Jan 7th- Day it became official

So, I have spent all the day before trying to sleep on the plane with not much success and now I have my last flight to Madrid. We are almost 3 hours to Spain where all of my adventure begins and I have never wanted sleep more. More importantly, I have never wanted to sleep lying down more so than now. Unfortunately for me, I cannot sleep and I am becoming very envious of the other people on the plane that can. Soon enough we are approaching Spain’s borders and the flight attendants are bringing out breakfast. In my head I am thinking, I don’t want breakfast, what I want is sleep and for a big bed to appear for me to sleep in forever. Then Megan lifts up the window in the airplane and we get our first glimpse of Spain just outside of Madrid. Beautiful mountains stretching in between sleepy clouds and at this time I realize that the captain is prepping us to land. Once the plane lands, the captain tells us that we are here (obviously) and welcomes us to Spain. I look at Laura and say ‘It’s real official now, we are about to make it in Spain’. We get off the plane with our carryon bags prepping for the worst that can happen in a foreign airport…lost luggage. But for the three of us, this was not the case. It was really the opposite in that we all realized we really had an overabundance in luggage. Crap. Seemed like an okay idea when man-labor was nearby, not so much when you are by yourself. You just imagine the hilarious scene you are causing trying desperately to pick up your own luggage off the carousel. To make it better, there were luggage carriers to help keep it all together, but I of course had to be the one that needed to demonstrate my cluelessness in a different country even at the simplest of things. For some reason I thought the carriers were pushable and couldn’t figure out why the wheels were locked and sounded like a car chase from ‘Chips’ on the tiles. Then a man came to me and said very fast something I didn’t understand. Seeing I was still clueless, he squeezed the handle under the one I was holding which released the wheels. If I had the ability to blush, now would have been the time, although today will give me many opportunities to blush. Once we get out of the luggage claim, we go to the meeting area for arrivals to look for our groups. Laura sees hers and speeds away muttering something about staying in touch. Megan and I are still clueless as to where our group’s were. Walking around the whole arrivals gate, we still don’t find our group and some guy waiting in the terminal excitedly says to me ‘Hey American!!’ He is obviously American and I later guessed that he recognized my cluelessness. We see a group of kids that have too much luggage like ourselves and I ask one of the boys which school they are going to. He says University of Alcala and I become immediately excited for I have found my group. Megan is later picked up by hers. He says he goes to Loyola University and I notice that there are others from the same school but think nothing of it. The guide informs us that we need to get on the bus and leads me there. More and more I start to notice all these people know each other and I wished I was in the same boat. The bus driver loads our luggage on the bus undercarriage and I go to sit on the bus. A girl introduces herself to me and her friends and say they all go to Loyola. I start to feel that something isn’t right because not only am I the only one from my school but the guide’s name isn’t right. I ask if I am supposed to be in a particular group and she gives me a very wide-eyed look. I realize that something is now most definitely not right and have an inkling suspicion that my embarrassedness from earlier with the cart is about to be topped. It was; I was on the wrong bus, in the wrong group, and to make matters worse I had to go back on the bus, get my things then have the driver unload my luggage. Reloading it on the cart and making another comical scene with my luggage, I slowly carted myself away from the bus with the other students watching the whole scene progress. Frustrated and completely mortified, I was back at the terminal again. Megan and Laura had found their groups and were gone and my group wasn’t due back to make another round for the others until 3pm. it was noon at this point. A man passed me and asked if I needed a taxi at this time, which I first replied no. Realizing that I couldn’t sit and wait to continue my mortification, I immediately told him otherwise. He then lead me to an ATM to get money and I realized this would test my patience because he spoke not one lick of English. Leading me to his car and attempting, with not much luck, to tell him where I needed to go, he explained that Alcala was a big campus and asked if I knew where exactly I needed to go. I didn’t and then became very fearful. We went by the dorms to ask where I needed to go, they didn’t know; we went by some building for registration and they didn’t know. Then, they found the phone number of my host family in one of the papers I had with me (thanks to dad). After calling her, they found where I was supposed to go. Ana came and picked me up, but not before I saw the Loyola group at the same place. I have never tried so hard to become invisible or disappear. The only thing that was invisible was my confidence.
We came to my host family’s home where I met her husband Pepe and they led me into their home. Taking me to my room and explaining how to use things in it, Ana brought Adrian to come meet me. He is a very adorable four-year-old boy who hid behind his moms legs and feebly agreed with his mom that I was very pretty. Upon leaving me in my room, Ana asked if I needed help with anything or if I was hungry. I replied no and that I wanted to first rest, then eat. After calming myself down from being upset about the day earlier, I slept. 8 hours later, I woke up. I felt nervous about going downstairs to eat, but I knew I had to get it over with. Ana was waiting in the kitchen for me and made me dinner. Leaving me to eat in peace without pressure of talking, I started to relax. Then Adrian came and found me telling me that he had something to show me. (oh that reminds me, he came back before I went to sleep to show me his Lego truck me made earlier) I asked him what it was and he told me it was a surprise. Following him upstairs, he led me to his room to show me he built (with his dad’s help of course) a Lego Semi that carried his racecars. How cute. I went back to my room, unpacked, put on pajamas and went to sleep. (Fleece sheets are popular here, didn’t know that which didn’t mix well with me overheating in my sleep…I would get used to it)