¡Por Fin Llegue!

I'm in Sevilla right now, but it was a journey. Bags all packed and ready to go, I headed to the RDU airport for a bittersweet farewell with my mom and sister. I arrived at the gate with plenty of time to spare; no, I mean I really had time to spare. The flight, initially supposed to leave at 2:25, didn't board until 3:00 and was grounded because of weather conditions at JFK, our destination, eventually taking off at about 5:00, which caused the student in front of me and the Asian couple next to me to miss their 5:10 connection to Rome. At least I wasn't in that position, right? I got to JFK about 15 minutes before boarding started, but this flight would be delayed as well. We boarded on time (7:10 departure), but the flight would not take off for another two hours. I passed the time reading and chatting with a madrileño couple sitting next to me. They had been on vacation in New York and Washington DC. We would commiserate about the flight throughout.

I can never sleep on planes, and this was no exception. 42 and Trouble With the Curve, two recent baseball movies, played at the beginning and end of the flight, but I could enjoy neither fully because of the lack of a headphone jack in my armrest. The resident infants on the flight were mercifully quiet, but my inability to stretch out foiled my attempts at sleeping. We eventually reached Madrid, and after getting my passport stamped, I went on a roundabout journey, passing through security to end up pretty much where I got off. Frustrating, huh? Anyway, it turned out that my flight to Sevilla was full of fellow CIEE students. We exchanged program and university information and half-joked about our Spanish-speaking abilities ("I'm going to be doing a lot of pointing, etc."). It was an island of English in our soon-to-be Spanish ocean.

Following the flight's arrival (mercifully on time and without complications), we headed to our meetup with CIEE staff, meeting our guides and discussing our various journeys. Next stop, homestay. Paula Garcia-Fernández is my host mother, and I'll be sharing the apartment with her son Pedro, 20, and their little cat Lola. Chicken, fried eggs and melón is not a bad almuerzo, no? I have an orientation meetup later tonight, where we'll be welcomed to Sevilla. I think I'm running on adrenaline right now, having only a few hours of half-sleep in the last 24 hours or so, but I feel fine. I'll try to get some pictures up in the next post. For now, ciao.