I guess I feel like I'm starting this blog so that so I don't have to repeat myself to all the rest of my family, and I guess so I my mother will be able to ask me about things other than my everyday stuff when I actually get to talk her.
Well, here it goes.
We left Ames monday morning, January 25th, in a blizzard to get down to the airport. That was a blast. I wish I could have gotten pictures of the semi tractor in the ditch with its trailer blocking the whole of the interstate. But we made it to the airport.
Once there we discovered that my flight had been
changed due to weather cancellations. Originally we thought he said Liberia Air, which made me think, how in the world can Liberia afford an airline? but it was actually scheduled on Iberia airways, which nevertheless worried my mother as apparently Iberia loses luggage more often that others do, but in the end it didn't really matter as all my luggage did arrive.
After a teary goodbye (mother) I went up the escalator and started through the 5 minute walk through Des Moines security. All was more or less according to keikaku.
I flew from Des Moines to Chicago and after a short little flight I landed. There was some boarding pass nonsense that was originally initiated by the guy at the Des Moines airport who issued my ticket for Ohare. He said that when I got to Chicago I needed to go the International Terminal and then to Iberia's front desk to get my boarding pass. Whe
n I landed in Ohare I asked an employee where it was and I would have to leave security and take a tram to get there. I only had an hour, so that seemed out of the question. I then simply just started walking towards the front of Ohare and eventually found a nice old lady in an information desk and she informed me that I didn't
have to go the front desk and that the people at the terminal that I was leaving from would be able to get me my boarding pass as well. So, armed with that information I looked up my flight number, found my gate to be across the airport and walked quickly just in case I did still need to go to the international terminal. No problems there.
I did notice the large group of chatty people in the terminal, but chose to ignore them as they most likely from my program. There would be a time for introductions and I wasn't up to it quite yet. Too much stress and running around to be chatty. We boarded the plane and then proceeded to sit at the terminal for well over an hour as we waited for whatever possessed them to leave.
Takeoff finally came and we were airborne.
I listened to music, did a sudoku or two , watched 6 episodes of scrubs, tried to sleep, and ate this slightly nauseating meal. I scarfed it down and really just enjoyed the bread and butter more than anything else. Also, it's not cheesecake, it's flan. It was so disappointing. At least I still had my cookies and other postres.
So we finally arrived over spain. The flight attendants started handing out immigration forms or something and when I asked what they were for she asked if I had a passport so I said yes and she said I didn't need it and as she was walking away said something about how she just assumed that I was a US citizen. Which worried me because I didn't get a form to fill out. We landed and unloaded without incident. I sprinted off the plain to avoid chatting with people and made my way quickly down the awesome
treadmill things, the entire main terminal has a really long row of them so if you're walking fast you just fly, it was great. Eventually I had to slow down and figure out where I was supposed to go. I figured I would have to go through the passport security or something. So I started towards the large row of booths labeled something like 'passporte algo' so I went there handed them my passport, they stamped it, looked at my visa motioned me on my way. Security was disconcertingly easy.
I then found my way to luggage terminal, and discovered that there were nearly 20 cintas for flights to dump luggage on. Wow. I found the belt that was for the chicago flight, put my stuff down, and called my mother. Keep in mind it was about 10:00 or so my time so I called her at 3 AM. Heh.
It was about now that I finally decided to make my introductions to the rest of the group. I wandered over to the American looking group of students and spoke with the only guy there, Drew. We waited, chatted, et cetera, and everyone finally got all of their bags and we headed out.
Enter confusion.
So we were supposed to meet at the Food Court, except that we had no idea how to
get there. After wandering and looking around we finally realized that we were in terminal 4 and had to take a bus in order to get to terminal 1, which is where we believed the food court was. We got off at Terminal 2 and walked the rest of the loooooong walk. And there it was, like a beacon of light: the food court. We had arrived around 10:30 or something like that and Toñi Paín (our coordinator in Cáceres) was supposed to meet us at noon. So we waited. I chatted with a student who ways staying in Madrid and when I broke out of Resses Pieces her eyes lit up. Apparently she had been eying them since I left them out on the table, so I offered her some and she seemed extremely happy as she hadn't had peanut butter in 4 months. Heh. The picture above was in the Food Court. Was just a weird thing, this type of art was allover the place. So after waiting in the food court for a while I bought a water and talked. Eventually Toñi
showed up around 12:30 and we stuck around a while longer while Toñi talked to people before we finally got on the bus to Cáceres.
Once on the bus I took out my camera and took pictures. I'm definitely not going to be able to post them all here, so look at my
facebook to see a more complete photo record of things. Later on the bus I took out my smaller camera and took a decent
video of the city while we were driving in on the bus, it's in HD so you can get a better view of the city if you have the patience to wait for it to load. We stoppe
d part way at a restaurante to use the restrooms and get a 'snack', which turned out to be practically a meal. At each table of 4 people we have a giant 2 liter bottle of water, two tortilla de patatas, croquetes, and a plate of bread. Yeesh. Worthy of note in my catalog of pictures is the epic solar farms we saw. Now would probably be the time to watch the video of entering the city. We arrived, met our families, and went to our new homes. So far I really like my family but going to end this posting here. I'll try and get some pictures of the family up as the mother is coming home tonight (Thurs, Jan 28th) later this week and hopefully get some pictures of the city.
Saludos de Cáceres
I guess I'm pretty far behind as far as far as updating this goes seeing as it's now Saturday and I have yet to write about anything other than Tuesday. Well as a brief overview since getting here on Tuesday and unpacking Tuesday night we've meet at Correos (the post office) nearly every day about 10:00 to go and do one thing or another.
g in which he told us the history of the church I think, but I honestly couldn't understand much of what he was saying because he was talking kind fast. It was pretty cool 
on the inside and in the courtyard there were orange trees growing, which was kind of weird. Lots of cool pictures to check out which I will direct you towards facebook if you want to see the rest of them.
ovies for 4.65 Euro, so it's not outrageous but it's not a dollar theater. Otherwise, the mall looks to be a good source of shoes, clothing and purses, so, practically useless to me. After wandering Caceres for a few more days I feel more certain in my statement that 
every 2 of 3 stores sells exclusively purses, shoes, cloths, or jewelery. I feel like there is nothing for men to look here. I've found appliance shops and stuff but nothing full of electronics. I liked this picture of the two women looking into the store with the rebajas right above it. It seems about right.
ovies for 4.65 Euro, so it's not outrageous but it's not a dollar theater. Otherwise, the mall looks to be a good source of shoes, clothing and purses, so, practically useless to me. After wandering Caceres for a few more days I feel more certain in my statement that 
every 2 of 3 stores sells exclusively purses, shoes, cloths, or jewelery. I feel like there is nothing for men to look here. I've found appliance shops and stuff but nothing full of electronics. I liked this picture of the two women looking into the store with the rebajas right above it. It seems about right.
