We Arrived!

Hi everyone!
So, where should I even begin? For starters the plane rides to get here were WAY TOO LONG! However, with that being said, it was lovely traveling with my roomie, Lisa and Sam, another girl who attends Stonehill.  We all met up at the airport and of course my mom was a wreck.  Parking at Logan was an ordeal itself, having to circle the airport roughly four times before finally parking in the correct terminal.  Once we got into the airport my mother and I checked in my baggage and surprise, my bag was overweight.  My mother was kind enough to pay the fee of $60 so that was nice.  After Lisa had checked in her bags, the three of us walked over to the security and departed with our mothers and Sam's dad.  I swear my mom and Lisa's mom just repeated one another, "Be careful." said one mom then the other, "Now be careful."  While it was sad saying goodbye it was almost comedic. So then we boarded our plane, stopped in Dublin where we almost missed our connecting flight and then arrived in Spain!
I swear none of us had ever been so tired.  We unfortunately missed the first shuttle to the hotel by 4 minutes so we were forced to wait another 3 hours in the airport for our advisors to pick us up.  Once we all boarded the bus we passed out and when we awoke we were at Hotel Regina where we had that night and the next day for orientation.

That night we ate our first meal in Spain and it was, well, interesting to say the least, but after not having any real food for almost 24 hours, it hit the spot.  While some of the kids in our program went out we went back to the hotel and slept.
The next day we had about 3 hours of meetings and lectures about safety, the metro, life in Spain, etc.  Those three hours were grueling.  We did in fact make it though by some miracle.  A group of us went to a store where we struggled to purchase towels as those are not provided through our residencia.  After the purchases we ate lunch and headed back to Hotel Regina to retrieve our bags and move into our living situations!
Pulling up to what looked to be a palace was downright amazing.  The mix of emotions I had was intense.  Once Lisa and I had finally moved in and settled down we immediately hopped into bed.  At about 8, we went down for our first meal prepared by our cook.  Unfortunately for me one dish contained shrimp so I could not eat it.  Everything else was alright.  The amount of ham the Spaniards consume is ridiculous, and not being a fan of that meat should make for a fun dining experience here.

After dinner some of the other students went out for a fun night out on the town but Lisa and I chose to stay in and rest up for tomorrows activities.
Well, that's all for now!
xoxo,
Michelle