I arrived yesterday in Alicante! It was a long ride. The first flight from Detroit was in a huge plane with amazing amenities: free movies, TV, games, and music. I slept maybe two hours the whole way. My second flight flew out of Paris, where I hopped on this rickety, old plane to Valencia. That time I slept in the entire way.
I had a few struggles getting from Valencia to Alicante. First, I read the wrong train schedule, so there was actually only three trains yesterday: one at 1 p.m., 7 p.m., and 9 p.m. My flight landed at 12:10 so I definitely wasn't going to wait until 7 p.m. to leave Valencia. Instead, I took the bus, which was actually pretty cheap, but getting lost finding the bus station put me behind about 2 hours. I finally arrived in Alicante around 6 p.m.
I was greeted by Jose and Jose, and they were very energetic and friendly! They brought me to my host mom's house, Senora Prudencia. First thing I did was give her a great big hug and tell her I was glad to make it! My host mom is great, she is older, lives by herself and is retired. She cooks and cleans and offered to do my laundry. Sometimes, I feel bad but that's the culture here. The directors explained that the host moms will feel like they're being a "bad mom" if they don't do those things for us. Many times, children don't move out of their parents house until their thirties here! It's very different.
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| Mi mamá |
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| Her "piso" or apartment (It's very cute!) |
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| My room. I don't share it but sometimes family visits she said. |
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| The famous Castillo de Santa Barbara, which I can see right outside her window! |
After the long trip yesterday, I decided to unpack and take it easy. Today, my second day here, I met up with the other CMU students and had orientation. We all took a tour of the university and,WOW, is it beautiful. We stopped at the cafe and had drinks, then we set up Wifi (very important) on our laptops. I just ate lunch, which is their main meal, and now I'm relaxing and cooling down (the sun is muy fuerte) and getting ready for dinner with the group again, and am going to buy a SIM card so I can use my phone again!
Pictures of La Universidad de Alicante (it's even more beautiful in person!):
