Voy ir al Espana

Alright, so this is my first blog. As you may or may not know, I recently arrived in Madrid to study abroad for six weeks and I thought this would be the easiest way to let everyone know what I am doing over here (by everyone I probably just mean my parents and maybe two or three aunts that will be reading this), but nonetheless I hope to make it interesting and somewhat entertaining because to be honest I was probably exaggerating when I said two or three aunts.

Throughout the blog there are links to click on as you read to help you get a better idea of what I am talking about that are highlighted in blue.

Anyway, I guess I will start with the day before I left. The day before I left and after about the 82^nd time somebody asked if I knew anyone going on the trip with me, I started to freak out that in fact I knew absolutely nobody. I wasn’t scared that I wouldn’t make friends on my trip or anything like that. I just didn’t know what the hell I was going to do all day when I got there because there is only so much to talk about with my Senora when she can only ask me “How old are you?, Are you hungry?, and Where is the bathroom?” and I actually understand what she is saying. (By the way, she only asked me the first two questions.) So anyway between packing and watching the Bourne Identity to get me ready for any trouble I’d face in Europe, I found a piece of paper with other students names on it that are in my program(ISA) and wondered to myself how creepy it would be if I facebook stalked them and added them as friends. I knew it was pretty creepy so I asked my good friend Dwiggy(Dustin Dwiggins) about it and he assured me that it was indeed creepy, but that he did it when he went on his study abroad trip so it would be okay to do it. I then proceeded to find 3 of the 4 other people on my list and sent them friend requests with messages apologizing for the creepiness.

You may be wondering why I am telling you this long seemingly pointless story, but unlike most of my awful stories that I inherited from my Mother’s side of the family (Hughes-Peters often tell very long stories with every little unnecessary detail and no climax at the end… Sorry Hughes-Peters if this how you are finding this out) this one is different. I am standing at the counter of the foreign exchange place in the Newark Airport after the most uncomfortable flight I have ever experienced and possibly the most uncomfortable three hours of my life (I was stuck between a 300 pound man reading a book about slaying dragons and a guy who either was a UFC fighter or wanted to be a UFC fighter) when I heard someone say, “Oh my gosh is that Tony? I think that’s Tony! Should I say his name? Tony! Tony? Uhm hey are you Tony?” I turn around to see two of the girls that I had facebook stalked! Crazy chances of that happening right? Turns out we are on the same flight to Madrid and we can kill the six hour layover in company.

We arrived in Madrid the next morning around 11:30 after our seven hour flight, which probably about four of those hours I watched Los Simpsons en espanol so I could brush up on my Spanish. I don’t think it worked because when I got to my senora after we said hola and did the kiss kiss thing she asked me, “Tu entiendas?” I just look at her in confusion and saw the disappointment on her face. She then said, “Do you understand?” I said yes because she was speaking English at that point so she said something else in spanish and when I said, “no entiendo.” She was ecstatic that I could say more than hola. Since then she has been forcing me to speak broken Spanish, and I think I might be improving or maybe she just doesn’t have the heart to tell me I am wrong.

Next time I write I should have some more interesting stories because we are going out tonight (I wanted to last night, but everyone else said they were too lame and boring to go out after not sleeping but a couple hours on a plane in the last 24 hours) and tomorrow we are going on an excursion to Toledo.

Today I leave you with some pictures of the apartment I am staying in which is in downtown Madrid about five minute walk from the royal palace, the royal theater, and the plaza mayor.

Yours truly and my favorite,

Tony Kroschewsky