We arrived in Malaga in the evening, I think, met at the church where we were to have our classes, besides the fact that it was the church we would be attending for the time we were in Spain. Our host families came to "adopt" us for our 5 1/2 week stay, and took us to their homes and just basically crashed in our beds to recover any jet lag.
Thursday, January 7th:
My roommate/housemate and I woke up to a nice American breakfast of egg omelet, toast and COFFEE. :) We then went back to the church where we had met all of the host families the previous day as they came to pick us up to our respective homes. Thursdays at the church are the prayer meetings/Bible studies led by the pastor. It was an unusual meeting this Thursday because they were expecting all of the students and anxiously waiting for introductions led by the pastor who spoke very fluent English. Later that day, after our first class(s) held at the church, we had lunch with our hosts Alan and Noemi (Danielle and I miss you both very much!) we had a little shopping excursion to Lidl (which is basically ALDI's competition) to get some much needed groceries to cook for us very hungry chicas. After this shopping, we went home and had the house to ourselves while A/N went out for the evening.
Friday, January 8th:
Today had a first experience for me. The class got to taste Roscon de Reyes cake for Three Kings Day.
This cake is a tradition in Spain around Christmas.
After class, we went home and had lunch, and then strolled along the beach for a little bit.
This is a picture of me with the Mediterranean Sea behind me. I waded my feet but I didn't get a picture, I just got a picture of my feet in the sand...
Later that evening, A/N took us back to church where they went to their choir practice and Danielle and I tried to participate when we could.
Saturday, January 9th:
This is one of my favorite days of the whole time we were here in Spain. We went to Malaga with the other students and met Rebeca (my "twin"), Hermes, Mirian, and a few others I can't remember at the moment. We just traveled around by foot for the whole day basically and took the bus to go back. Many points of interest visited during our "tour around Malaga" were:
Santa Iglesia Cathedral Basilica de la Encarnacion
Harbor/Marina
Oh, and we didn't ride this but apparently this thing is a big attraction in Malaga:
I also got to experience the famed "tapas culture" that is associated with Spain, specifically places around the coast. It was quite interesting, I liked most of it, although I still can't say I'm much of a fish lover, except for most fish filets.
(Photo: Danielle Baugher)
I also got ice cream at a place called Heladeria and it was quite delicious.
Nothing else particularly stands out from this day, besides the fun adventures we had out and about with a fun group of people.
Sunday, January 10th:
On this day, we had Hermes and Mirian over at the house and had burgers. Danielle and I were initiated (well, sort of) into the Spanish culture of drink shots after lunch. I didn't try it, but Danielle did. I think she might have regretted it...Hermes, Mirian, Alan and Noemi all told their life stories and it was super cool and a big bonding time. It was one of my favorite days of the whole Spain trip.
Random memory: "Holaholaholaholaholaholaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" LOL!!!
After we chatted, we walked around the area and took some pictures.
Monday, January 11th:
On this day, Danielle and I experienced public transportation in Spain for the first time via bus.
It was really pretty simple but we didn't use the bus very much for the time we were in Spain. Something memorable from this day was after class, Noemi and I walked along the beach, aka "la playa", while Kait and Danielle ran..Another memorable moment today was when I went to the deli inside of the mall. I don't remember what it was called but it was the first time I ordered something in Spanish and it was a chicken curry empanada and a coffee. Both were delicious.
Tuesday, January 12th:
Danielle and took today to study Spanish together in the neighborhood. It was a super fun day but definitely exhausting. For one of the meals, we had Spanish tortilla:
Spanish tortilla
which is made of potatoes and egg. It's super good. We also had a spinach and garbanzo dish:
Spinach garbanzo dish
Today Danielle and I had our first Spanish conversations at one of the host family's house. One of the parts of the Language and Culture of Spain is to practice Spanish with people who speak Spanish fluently but who can communicate in English enough to have dialogue back and forth. These were called Spanish informants. Danielle's and mine happened to be our host parent. Here's a picture of me, Kaitlyn, Noemi (our Spanish informant), and Danielle
(Photo: Danielle Baugher's camera)
