Week 1 by Lisa Filiczkowski

I arrived on Thursday to Madrid two days before the start of the program. I was the first to arrive knowing very, very little Spanish this soon became a challenge. After about 2 hours of being bounced around in the airport I finally made it to my destination. Uhostel in Madrid Spain which I highly recommend if you’re up to drop 55 euros for 2 nights. On the brighter side I was glad that I had booked my other rooms earlier because finding rooms and flights was getting to be a challenge. Explored on my own and meet some wonderful new people in the Hostel as well as lifelong acquaintances. On Saturday I made my journey back to the airport in Madrid, incidentally cab rides are a flat rate of 30 Euros to and from the airport. I was waiting across the restaurant for over an hour before moving to the center to have someone find me, to show me where the group was gathered waiting on the bus. The ride to Caceres was long to say the least and the amount of luggage we all brought ….well it took up the back of the bus as well as the storage part! We all quickly realized that maybe some over packed. Me I don’t see how as we are in week 2 and my shampoo and conditioner are almost gone! The host families are amazing! I absolutely loved mine! My host mother’s name is Pilar and her husband’s name is Juan. They have two children Pilar and Jamie. At first meeting your host families could be intimidating and scary but once you start to attempt to communicate with them you soon will enjoy the reason why you are there and that is to learn Spanish! My suggestions at this point would be how to learn the basic responses and questions such as work, family , school, and do you do on the weekends, how to use the shower or washer. Thigs that you like to eat as well as the items you do not. Learn as much as you can on your own because you may just end up meeting the whole entire family like I did on the first day! To me it was great because I got to meet the aunts, uncles and cousins to which I found out was intimidated by me because they said there English was bad so they felt better to not attempt to communicate. I laughed because I had felt that way too about my Spanish but I felt I needed to yolo because this may never come again.