We talked about everything from Madrid to politics and sports and I've gotta say, I was impressed by the amount of coherent Spanish I produced and how much I understood! Yayyy!

**Snaps for Fernando and Clay for helping me remember my Spanish on our "spanish-only" car rides in Gainesville :) It really helped! UNA PERSONA UNA PERSONA!

I also met an nice guy from Colombia who works at the juice shop- and the statement holds true: I still haven't met one Colombiano that I didn't like! That place is on my list for my future South American adventures. Who's in?

Anyhoo- I can't wait to get started on the apartment hunt tomorrow. Madrid is amazing and taking a whole day to just get lost and explore sounds wonderful.

That's definitely enough information for now, so let's wrap this baby up! Nap time :)

Hasta pronto!

Justine


...And just as a warning, in my experience, when my Spanish improves, my English declines. Sorry about the ever-increasing number of typos that may ensue. At least I'm finally learning this idioma for keeps!