Jet-Lagged

It was a 21 hour trip start to finish. I woke up at 8:30 at my Grandpa's house this morning and left for the Detroit Metro Airport about an hour later. Check-in went pretty well. My checked bag was 51.5 pounds but they did not make me pay the overweight fee. I did have to rearrange my packing a little bit, but nothing really significant. Right now it is 6:00 AM in the States, I am arrived (and somewhat settled) in Seville, Spain where it is 12:00 PM. Fortunately for me, all three flights went really smooth and I did not encounter any problems. Unfortunately for the friends I was traveling with, they encountered a few speed bumps en route to Espana. My friends dealt with their problems much better than I ever would have. Lost luggage and unregistered tickets are a traveler's worst nightmare, but they did not panic, and all six of us are here safely in Hotel Becquer. Their problems should be resolved by tomorrow. I am glad we all traveled together. It made everything a little more comforting going through customs and flights together. The flight from Chicago to Madrid was extremely long and uncomfortable. I barely slept, so I am currently working on maybe an hour of sleep. Thank God they have siestas in Spain. I will definitely be needing one of them today. I tried updating the blog in the airport, but I did not have free internet access. Iberia showed the movie Wall Street, which I had just seen a few days before, but never finished so I got to see the ending. We barely caught our flight from Madrid to Seville because we had to go through customs and security in Madrid and only had an hour layover to accomplish that. I think had we been 5 more minutes late we would have missed it. When we arrived in the Seville airport, it was very small and not very busy. It kind of reminded me of the Grand Rapids airport. Justin and I rode in a cab together to the hotel which was about a 15 minute car ride. The whole way to the hotel, all I did was look out the window. The cab driver questioned us "Sevilla es muy bonita?" and I couldn't agree more. The weather is so nice here, it is 60 and sunny. I think I may have packed too many winter clothes. Maybe I will just have to buy more clothes here in Spain. The program director Eva, greeted us at the hotel with our room keys and an envelope with a welcome letter and some money for meals this first week which was very nice. She did not speak a word of English to us. She really wants to ensure we are speaking/hearing/reading/writing the Spanish language 24/7 while we are here. We will likely go exploring through the city pretty soon, but I think sleep is the first priority at this point.