My Spanish Experience has officially begun. The past couple of days I've been terribly busy with orientation, meeting my family, touring the city and the university, and going to the beach a little bit of course! The first couple of days were spent meeting everyone and touring the city. Since I'm in the advanced Spanish class, I had my tour in Espanol…. It was muy interesante but I didn't really understand everything. But from what I got and the pictures I have to go with it, the moors used to rule Alicante but after the Romans came and conquered Spain they destroyed all of the mosques and built huge beautiful churches on top of them. I hope to attend mass at one of these churches to see the inside and kinda see what a Spanish mass is more than to expect to get anything out of it….the first few encounters of me being told I had good Spanish was quickly shot down…. More on that later.

One of the most interesting stories of Alicante which a couple friends and I tried to put together after the guide told us…actually mostly a friend told me what she said. If you space out for just a minute when people are speaking Spanish to you, you are lost for good. That could be a problem for me when the landscape is sooo beautiful around me…or I'm thinking about the beach…. Lol Anyway the story of the name Alicante came from a Moorish king with a beautiful daughter Ali who of course had many guys after her and of course they had to do some sort of impossible task to win her hand. One built a giant well in the middle of the desert to collect water and she fell in love with him and the other traveled to the very very dangerous and dirty lands of India….and for some reason the king thought that he won bc he survived. So then the other lover dramatically killed himself and so did the princess Ali. After that the king Cante died of grief of course. After he died a picture of his profile appeared in the mountain of Alicante. Which I will probly buy a postcard of sometime.

Anyway finally, I met my family. They are an older couple of 61 and 65 years old. They have a son who is 27 and is a cop in a neighboring town but lives in Alicante. And as soon as I got there he pulled out my map and showed me which places were dangerous and planed a route for my run. (yes mother your prays were answered…you may now start sleeping until 3:30) I have my own room with my own bathroom…better than the dorms! My Spanish is slowly getting better and I'm managing to communicate. My padre is a little hard to talk to and understand and then I thought about grandpa Knake and wondered what he would do with a Spanish foreign exchange student. Haha They have had 11 other students so they really know what do to do help me out. I'm getting fed very well and they like the chocolates and pictures of Iowa and my family that I brought.Also I told her about me being a cook and what I cooked and tonight for dinner we had fried eggs and potatoes…they were really good but I hope she keeps cooking me Spanish food. She did make me paella and that was good but she put beef in it bc I said I ate a lot of beef… the beef her wasn't terrible but I still don't think that I'll eat a hamburger.

Today, we went to the University and had our entrance exams. That is what made me really reconsider being in this program… but everyone else thought they were really hard so they might not kick me out. But I'm a little worried about starting class tomorrow. The campus is beautiful tho!Then afterwards I came home for lunch around 2:30 and we dicussed politics in Spain and the U.S. This was actually won of the best conversations I understood…I guess dinero es dinero in any language. We talked about Obama and the Spanish President being really good friends because they are the same person but my hermano mayor didn't like him because he was only worried about giving money away to the poor. There needs to be a balance he said. It was a very interesting conversation. One that maybe we can repeat when my Spanish continues to improve.

After that I went to the playa for some sun for a little bit and then on the run that was mapped out for me. It was absolutely positively gorgeous! I ran to the top of a mountain … well kinda… and then down along the sea. It was the first run I considered repeating and doing twice. But then I didn't know if I would be done before dark so I didn't….yes mother my communication skills may be like that of a 2 years old but I still think like a 30 year old thanks to you…. ;) And after dinner I'm not writing this next blog. I don't have very good internet in the house. Only the weak signal that I'm stealing from the neighbor so skype probly won't work unless I go somewhere. I'll try to finda time to use skype once a week but I have so many activities planned already… maybe that will be for the next blog after they are finalized…. Until then and to find out how my first day of classes go….

Hasta luego mis amores! xoxo