February 8th Friday

My alarm was set for 4:00am. I ended up waking up in the night worrying about oversleeping. We got up at 4 and I took a very fast shower. I finished packing the essentials and ate some cereal for breakfast. I also made a peanut butter sandwich for later since it would be a long day.

The airport we were flying out of is in Beauvais. We had to get to a bus stop and take a bus to the airport. We had called for a taxi with TaxiBleu the night before. We went down and he was waiting for us. He drove us to the bus stop. It ended up being really expensive! I guess he had been waiting for a while downstairs. We thought they’d call when they got to our place. Our trip ended up being €20. Yeah, ridiculous.

We made it to the bus stop and bought round trip tickets. The bus tickets turned out to be about €26. We put our luggage in the luggage compartment and climbed on up. We were lucky enough to find two seats together. We were exhausted and I was hoping on catching some sleep on the bus ride. Then the girl in front of me leaned her seat back. I was completely squished. I had heard her talking to her friend and thought “Stupid American girl.” I’ve been in France too long. Needless to say, I wasn’t able to sleep much.

The bus ride is over an hour long. It was still very dark. On the way we passed 2 Carrefours. They’re kind of like the Wal-Marts of France. I’ve been trying to find one. We also passed not one, but two Buffalo Grills. I was really surprised. I didn’t know those would exist here.

We made it to the airport where we ended up having to check in at the counter because they don’t let non EU citizens check in online. We also had to pay the check in fee.

We had made it to the airport with plenty of time. We even stopped in the little airport café to get Adrienne some breakfast. I also ended up ordering hot chocolate and a croissant. I was a French snob again and turned my nose up at the croissant.

We ended up waiting quite a while. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 8:20am. It wasn’t until that time that we started boarding. Ryanair has open seating so we just went on and picked whatever seat we found. Unless they’re on exit rows, all of them are a tight fit. Blast these long legs of mine!

I snoozed for a little but was unable to get much real sleep on the plane. I was glad when we finally landed at 10:30am. We were now in Madrid, Spain! We excitedly but exhaustedly made our way through the airport (without hitting any kind of passport control) toward the metro. I got to break out my rusty Spanish and ask a lady where we needed to go. I received an answer that made me blink and nod. I went in the direction she pointed and found the signs.

We took the metro line 8, to line 10, and finally line 1. We got to our metro stop thanks to Karuna’s directions. We emerged from the metro and I was able to use Spanish once again in asking where the street Reina Cristina was. We got our direction and started walking slowly toward Karuna’s apartment. We were an hour earlier than the time she said she’d meet us at her place.

Then, as I was taking a picture of the city, we saw Karuna coming down the street! She had overslept and was now on her way to class to give a presentation. We had the option of taking her keys to go back to the apartment or following her to class. We chose the latter. We went back into the metro station which connected with the train station. Karuna is in the same program in the Spain site and the university, Universidad Carlos III, is a little outside of the city. We got onto a train and took it for about 15 minutes. We also had to walk quite a bit to the actual classroom. Finally we arrived at 12:15. Thankfully, they were standing around talking. Some people were leaving because class was scheduled to end and they needed to go. Others were staying to hear more presentations. I was glad we came because we got to see the other people in our program. They are Adrianne, Patrick, and Rachel.

We watched a student presentation about federalism in Spanish. I was glad that I was able to understand everything. Karuna’s presentation was put off until the next week. After the class we went and sat in the cafeteria. I bought a ham and cheese sandwich and water. I encountered my first weird vocabulary word. I’d learned “jugo” for juice. In Spain it’s “zumo.” Also, on the train I’d seen signs saying that “pisos” were for sale. I was wondering why they’d be advertising floors on apartment buildings before realizing that’s the word for apartment (not apartamento).

The water and sandwich felt really good. Unfortunately I also had some severe stomach pain which was a continuance of what I had in France. I was getting random stomach cramps. It didn’t help that I was running on three hours of sleep.

We walked and “trained” back to Karuna’s apartment. We were able to drop off our things there and meet her roommate. The roommate is named Maria and she doesn’t speak much English. This means I get to practice more Spanish but there’s a need for translation between Adrienne and Maria.

After meeting Maria it was definitely quiet time. Karuna pulled an extra mattress into her room. She let Adrienne and me nap for a few hours. At 6:00pm or so, I woke up feeling like a human being again.

We went to a couple of markets to get groceries for dinner. We bought chicken, eggs, and asparagus among other things. I also bought a toothbrush since I’d forgotten mine in Paris and some Spanish chocolate con leche. We made our way back and started making dinner.

Karuna put some asparagus in a pot to boil while she prepared some chicken. We’d had an egg broken in transit (since I’d checked it at the store and they were fine) so we used it in dinner. She beat the egg and used it to batter the chicken. We had chicken and asparagus accompanied by orange juice and followed by chocolate and chai.

Since we still had yet to see much of Madrid on our first day in, we went for a night walk. It was neat to see all the main streets at night. There were lots of fountains lit up. If one is in a safe place, I recommend always touring a city at night. They look so different from the daytime and it’s good to see the contrast. We made a big loop and came back. We also saw lots of statues either attached to buildings or standing free. I like the fact that random buildings have a giant angel on top of them. That’s something that I think is lacking in the US. Let’s see some more naked women on buildings in an artistic way.

We got back to the apartment. I was worried that I wouldn’t be tired at bedtime from my nap. I was quite wrong. We went to bed around 1:00am.