Six Days

Background: So I have loads of info. to catch everyone up with the last few months. So I applied to AFS, an exchange program, to go to Spain for the '09-'10 school year at the end of March. I got all my documents in and after being accepted to the program I received my host family around Memorial Day weekend.

Family: I live in La Nou de Bergueda, Barcelona, (Catalunya), Spain with the a mom and dad who have a son who is 13, Guim, and a daughter who is 15, Lidia. However, Lidia is spending the year in Denmark so I won't get to see her much. I talk to my family on email, Facebook, Skype and they just seem like really awesome, cool people. Guim's told me he's going to introduce me to tons of people so that'll be nice. The family loves to travel and meet up with friends; most of their family and friends live in Barcelona because the family used to live there. So most weekends they either are having people over or going to someone's house.

La Nou is a town of 80, that's right 8-0 people. Its right in the foothills of the Pyrenees; I've seen pictures and it just seems amazing. You're thinking 80 people is crazy small, but down the mountain fifteen minutes is the main town, Berga, with 14,000 people. I have pictures below to kind of give you an idea of where in the world this place is. Its about an hour south of France and Andorra and about an hour and a half north of Barcelona.

The Crazy Itinerary: So Tuesday, the 1st, I am leaving for Sac. Airport and my red-eye JetBlue flight leaves at 11:59. I actually coordinated to fly with another girl going to Spain so we know someone before we even get there. Anyway, we arrive in New York (JFK) at 8:15 on the 2nd. We'll chill at our hotel until 4 when the Orientation starts. AFS has this huge orientation planned for us with all the kids from the United States that are going to Spain, Portugal, Ghana, France, possibly Italy, and possibly South Africa (the schools in these countries all start generally around the same time).

Then all 30 of us Spain outbounders leave on our Swiss Airline flight around 8:45 p.m. the next day, on the 3rd. We fly into Zurich, Switzerland for a little pitstop around 12:30 p.m. on the 4th. Then we head down to Madrid and arrive about 2:50. All of us arriving then take a bus to the outskirts of Madrid for yet another orientation, but this time all 70 kids from around the world (Norway, Czech Republic, Turkey, New Zealand, Finland, Iceland, just to name a few) will be there. This orientation is also overnight.

So its finally the 5th and all of the kids headed to Catalunya will take the AVE bullet train to Barcelona.

There my family will pick me up at the station and bring me to their relative's house for dinner. I believe the next day (maybe the day after) we'll take a thirty minute flight out of Barcelona down to Mallorca, an island in the Mediterranean. We're vacationing there for a week before school starts. Then, on the 13th or around that date we'll finally drive up to our town in the foothills and the next day I'll start school.

I probably won't post again until I arrive in Barcelona; I'll try to update you all as much as I can, but no guarentees.