I made it...

Whew! So, I made it to Barcelona. It's about 1:30am on Wednesday and I'm sitting in my room of my host family's house. My computer automatically switched to spanish, but I think I'm gonna keep it. It will do nothing, but help me!

The flight was ridiculous. I have never flown that much in my whole life. LAX to Phoenix wasnt bad at all, but Phoenix to London took forever! I watched episodes of Friends, Everybody Hates Chris, and The Simpsons. I also saw Panic Room for the first time. Not a bad movie... Amy and I kept worrying about language barriers at airports, but we were fine the whole time. THEN, when we got to Barcelona, it started getting a little crazy. Luckily, we got every piece of our luggage, exchanged our money, and hopped on a cab to our homestays. Once we stepped in the cab, it finally hit us that we were in Spain. The cab driver didn't speak a WORD of English, so our spanish skills were put to the test already! The driver was extremely nice and understanding and did his best to help us out. We left him a good tip!

Once I arrived at my homestay, I realized that this was gonna be the part that either makes or breaks the trip, in a sense. If the hosts weren't going to be very outgoing, this was going to be harder and take more work on my part. However, that couldn't have been farther from the reality of it all. As we pull up, I hear this woman shout out, "BRENT! HOLA HIJO!" My senora, Adela, was one of the sweetest ladies ever. I seriously already felt I had a home away from home. She brought me into their house and introduced me to her husband, son (who is 28 y/o) and daughter (who is 24 y/o). Everyone was extremely polite and welcoming. The husband and wife only speak Spanish, so the four of us made a deal to correct each other with Spanish and English. Ana and Bernardo, the siblings, spoke pretty good English, so it made it easier. They showed me their pool and we all went out for a swim around 9pm (which given the warm weather of Barcelona, it was perfect). Then we went inside to eat dinner. I'm not exactly sure what we had, but it was amazing. I found myself eating foods that i would NEVER touch back home (Yes mom, even tomatoes! A whole bunch of them!).

We had a GREAT conversation throughout the dinner, dessert, and tea. They became aware of my slow eating habits real quick (haha). They really wanted to know about the U.S. and our politics, sports, weather, activities, etc. Ana had actually been to the U.S. a lot, so she had a lot to add in to the conversation, too. Then, they wanted to see my home and UCSD, so we spent a fair amount of time on Google Earth. Then I started to show them pictures of friends and family from back in California. They really got a kick out of this. All in all, I couldn't have asked for a better start here!

I'm about to pass out, since I will be up in about 8 hours. That's actually a lot of sleep for me. Adela is taking me to the university tomorrow to figure out my classes and stuff and then we are gonna go shopping for a cell phone. She kept telling me how much she loves taking pictures, so I think we are going to get along just fine! d:-)

I'm also hoping to meet up with Dan, Amy, and other study abroaders tomorrow. Word is that there is a welcoming party tomorrow. Either way, I'm in for a day of exploring!