Taylor Nelson- May 25, 2014

Someday I know I’ll come back to Spain, because you cannot experience everything in three weeks. I have been here for two weeks and there are still things that I haven’t tried and places that I want to go. This past weekend I traveled to Barcelona and was able to try many new things there, and before Barcelona I lived in Valencia. That’s right: I lived in Valencia Spain. For a very short period of time I stayed with a family and lived life similar to how they do.

Everything here is so different than in the states. For starters, the lunch schedule. I am used to breakfast when I wake up, lunch around noon, and dinner around 7. Here breakfast is before I leave for class at 8:45, lunch is anywhere from 1-3, and then dinner usually stars around 10 and goes until midnight or 1 am. So the first several days I was not only tired from jet lag, but I was always hungry. This was fine by me, because the food here is always amazing. Two weeks here and have loved everything that I have tried, and I have tried a lot of new things.

My homestay family could not be any more perfect. There is a mother, father, daughter, son, and a dog. Paloma, the mother, treats me the same way she does the rest of her family. She is trying so hard to teach me passable Spanish but I can’t quite grasp it yet. Alesandro, the father, speaks Spanish and Italian; two languages that I know very little about and two cultures that I am unfamiliar with. It makes it quite difficult to communicate with him, but he seems like a very sweet man. Marta, the daughter, is beyond amazing! She is the sister I always wanted. Marta is funny and very sweet, we spend quite a bit of time together and we always laugh and have a good time. Edu, the brother, is always at the library studying so I don’t see him often. The few times that I have seen him, the conversations were pretty short. He seems like a nice guy, but either tired or shy. Sam, the dog, is such a sweetheart. He always greats mewhen I get home, and would let me pet him forever. Sam drools quite a bit though, so sometimes I have to wash my hands between pettings.

My host mother and father

Paella lunch