First Post: 02/11/09

Hey everybody, I made it successfully to Spain. I took a flight on Friday, Feb. 6^th from Charlotte airport to Newark, New Jersey, and then to Madrid. The flight to Newark was not bad, only about 2 hours. We had about an hour layover and then hopped on a much bigger, more luxurious plane for the 7.5 hour ride to Madrid. Each seat on the plane had it’s own TV screen, but mine didn’t work, so I slept a little and read a lot.

This is my friend Lauren from NC State. I've known her for about a year now. I signed up for this trip not expecting to know anyone else on it, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found out she was going too.

This was the first time that I had actually met and talked to the majority of my study abroad group. It went much better than I had expected, we all got along really well and found plenty to talk about. Everybody was equally excited about finally getting this trip started. I tried to learn everyone’s name, but with a group of 16 students I knew it would take me a while. I have to admit that I still don’t know quite everyone’s name.

For some reason the 3 hours of sleep that I got on the plane were enough to give me some surprising energy, or maybe it was just excitement that we had finally arrived in Europe. Either way, I got off the plane with everybody else ready to GO. We still had a bit of a trek to go from Madrid to Santander, a 5 hour bus ride to be exact, but I knew there would be plenty of things to see en route to the city to make it enjoyable.

The impression that I got from Madrid was interesting. There was so much graffiti. It seemed like every blank wall or solid fence was covered in graffiti. It was a mix of legitimate tags that people put a lot of thought into and just random phrases or names. I also saw the biggest lot of cars I have ever seen before, it must have been a huge dealership or maybe a factory? I don’t know.

I'll update this more later. I still don't have internet access at my house yet, so I'm using an internet cafe in the downtown area. Hopefully I'll get it fixed at my house soon though. Until then, here are some pictures of the surf that I'll be getting on in a few days now.....