...and so it begins!

So I've tried to do the journal thing... and in theory I find it to be a much more romanticized way of keeping track of my travels and stories while abroad...but in all honesty my handwriting isn't too great and I usually just end up using the computer to keep in touch with people anyway, so I figured I might as well just keep it all in one spot!

...and so it begins

David and I left BWI on January 3rd with ridiculous amounts of luggage in tow and tear-stained faces...well that was kind of more on my part...david and papa mcmichael had a more "manly" goodbye than yours truly. After Joe's hug goodbye, Owen's sweet gift, my dad's letter, and my mom's call...I was pretty much a crying, but smiling mess. Before boarding the plane we said some quick goodbyes to Rach and Lauren and chatted nervously with our new group of amigos!

After boarding the plane, we realized that we had business class seats...um ballin! Our seats came fully equipped with foot rests and reclining capabilites...not to mention a pillow and blanket combo, headphones for our TVS!!!...beauty sleep masks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and a tv remote that tripled as a video game controller and phone!...for some this probably wouldn't be that exciting, but I can't say I'm much of a jet setter so it got me pretty stoked...I mean it's the little things in life that I get the biggest kick out of ya know? Anyway we used British Air so all the flight attendants had amazing accents and I couldn't help but whisper under my breath "you sound like you're from London!!"...sorry if the Forgetting Sarah Marshall reference is lost on anyone. We had great meals on the plane...well at least compared to the peanuts and crappy orange juice I'm used to... and we both got freakishly small bottles of wine just for the hell of it. The white wine was called Bel Air, so David and I had a freakout session and a cheers to Art Scholars and Spain!

The flight was about 7 hours long and I watched Frasier and Flight of the Conchords...but I couldn't get to sleep. We arrived in London and proceeded to spazz out because the airport was so huge that you had to take buses bettween gates and terminals and we technically only had a half an hour to get our boarding passes and take the bus over to where the plane was boarding! Lucky for us our flight was delayed so we had some wiggle room and were able to find our way around the labyrinth that is Heathrow. After a 2 hour flight to Spain, where we learned from El Pais (a spanish newspaper) that the airline we were currently using had cancelled all of the flights the DAY BEFORE due to a strike...ha damn are we lucky!...we waited around in the Madrid airport for about 4 hours for everyone to arrive and for the bus to come. My favorite part was when our Spanish Resident Director tried to engage us all in a discussion of culture and history of Spain after most of us hadn't slept in over 24 hours and couldn't understand his droning mumble of a voice.

We finally caught the bus back to RESA (our international dorms). Funny story...our rooms weren't ready! So needless to say, we were all starving at this point and slightly cranky. The woman at the front desk told us that she would get our rooms ready for us and would keep an eye on our stuff if we wanted to go grab a bite. We were all pretty excited!...but wait there was a catch! The only place to eat...drumroll please...the hospital! ??? yea. pretty weird. So we strolled over to the hospital to stuff our faces with crappy sandwiches...loverly! When we came back, she had gotten all of our rooms ready so we went our separate ways and crashed...finally!