The arrival :) & lesson learned # 1

Arrived today in Madrid. Went to a hotel in the Goya neighborhood until we move into our homes tomorrow. It felt just like NYC so it hasn't really hit me that I am living in a different country. I met a ton of people on my program from NY, FL, & California. So far so good. There was nothing set up on our program today so a bunch of girls & the solo guy for the day decided to explore.

This is where the lesson # 1 comes in. Don't ask spainards for directions on which metro lines to take. I think they pretend to know what we are saying in English but in reality have NO idea what we are asking them. We took the metro from Goya to try to go to Plaza Mayor. FAIL. We just wanted to go get lunch & drinks because it was a girls 21st birthday today. We tried to go to sol but only saw puerta del sur( the south). We all should have known this was not the right metro line to be taking but we went along with it anyway. We ended up in the outskirts of spain but was able to ask the ticket people how to get to Sol. --THE EASIEST THING FROM GOYA, only 2 stops-- An hour & half trip could've only taken us 15 minutes. It was deffiently an adventure and now we got our first of many trips lost out of the way.

Went to dinner/ walked around with a different group of people and just explored the few streets by the hotel at night. Learning very quickly that everyone smokes. ughh. Well see what orientation has in store for us tomorrow!