Day 1

My host family has no internet, the plugs in Europe are different than the USA´s, and my laptop is dead, which all mixes together to me not posting on the day I arrived :P

As I got off the plane, disoriented from my flight, on that warm Madrid morning I felt like I was in a dream. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was just the jet lag kicking in, but there was this air of disbelief... that I was in Madrid! I met my host, Pilar, not too long after I arrived, and the rest of the family later on at night. I took a quick tour of the barrio (district) of Prosperidad, found the Metro and how to get to Estudio Sampere from there. After a nap (that flight was brutal :P) I woke to find the rest of the family: Pliar´s daughter Belen and her grandson Javier.

We then talked about her previous experiences with hosting, family she has here in Spain, the city of Madrid and the usual universal topics. Pilar told stories of how she had students from all over the US. I watched the soccer (I should be saying football) game with Javier and saw firsthand how strong the sport really is on the rest of the world. Javier broke out into song when they scored a goal: "¡Yo soy español, español!" (I am Spanish, Spanish!) We all had dinner at 9 and then I finished unpacking, making sure I had everything planned out for my first day of classes and slept.

I´ll keep this updated at least once a week, I´ll upload photos as soon as I get them, I'll get a flickr feed to upload them to and put up the link as soon as I can.

-Guillermo

The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great, that I thought I was in a dream -Jack Kerouac