BYU Madrid Study Abroad Winter 2011: First Post- The post that hurts the most

Howdy,
This is the beginning of the wonderful blog that will help digitize the wonderful experiences that we are having here in Spain.

To quickly sum up the past couple of days. We all arrived on time and had relatively few problems along the way. We were then driven to the small park where we would all meet our host families. After discovering who would be housing us for the next 3 months we exchanged hugs with our new mothers and they led us to where we would be staying. The next day we had free before school started. Some of us stayed and slept, while others went exploring in our little town. Feeling confident and adventurous , I led a small group of us on a train ride to Madrid. After getting on and listening to the others lack of confidence in my ability to get on the right train, we asked someone if we were going the right way. He just laughed. It turns out I had gotten us on the train that was going in the opposite direction of Madrid. Live and learn.

Today, Wednesday the 12th was our first day of class. Many of us took a placement test in order to see our level of Spanish that we have. The teachers seemed friendly, nice and patient with us. We then went on a quick tour of the University. There we learned about the deep history the school has and even got to take a few cool pictures along the way.

This is where the King, Queen, President of Spain, the mayor of Alcalas, the recipient of a really exciting award, and another important person usually sit, but we were probably the most noble people to have ever sat on these chairs.