Getting here

So, since this is my first real post since I left, I will start with the trip here.

The flight to Dublin was really great, actually. Aer Lingus has little entertainment units for each seat with TV shows, movies, etc, and the flight attendants are overly nice--and of course all have wicked Irish brogues. Also the flight was about 6 1/2 hours, and it was supposed to be 8 hours. I arrived in Dublin at about 9am, lugged my luggage (ha) to my hostel, and wasted time until I could check in at 1pm. I walked around by the River Liffey and went to a little cafe where I had, I swear, the best cappuccino of my life and read for a bit. I then proceded to pass out for about 6 hours once I checked in because I can´t sleep on planes.

I was awoken by knocking on my hostel door, apparently someone had taken all of the keys for my 8-bed room so they had to let another girl in without a key. As it turned out, she was also American, from Philly and doing an internship in Dublin in film production. She was kind of lost for things to do that night, so I we went to see Tropic Thunder, which was reeeally gory and just kind of odd overall. There were definitely funny parts, but they were offset by the stomach-churning bloody scenes. We were both a little on the fence about what we thought of it.

So, after buying some Irish candy to try, we headed back to the hostel, where we parted ways, and I wrote some letters and went to bed because I had to get up at 3am for my flight.

So I arrived in Madrid, took a 6 hour bus to Córdoba, and finally arrived at about 7pm Monday night. Met another American, Peter, at the bus station (I seem to be easily identifiable as American, or at least an English speaker). We caught a taxi to the hostel Chuck had been staying at, and he told me about his pretty great life--he went to school for free in Norway, apparently you can get a scholarship and they pay for absolutely everything, including books and housing. He then moved to Holland, and then around Europe and is now looking for a place to settle in Spain. He does translations to get by, and basically has made a life doing that and just visiting every place he can. Pretty neat.

So...that´s the journey. I settled in to my hostel, caught up with Chuck and his new friend Beatrice, who is from Austria and is doing the same program we are but to teach German. The hostel was great, as well, free wifi, breakfast, and a terrace on the roof where we sat for a while and drank wine. We went out that night as well, to a cool little place called Soul, the four of us plus Mikhail, who was from Switzerland. We explored the differences between Austrian and Swiss German, as well as the negative aspects of ´German´German, all in both English and Spanish. Quite a first night, followed by quite a full night of much needed sleep.

More soon...