CADIZ!

Finally to Cadiz!!! On the bus we found out the names of our families and if they had children, etc. Me and Natalie were very excited to hear we would have a sister and a dog at our home. For some reason we expected that we were going to have a small cute spanish 5 year old little sister and we were bragging to the other groups about how they should come play with our little sister. Well... we were pretty far off when we met our 19 year old not so small sister. Let's just say we were a little nervous about the healthiness of the meals we were going to be eating the next six weeks and decided we need to be doing some running everyday. But let's back up a little to when we first met the parents. Our Dad, Antonio, and Mom (who we are still working on her name) were waiting for us when the bus arrived in Cadiz. We got in there car and they took us around the beautiful and very small city of Cadiz which is shaped like a peninsula with la playa (the beach) on one side and a bay on the other. Arriving at their house, which is not really a house at all, was very cool. I will take pictures to give more of a visual but we entered into a building and went up to the second floor. The whole second floor is their house with an open courtyard type thing in the middle which probably makes no sense but i will post a picture later. We have a very nice room and bathroom that has a balcony opening up to the street. After unpacking for a little while, the rest of the night was far from boring and I'm sure you would have loved to have had a video on me and Natalie. Let's just say we may have been a tad "culture shocked." While we had spoken some simple sentences when we first met the parents and daughter, dinner was our first big conversation. I wouldn't actually call it a conversation though considering they did about 99 percent of the talking and us the listening. While we did catch some things they were saying, we stuck with mostly nodding in response. She made us a little steak and french fries and then lots of bread with cheese and ham that she kept encouraging us to eat. After a little while they just were speaking to each other and a couple other people came in that we are not exactly sure if they were related or friends. We eventually headed back to our room to finish unpacking where Natalie and I didn't speak to each other for about 15 minutes and we didn't even realize it haha I think we were afraid to talk in english. Well we took a deep breathe and then could not stop laughing because we realized we really did know so much more spanish than we were using and we for some reason kind of froze. We were much more relaxed and decided to go on a walk for a little while but of course our simple walk we wanted to take ended in a minor catastrophe. All the streets of Cadiz are small and look pretty similar and we had been in the city for only about 2 hours. Needless to say, not exactly sure what we were thinking, we got extremely lost. So here's the situation: Its about 12 oclock at night we have no idea where we are we have no maps no phones and all the streets look EXACTLY the same. (mom and dad- Cadiz is not a dangerous place at all there is not much violence so no need to worry about our safety...the concern was we really did not know if we were going to make it back :) ) welll about 45 minutes later we found our building! (today we realized we were literally circling the small streets by our home for the entire 45 minutes) But ofcourse that isnt the end of the story...we proceed to be unable to unlock the main door on the bottom floor of the building. After about 15 minutes of fidgeting with the stupid key, the lights of the lobby come on and our mom comes to the rescue. Of course we were so embarrassed and she just laughed at us but we finally made it back to our rooms. So I know our first few hours in our new home for the next 6 weeks may have seemed like a disaster but everything definitely turned around today. 

We woke up feeling much more confident in our spanish and had a good conversation with our mom at breakfast. Our mom is sooo sweet and has had students the past few years so she is extremely patient with us. For breakfast we had 2 options for cereal: Special K with chocolate chunks it in or chocolate pebbles cereal. We got changed and our mom (which hopefully soon i can refer to her by name) walked us to school which is on the bay and is also a 2 minute walk from our house. It was a relief to talk to all of the other Georgia students who although did not get lost in the city and locked out of their homes did have similar experiences talking to their families. We had a quick orientation at the school and then the entire group went on a walk around the city. Then a few of us stopped at a small cafe for some coffee before I had to be back at my house at 230 for lunch. They are very serious about being on time if your mom tells you a certain time that you will be eating. Lunch went GREAT with our mom and sister. We are already feeling better about the spanish even though we definitely still have to pick up on the accent some more. We watched a spanish show with our sister for a little while and she put the spanish subtitles on for us so that it would be easier for us to understand (reading is easier than just listening). Anyways I hope I did not make our family and the first night seem like we hated being there lol, it is just definitely a cool experience living with a family who knows absolutely no english. I am sitting in a plaza now on the computer and we are meeting our Georgia group at 9 for dinner tonight. Our mom told us that tommorrow she is going to pack us a picnic for lunch so that we can take it to the beach with our friends! Since we just got here, we are not going anywhere this weekend but are just going to try and learn our way around Cadiz better. I hope I am keeping you all a little entertained and I plan to post as much as I can! I am very excited to get to know my family better and be more comfortable with my spanish :) talk to you soon! Adios!