The past few days have been a whirlwind. I finally got to Leon and met my host family (who is awesome) and I can finally walk through town and semi-know where the heck I am. A little about Leon: Its fairly small (but seemed huge and complicated when I got here), most buildings are insanely old, and they keep the streets/cities super clean. Its a nice little community and all the people are really friendly. Its up in the north part of Spain, so the weather isn’t as hot as Madrid, pretty still warm enough to wear shorts and a T-shirt.

My host family is pretty awesome too. The mother is Nieves, the daughter is Andrea (18) and the son is Sergio (23). Everyone is really laid back and goes with the flow. I have my own room with a bed, dresser, desk, the whole shabang so its nice to have my own personal space. THANKFULLY they have wifi here so I can talk to everyone back home when I am back to the house. The school also gave us phones that work here so we can call locally to get ahold of other students to hang out or meet up.

We started classes yesterday and toured the school, but class is canceled today. Apparently this week is a huge festival week (today being the biggest and most important day and last night being the largest parties) and almost nobody works on Tuesday. I really cant hang with Spain, so I was back at the house around 2 am…… which was when everyone leaves to go out. In the states, I would have been impressed with myself staying out that late!

I’m pretty excited to start classes. I just feel like I need some more structure in my day. I kind of spend my time lolly-gagging around, finally leaving the house around 2 to stroll the city or find tapas. I feel like school will help break up my day a little bit.. AND we are studying food and taking cooking lessons, so I am pretty excited about that as well ☺ Our school is in a old 14th century gothic palace that was renovated, but they tried to leave a lot of the architecture similar. Here is the link to the website so you can see more pictures of it and read more about it☺ http://depts.washington.edu/leonctr/center/palacio_history.html

I think I am finally getting past the honeymoon stage of being in Spain. When I first got here, I was super hyped and excited about everything, bugs, plants, trees, seriously everything. Now its starting to settle in that this is my life for the next couple months, not just a vacation for a week. Its a little scary, but exciting too. Sometimes it’s hard to not feel like your “missing out” on things back home though. But in the end, I know everyone will be waiting for me when I get back in September, right!? ☺(This is when all of you reading this say “RIGHT!” ) ☺ I’m really missing everyone back home (SHOUT OUT TO MY MAIN MAN TYLER-LYNN, AYOOOO!! ) and especially my dog. Nobody has big dogs around here- probably because virtually everyone is in apartments. So occasionally I see a large dog and I freak out and have to resist asking to play with it. ☺To fill my “American Void” I have my safety blanket- Burger King. It’s my little American Safe Haven.. ☺

I’m still trying to get use to the whole timing of things here. Its really strange eating dinner around 11pm and lunch around 2-3, but it is all a process of adjusting ☺ Im finally sleeping through the night and not waking up at 6am after falling asleep at 2am, so that as been really cool as well.

Despite dinner being so late, my host mom makes awesome meals. One meal really popular is “Tortilla” which is really not what you would think. its this finely chopped mixture of potatoes, onions, and whatever else. Then they scramble eggs and cook eggs around the little potato pancake thing almost like an omelet. Its super yummy (yum yum in my tum tum). Here is the Wiki Link to what the Tortilla is since I know I am horrible at explaining things ☺ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_omelette

In other news, I am really surprised how much American influence is here. A lot of American music is played in bars and stuff and rock music is really popular as well. Also- brands like that “Obey” company and that Diamond one are really popular. THE BEST PART, a ton of people where clothing that has words/writing in english… SO since some people don’t totally understand english, I find quite a bit of inappropriate phrases on clothing.. And I just laugh and assume they really have no idea what it means! For example, when we got of the train, this young boy had a hat that said something along the lines of F***ing something, benefit of the doubt, he probably thought it meant something TOTALLY different in spanish ☺

Well I guess I’ll stop boring you all with my unexciting life ☺ Classes start this week and I am trying to start a workout routine so I’ll be a little more busy, but I’ll try to keep you all updated on anything big and exciting ☺ Until then, HASTA LUEGO! ☺ (“Until later” for all you Americans out there!)