I Made It!

Hello friends and family. First, a little about this blog. I'm hoping to keep y'all updated on the cool stuff I am doing while I am abroad. The name of my blog "Haz todo" means "Do all," and it's used in the Spanish command form. This is sort of my phrase for this semester...to remember to push myself to do things I normally wouldn't, try new things (so far everything is new), etc. You catch my drift. I made it through all of the airports with ease and got to my apartment fairly easily, even though I had 3 massive suitcases and several carry-ons. Two of my roommates, Adam and Ivan, were home when I arrived and carried my bags up the three flights of stairs to our apartment. They cooked me dinner and really made me feel welcome. Adam is from Poland, and is here in law school. Ivan (pronounced E-van) is from Bulgaria and is a graduate student studying engineering. Ivan speaks English with me a little bit but Adam does not, although they both know English if I am really in a pickle (so far that hasn't happened yet). The first night here I walked around the city with Ivan and he pointed out the big landmarks, government buildings (Pamplona is the capitol of Navarra, a Spanish state), and monuments. There's a lot of history in this city and I love every piece of information I can get. I wasn't expecting it to be so beautiful, because every picture in google showed only the running of the bulls (the festival in the summer, called San Fermines). Pamplona has so much more going on here than just that. The setting is picturesque, nestled in a valley surrounded by the Pyrenees Mountains. It is fairly cold, and currently it is snowing. Last night all of the students ran out of the bar and played in the snow together. Last night there was a welcome party for all the Erasmus students. Erasmus is the European exchange student program, but we American students call ourselves Erasmus because we don't have anything else to call ourselves. There are several Americans here, two boys from Tennessee (though neither of them is a typical Southern boy), a boy from Little Rock (though originally from Clarksdale, MS), a girl from Memphis, a girl from North Carolina, a girl from Montana, and a girl from New York. We try to speak mostly Spanish with each other, but sometimes it is nice to have them around to speak English with to give my brain a break from constantly thinking. My mind has been working in overdrive, not just trying to speak, but also trying to comprehend everything-conversations with my roommates, peoples' conversations on the street, or directions on a map. But so far I am doing pretty well with speaking, although there are a lot of basic words I need to learn. For instance, my first day I was eating and wanted a paper towel. I don't know the word for that so I tried to describe what I wanted. Ivan brought me a roll of toilet paper! I was confused, as was he. But it turns out they don't use napkins here and use toilet paper for more things than we do at home. The welcome party was a lot of fun, and Ivan was the DJ. The common drink here is Calimocho, which is a mixture of red wine with Coca Cola. It sounds gross but is actually pretty tasty. I have met a ton of students from a lot of different places-France, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy and Germany to name a few. Hearing their Spanish is interesting because we all such different accents. Yesterday I had orientation at school. My apartment is located between the school and center of the town, about 20 minutes walking from school and 15 minutes walking from the center of town. It's in a very nice location. The school is modern (only 25 years old) and has big screen TVs and computers everywhere. I start class on Monday, and the instruction will be totally in Spanish. A little intimidating to say the least, but I think I will be okay (let's hope!). Today I am going to buy a phone and a hairdryer-two essentials at this point. There is another party tonight (the weekends are non-stop, apparently) for all the Erasmus students. It is nice that there are Erasmus parties because it kind of gives you a group of friends right when you get here, because we're all in the same boat. I'm off to do some more unpacking. I will post pics soon of the city, my piso (apartment), and the parties. Love to all.