I left Palencia on the 8th and took a train down to Madrid to meet up with the rest of the Rotary Exchange Students from around Spain. My train that I booked was an hour late so I was luckily able to grab another one that was passing through to Madrid as well. From there I had my first shot at trying to figure out the Madrid subway on my own. After awhile at playing with a machine that I thought would give me a subway ticket, a nice woman came up and took me over to where you actually buy tickets. Looking back I think it was like an ATM or something. So after some guess and check with the subway map I did manage to get to the Rotary meeting on time and without a loss of too much pride. My first time riding a subway alone. Feel so grown up for a Montana boy.
There were 36 exchange students from all over Spain that decided to go on this trip. We had 2 Germans, a Australian, a Canadian, and all the rest being from all over the US. We seemed to have held the majority as it comes to exchange students in Spain. From there all 36 of us piled into a bus and headed down to Granada in the province of Andalucia.
The next ten days were some of the funniest I´ve had in Spain. After seeing the Alhambra in Granada, we headed to Cordoba and checked out its Mosque/Cathedral. From there it was over to Sevilla and then Huelva. Then we headed northwest up into Portugal and spent a couple days in and around Lisboa, Portugal. After a wonderful time in Portugal and once again becoming completely lost with another language, we headed back into Spain with Merida and then Cacéras. Our last stop was up to the old university town of Salamanca and back to Madrid. I could write pages and pages about the amazing experiences and times I had with these other exchange students and the wonderful friends that I´ve made but I hope you will suffice with my summary that it was truly ¨awesome¨. Don´t think I could sum it up any better. (All these city names are in Spanish so I hope you can still sort of recognize them)
Right when I landed back in Madrid and had many sad good byes to friends that I can truly say I hope I have for life, I figured out a way to catch a bus to Toledo. Took me awhile as it turned out the bus station I was already at doesn´t go there so I had to take the subway across town to another station then the bus ticket machine wouldn´t take my card so I had to leave to go find an ATM and then came back but the machine wouldn´t take the size of bills I´d just gotten so I had to leave to go break them up and finally I got myself a 5 buck ticket to Toledo. I feel the run-on expresses the mood much better in this case then punctuations could hope to try.
So I arrive in Toledo and what do I find?!? But my real family from Montana sitting in the bus station waiting for me! It was my sister´s and brother´s spring break so my family took a vacation and came out to see me for little over a week. After not seeing any of them in over 6 months it was truly wonderful to be able to be with my family again. We spent a couple days in Toledo together then headed up to Palencia to introduce them all to my host family.
Now at first it was a little weird to see both my families sitting all together but the entire visit went so much better then I ever could of hoped. My host family bought all my family members presents and took them on a tour of the town. After much debate, my host family won at buying a very nice expensive lunch upon my real family´s arrival and then went on to host my real family in their house in Grijota, where I lived back in October. In the Spanish fashion, my host family showed the most amazing amount of generosity I´ve ever seen and just continued to out do themselves. Can´t even express how happy it made me. Both families got along so well as they were all able to talk Spanish and even a little English to each other. I forgot to explain in full to my real family how the Spanish seem to survive without ever sleeping so by the end of that first day my real family was fairly pooped.
If I thought that day went well however, the day following was even better. Not only was it technically my 19th birthday but I was also able to have both my families together and we all took a day trip down to Segovia where we spent the day. We toured the giant roman aqueduct and the Cathedral before moving on to the Alcázar, a castle where the old Madrid Kings used to vacation. Such an amazing day and couldn´t of imagined a better way to spend my birthday.
After spending another night in Palencia my family and I went back to Madrid where we spent another three days touring the sights and millions of museums Madrid has to offer. I was very sad to have to see my parents and sister leave on the 24th to head back to the States. I had so much fun with them all and was so lucky that they were able to come out to visit me. My luck continued however in that my brother stayed on with me in Madrid for another two days before he too had to leave to go back to school. It was sad to see them all leave but I continue to remind myself that I will be seeing them all again relatively soon.
Whelp I think that´s all there is for now as we move closer to April. I´ll fill you all in more then. Hope you´re well and doing well in your respective places.
Cody
