Arriving to Sevilla and El Primer Día

Spanish instructions first

Mackenzie, Caroline, and I left for Sevilla Wednesday morning (May 11).  Mom, dad, and Brandon brought me to the airport and mom took plenty of pictures to document it (including a picture of the weight of my bag).  We had no problems flying from RDU to Miami but when we got to Miami had a little bit of trouble finding the right terminal.  When we got to the terminal it seemed like everyone there was spanish. We learned this was true when the boarding instructions were also in spanish.  It was hectic!  As we walked toward the plane there was a line of about fifteen policemen and even a dog which was kind of scary.  On the plane, the attendants always spoke spanish first and even the spanish writing came first.  Luckily, they played "No Strings Attached" in english.  The food was good and although I did not sleep at all it went by very quickly.

Madrid Airport

When we arrived in Madrid we had no clue where to go since there was no board of flight gates so we had to kind of guess and luckily we figured it out.  The customs guy was a jerk and ignored me when I said hello and a muttering security guy made me feel like an idiot until Mackenzie finally told me he was telling me to pick up my backpack.  There was no free internet in the airport but we managed to find a computer with some time left on it and sent some emails home.  When we finally saw a board with flights on it ours did not have a gate so we had to hang out in the McDonald's until we could figure out where our gate was.

Once on the flight it was really fast and we finally got to Sevilla.  We went to get our luggage and waited until the carousel stopped and a guard said "nunca más" to us and about 15 other people.  We find out at the desk that our bags were left in Miami and won't be there until the same flight the next day.  This was upsetting but there was nothing we could do about it so we got a taxi to the hotel we were supposed to check-in at.  We checked in and decided to search for clothes to wear and cell phones to use.  The city was beautiful and we found clothes at Zara and H&M.  We figured out how to get a pay-as-you-go phone and the details about it all in spanish with a guy who did not speak any english.

Sangria in our new clothes

 When we got back to the hotel Caroline and Mackenzie napped and I finally connected to the internet to skype mom, Brandon, and Emily.  The rooms were pretty cool because you had to use your room key to make the lights work so that way you couldn't leave the lights on.  I met my roommate Sara who is awesome and we chatted for awhile.  Then we had a group meeting and dinner which wasn't anything too special.  We got our house assignments that say we are living close to the school with a couple.  It also said the woman is a costume designer.  We then went to a Mexican-themed place a few doors down from the hotel and chatted outside over sangria which was awesome!  I then went to sleep since I hadn't slept since 8:00am on wednesday Raleigh time.