Caceres!

After my billion train rides from Italy to Geneva, I went by plane to Madrid. I was exhausted, after not sleeping, switching trains, and waiting at the Geneva airport for 3 hours. The flight was good, and Bekah (my friend from high school who is now an exchange student in Madrid) was there to meet me.

We took two metros and a bus to her house outside of Madrid. Her family was very nice, but it was really hard to switch from Italian to Spanish so fast, I kept getting words messed up. I slept there, and the next morning we woke up, got ready, and went back to the Madrid airport.

There we met the other Iowa State students who had just arrived from the U.S. We fetched my suitcase from the locker at the airport (it was actually quite cheap, only 23 euros) and waited with my group for our program director, Toni.

Toni arrived around noon, and we all went on a bus to Caceres. The bus ride was about 5 hours, and we stopped to have something to eat on the way. Everyone slept a lot on the bus, but I was already used to the time change and was full of energy after an actual full night's sleep, so I was bouncing off the walls.

We arrived in Caceres around 6ish and our families met us. I am rooming with Steph, who I already knew from ISU. There are about 20 or so of us students, and most of the host families are older retired couples or widows who take in students for the semester. Steph and I have the best family though. Our "parents" are actually two women in their 30's who never got married and share an apartment. I have been calling it the Spain Sorority House, because it's 4 of us girls.

Our parents (Lorena and Esther) drove us to our home. We live on the 5th floor of a flat. The location is really good, we're only a couple minutes from a mall and a 10 mintue walk from the center where we meet the rest of the group and also where we'll take the bus to the campus.

The apartment is tiny! Steph and I share a room. There are two single beds, a dresser, and shevles. We really have to cordinate getting ready, because it's hard to move around in the room. We have our own bathroom though, which is nice.

The next morning, we were supposed to meet the group for a tour of the city at 10:30am. Both Lorena and Esther had to leave before then, so we were on our own to get ready and have breakfast. That was probably not a good idea...

Ok so, I had already used my converter in Italy, so I knew it worked. However, when I used it, it was only for my straightner, computer, or ipod. I had yet to try my hair dryer. I plugged my hair dryer into the converter, then plugged the converter into the wall. It sparked, then my hair dryer went up in smoke. I started to panic.

Steph was blow drying her hair in the room too, and her hair dryer stopped working as well. I quickly unplugged the appliance, and started waving it around to get rid of all the smoke. We then realized that the lights had gone off in our room as well. That meant I had blown the fuse in our room. More panic...

Steph and I started running around the house, trying all the lights and lamps and appliances. NOTHING WORKED. I had blown the fuse to the ENTIRE APARTMENT. That's when I reeeally panicked. We slowly realized that the heat wouldn't work, becuase the heaters were all plugged in. The refridgerator wouldn't work, and all the food would spoil. The lights wouldn't work, and we would have to come home in the dark. And probably most importantly, we couldn't do our hair!!!

I calmed down enough to figure that I should probably call our parents. I used my Spanish-English dictionary to look up the words for "fuse" and "blow up" and went to the phone. I was nervous, I didn't know what it would take to fix it, how long, or if our moms would be mad. But the nervousness quickly changed back to panic when I realized that the phone was plugged into the wall as well, therefore no good with no electricity.

Ok plan B. By then, we were going to be late to meet the group, so we booked it to the center. We both had UGLY hair, and I was practically in tears. When we got there, I asked Toni to call our mom on her cell phone and explain what happened. She did, and our moms said it was all right, no problem, it could be fixed, they aren't mad, but did we have breakfast?

With those worries off my mind, I was able to enjoy the first day with the group. We took a tour of the entire city. We saw the post office, hospital, public library. Caceres is divided into two, the old part and the new. We live in the new. It's modern looking, with tall buildings and round-abouts, and palm trees. The old part is cobblestone and has lots and lots of stairs. Pretty cathedrals, statues, and fountains. I adore this city.

We went back to our homes at 2 for lunch. Lorena and Esther don't get home til 4, so they prepare our food in the morning and leave it for us to warm up and eat whenever we get home. They eat sooo much! We had soup and salmon lasagna, with bread and fruit for dessert. I can't finish all the meal, which makes our moms think something is wrong with me. When I say I'm full, they firmly say "No. Eat." :-/

We took a siesta, which was amazing, and met the group again to go to the mall. We had dinner at 9:30pm, which is hard to get used to. Again, lots of food. We went to bed, because we had to meet the group at 11 today.