"Are you making divertido of me?"

...said my roommate to a Spaniard.  Yah, bienvenido a España! Here are a few pictures from our first few days.

El Escorial en Madrid.

The view from El Escorial

Beautiful, huh?!

My new friend Elena and I at El Escorial.

Toledo.

The roomies.

El catedral de Toledo.

Seville! Palms everywhere!

Cristopher Columbus' tomb at the Catedral de Seville.

A view of Seville from the Giralda Tower in el Catedral de Seville. 34 floors, guys. We climbed 34 floors to get there. Worth it.

 Now we're going to take a tour of my new home!!

Bienvenidos a sus casa!

Roomie number 1, Kim! Here room is right next to the front door so we feel so separated from her sometimes!

The living room

The apartamentos de Sevilla have no central air.  They are designed to keep your house cool during the hot summer.  However, they therefor keep your house FREEESSSSIN in the cold winter.  Underneath that glass is actually a blanket that you pull over yourself as you sit on the couch to chat or watch TV.

The view from el balcon. In the bottom right is our secador.

Mesa de la cena.  We watch TV while we eat family lunch and dinner everyday.   Mommoms and Poppy would FREAK!

La cocina

El pasillo.  That I'm pretty sure gets smaller every time I come home.

El bano.  O en Espana se llama aseos.

Guess what we haaaaaaaaaave?!?!

My bedroom!!! This is our closet! We have a little bit more room on the other side to hang up clothes.  As you can see, we were overpackers.

Rooms number two, Kerry, on her bed!

And rooms number me on mine!

The view from our window in the bedroom.

Our bookshelf and desks that we are currently using at dryers and hangers for extra clothes.

Fina, our host mom (short for Josefina, HOW PRETTY IS THAT!?), es una pintora!  Casi todos de las obras alrededor de la casa son suyas.

FOOOOOD! These next two pictures were actually taken in Madrid, and are only sweets.  But really, what else matters?!  This was a flaky pastry with raspberry gelado. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE. this is churros (without the sugar and cinnamon that is custom in America) and a cup of chocolate.  It was like, a little bit thicker than hot chocolate and much more rich. DUUUUUUUUUUUDE.

Well, that's been my life so far.  Wake up early, take a tour of some AMAZING Spanish attraction (lots and LOTS of walking). Eat a bocadillo for lunch (at 2:30). Come home. Nap. Explore the city. Eat dinner (at 9:30pm). Then go dance the night away!  I have currently heard Teach Me How To Dougie at two different Spanish clubs. Haha.  Thank you so very much for that.

Now we are getting more settled into the house and I'm interested to see how life will change when we don't have a set schedule.  Tomorrow is our first day that we don't have anything planned.  So I am going to SLEEEEEP IN (I've had kind of a cold ever since we got to Madrid) and then hopefully tour the city some more.

Tonight I was up looking on facebook and showing Kerry some friends from back home.  It was like the first night that I remembered "oh, I have like, a whole life back in America.  Full of people that love me and things that I'm familiar with".  Culture shock kinda sucks.

Please pray that Jesus continues to be my portion and my refuge.  In a strange new place with new customs and new people, its easy to get caught up in it all.  No quiero olvidar mi primero amor.

Con sus palabras escritas en mi corazon,
Biddy