5 days left...

Blog #1: Still in the US

So today I have 5 days left until I leave. I have decided to start this blog for a couple of reasons. First of which is to see how my Spanish improves during my trip. Due to this, I will do my best to write my blogs in Spanish and in English. If you speak Spanish, please take the time to try and read it in Spanish first. Then let me know how you think my Spanish is. My second reason for people including my family, friends, and of course Keith to be able to see how I am doing and feeling but also what I am experiencing on my journey. My last reason for doing this blog, is to be able to have my experiences in writing for the future. I want to be able to look back and see how I was doing, what I was feeling, and what I was experiencing during my trip. I really want to always have memories of this trip and I know that by writing it down, I will always have the memories. I will also be doing a hand written journal to have a hand written account of my trip. 

Now I will start with the details of my trip...

I leave from Oshkosh on a bus to the Chicago O'hare airport at 10:45 am on Saturday January, 1. I will be taking the bus down to Chicago with my group of 6 from UW-Oshkosh. My flight leaves from O'hare at 4:45pm. I fly into the Madrid Barajas airport at 7:40am on January 2. I will be picked up at the airport by the director of my program and my group and I will spend the next day and a half in Madrid. We leave for Salamanca from Madrid on the afternoon of the 3rd. I will meet my host family that night. I found out this past week that my host family is a woman named Agustina and her 18 year old son as well as Agustina's sister. I have been told that they are young and vibrant and a very good family.  I am excited to meet them and I hope that I fit in well with them. On the 4th, we have our orientation for our classes and then on the 5th we begin classes. I will be attending classes at the University of Salamanca and I am told that it is beautiful and very historic so that excites me. I will be taking 5 classes for 16 credits while I am abroad. I will be taking 3 classes from January to March during their trimester and then 2 classes during April for what is similar to an interim. During my free weekends, in which I have 13 or 14, I plan on doing as much traveling as possible to many different foreign countries. I definitely want to go to Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, England, and Ireland. We will have to wait and see how many I get to. I return on May 2nd. 

I guess this is where I will end this post...I have not started packing yet...maybe I will start tomorrow. Also, I will go into my emotions about my feelings for the trip tomorrow as well... :-)