¡Hemos llegado!

FINALLY, I can say that I'm in Salamanca!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a miserable few days of traveling, and I was incredibly stressed out, but I'm glad that Molly and I made it in one piece and are finally here!!! It feels so surreal, and I can't wait to et out and explore (which will begin this afternoon and evening). I'm sorry I don't have any pictures to share yet- I know, you must be surprised!- but I'll make sure to put some up the next time I post! Anyway, let's go through the last few days of traveling, shall we?

Our flight left Atlanta at 6:30 on Thursday evening, and the two of us were already anxious and just ready to reach our final destination. I had been selected upon checkin for a random search (of course), and the man at the desk told me to make sure that my boarding pass was stamped when I went through security. Well, I went through security and showed the guy manning the metal detector my boarding pass, but he didn't say anything and just waved me on. So once I had gotten my luggage, I asked one of the other TSA workers what I needed to do. He took my boarding pass, and told me that he was glad that I had said something, because I would have been forced to go all the way back to security if I presented them with an unstamped boarding pass at the gate. It was a quick check and not a big deal, but something he said bothered me: he was explaining why they had failed to catch my boarding pass when I initially went through security, and said that they had already worked for 12 hours that day and were tired. Of course, I was sorry that he was tired on the job, but TSA needs to make sure that doesn't happen, because, if I can get through with a boarding pass marked with red Xs, what else is getting through security?

Finally, we were on our flight to London, and, despite all of my best efforts, I didn't sleep a wink. Molly, by now used to being so tired (from all of her all-nighters) that she can essentially fall asleep anywhere, was conked out, but I just wasn't tired enough to fall asleep. So when we arrived in London, I was still feeling okay, but knew I would be feeling it in no time, especially since we had a 7-hour layover before our flight to Madrid. We sat, for almost all of the 7 hours, and used our computers, and let me tell you, seven hours have never moved so slowly.

At one point during our flight to London, I had started to get a little worried about the last legs of our journey, the one from Madrid to Salamanca. We had chosen to take the bus rather than the train, at the suggestion of my friend Tim, who went to Salamanca last year. But neither of us had been able to contact our families- Molly's didn't have an email address, and I had emailed mine twice but didn't receive any response. So I was starting to think that, rather than wander around in the middle of the night looking for our apartments without knowing whether anyone would be home- and phoneless, I might add- maybe it would be a better idea to stay in a hotel. Not wanting to show up unannounced at a random hotel at 11pm and hope that they had a room available, I searched for hostels and hotels, both in Madrid and Salamanca. The search in Madrid was entirely fruitless, and only one option looked promising in Salamanca. And while it was 50 euros each for one night, I thought that was a small price to pay for feeling safe.

However, literally the second after I booked the hotel, our program coordinator, Celia, emailed me and told me that she was going to book us a hotel for that night (which Georgetown would pay for). I was PISSED, because I had literally just booked a 100-euro hotel room and had no phone to call and cancel. So I sent Celia another email and told her we had already booked a hotel, so the problem was solved. She said that she would contact our families and tell them that we would be coming today. Okay, first problem solved. Yes, first, meaning that we had another potential roadblock in the way. Celia also asked in her email if she wanted her to buy our bus tickets, because a lot of students go to Salamanca on Friday nights for the night or for the weekend. Great, I was thinking, now we'll be stuck in the sketchy bus station all night and won't be able to leave because all of the buses will be full. Luckily, though, we got there and were able to buy tickets with no problem for an 8 o'clock bus. We had a little bit of trouble finding our particular bus, because there were several buses going to Salamanca, and we needed the first one. They were all labeled, but the drivers kept changing them. But eventually, we found our bus. The ride was painfully long; the person in front of me had reclined their seat so that I had very little room, and my feet were in agony after having worn my riding boots for nearly 24 hours. The 2 1/2-hour ride CRAWLED. When we arrived at the station, we caught a cab and drove to our hotel, and I was wondering, for entire ride, if the desk would still be open. I had no idea what we would do if reception was closed, so, luckily for us, it wasn't. We each took much-needed showers and brushed our teeth, and, since we didn't have to check out until noon, we got a chance to catch up on a little bit of sleep.

This morning, feeling slightly more rested, we took a cab to our apartments. Luckily, Molly lives about a half-block away from me!!!! I'm so excited! Anyway, I got to my building and buzzed up to my apartment, only to find that no one was home. An old man held the door for me so that I could get into the building, and I went up to my apartment, ringing the bell and getting no answer. So I sat in the hall and futzed around on my computer until my very apologetic host mom showed up about 10 minutes later. Apparently her elderly mother was at home, but is hard of hearing, so didn't hear the bell ring. My host mom seems really nice, and I got to meet my host sister briefly, who also seems nice, so I'll give you more details when I have them. Right now, I'm going out exploring with Molly, so you'll find out more about Salamanca soon!

Sending you my love,
Kristen