Hello! I've decided to keep a blog of my time in Spain - seems like a fun way to share pictures and stories from my research trip abroad. Today is my first day, and since it started Sunday morning and I haven't been to bed yet aside from some sleeping on the plane (I refuse to give in to jet lag!), it's been a REALLY long one. I'm at my host family's home in Madrid right now, and it feels really great to be done traveling and be connected again, via skype, facebook, gchat, and all that. Traveling across the globe, alone, without internet, is a very isolating experience, and its such a comfort to be back in touch with Casey and my family. I'm too tired at the moment to really recount all the events of this busy first day, but perhaps I'll list them and come back later with descriptions, and pictures!

- Leaving Casey - hardest thing I've ever done
- StL to Dallas

- Layover in Dallas Ft. Worth

- Dallas to Madrid

- Madrid Barajas airport arrival, baggage, customs

- Taxi to the Saint Louis University Madrid Campus

- Meeting up with Margarita Casado for a quick introduction to the school 

- Extended Campus tour and lots of introductions with a Jesuit professor whose name escapes me (it's only two buildings!)

- Meeting a few of the few graduate students in the English and Spanish departments (they seem nice - so glad to know I'll have some graduate peers)

- Taxi to my host family's residence

- Meeting Concha, my host mom, who made me some lunch

- Being left alone while she returned to work

- Decompressing, unpacking, getting cleaned up, relaxing

- Meeting the daughter, Elena (college aged) who hooked me up with internet before heading out again for the night.

- surfing the web, Skyping with family, chatting with Casey, starting my Spain blog

I'm exhausted. So far things have gone really smoothly and everyone's been super nice and welcoming. That doesn't mean it hasn't been hard though. There are parts of the day where I've been like "OMG What am I doing?! Why am I here?!" But I think that's me just being nervous...

When my host family gets home sometime soon we'll have some dinner, and then I'll probably go to bed. The fact that they expect we'll all have dinner when they return is the only thing keeping me from saying "9pm is late enough - I'm going to bed."