Minneapolis Airport
My family in the states: saying goodbye
Mi familia aquí en el aeropuerto
At the Madrid airport, Alisa´s family helped get me to my terminal (where 8 of us fit into a 7 person sized car.) They were more than helpful and I know Alisa will be so happy with them! My flights consisted of 3 hours from Minneapolis to Charlotte, NC {6 hour layover,} then 8 hours from Charlotte to Madrid {3 hour layover,} and 1.5 hours from Madrid to A Coruña where my family (pictured above) met me! My host dad works in Madrid so he was there to pick me up, but for the most part, I will only see him every few weekends. The flights were long and falling asleep was hard so when I slept last night, I slept for 10 hours with a 4 hour nap yesterday afternoon/evening. Everything is unpacked and all is good! So far, I have Skyped my family twice: once to say I made it and second to inform them what I have done on my first day so far. What have I done? Well:
Soccer tournament for elementary aged kids
IT´S A TRAIL!! LIKE AT HOME!! I CAN GO RUNNING!!
Plaza/main road where shops and restaurants are
See all my photos at my blog - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ashlynkriegel/
Yago, Eloisa, and I biked around town and they showed my about half of it (I have yet to visit the beach part of town.) We also met a man with a 2 week old German Shepard puppy, ¡Qué lindo! And my Spanish you may ask? Well... It´s awful. I speak very slowly and I need to think a lot, so school did minimal help for me there. Not to mention everything with a C,S, or Z is pronounced "th." Like Cedeira (my town) is called Thedeira or sí is said thí. This makes understanding them very difficult and I maybe catch every third or fourth word they say. Their Gallego? Mixed into their Spanish so you can´t even tell they are speaking another language. Mostly just words or phrases in Gallego. However, my host family also speaks French because they lived in Brussels for a little while, so if I want to learn that, I have that option! And one of the best parts: siesta time exists. Now I have a perfectly good excuse to take a long nap every day. SCORE!
But it has been hard too. Although I have not been here for 24 hours yet, I am missing my family and people who completely understand me. It´s a little hard to go from a life where you know the majority of people around you well, to a place where you know no one and the ability to communicate is hindered by language differences. But hey, it´s the first full day here, things can only go up in my ability to understand and speak and how well I get to know my family!
Not to mention the best part: God is so incredibly good. I feel better going through my devotionals and praying and such, BUT! My family is Christian (they explicitly told me that and then asked if I was) and from what I understand, I believe there is a church nearby where we go/I can go. This is so incredibly rare in Europe to find Christians, let alone ones who have a church to call home. God is amazing.
~Ashlyn
No comments:
Post a Comment