How Things Change so Quickly

Well last time I wrote I was sitting in Austin, Texas. Lots of things have happened changed/happened so lets go:

• Getting my visa which came in exactly three weeks, to every future exchange student reading this trying to gauge gage or is it gauge how long it will take. Anyways me and my mom drove to Houston and went to the consulate which is an extremely quick errand and since Houston's consulate doesn't require an appointment I would'nt wouldn't recommend arriving really early like me and my mom did in fear that it would be packed and we'd have to make the three hour drive to Houston again. In actuality it was an easy affair. The consulate didn't require many of the documents we had...FBI BACKGROUND CHECK... which was a nightmare to deal with because when it got apostilled by someone in DC the paper came back smeared so naturally I was worried that my visa would get it denied cause papers couldn't be read. Of course I worried for nothing... Mom your'e you're reading this now nodding your head about me be worried. I just know it. 
  
  Horrible quality but Spanish Houston Consulate
• Departure this is obviously the biggest change. I'm sitting in Madrid writing this. Madrid you say? What happened to Pamplona? That's why the title of this post is about how quickly things change. Anyways on September 4th I flew from ATX (Austin, Texas to non-Texans) to NYC for an overnight orientation with all the kids going to Italy, France, Portugal, Ghana, oh yea Spain and some other countries. It was a lot of fun getting to me people from what I am going to bet was every state (minus Hawaii...?) about to go abroad for a whole year like you. Shockingly I was the only Texan I could find which is shocking cause Texas is huge. Then on the 5th we had the red eye to Zurich, Switzerland. This was my longest flight I had ever been on, making Zurich, Switzerland two things: 1. My first time outside of the US. Cool right? Didn't feel too different, but was cool to say. 2. The furthest I've ever been from home. At the time I hadn't realized that but now that I think about it, it is. Because Spain is closer than Switzerland. Here's some pics:

View from Airport... nothing too exciting but hey Switzerland

AFS kids literally taking up Kloten airport. Alllllll the people you see in the pic had the same flight from NYC to Zurich (Most of which are students...felt bad for the others on that flight), which departed at 6:05 pm NYC time. This picture was taken at around 8 am Zurich time... So if you didn't sleep on the plane or in the airport, no sleep for you cause you have orientation when you land in your host country. You didn't think you were going to get sleep for these 30 hours did you? 

After we landed in Madrid finally after like a 4 hour layover in Zurich we got back to some really large hotel in Madrid and were told orientation was going to start at midnight... most of the kids from the US hadn't gotten any sleep so staying up til midnight did not sound like something I wanted to do... It ended up being changed til 10:30 and it wasn't that bad having to stay up cause it was a lot of fun to meet people from tons of countries, since everyone who was going to be studying abroad in Spain this year was there. During the orientation we found out what time we would leave the hotel the next morning for our host cities. I was in the second group, we were to meet our host families in Vitoria, Basque Country. So in the morning I got on the bus thinking it would be maybe my last time in Madrid til departing again. On the bus ride to Vitoria we had a twenty minute break in Burgos. Luckfully the volunteer travelling with us lived in Burgos so he quickly showed us one of the coolest things I had ever seen... the Burgos Cathedral ( Is that it's name?) 

Cool right? Only got to see it for about 10 minutes cause the other ten we spent walking from the bus station to here. Also I'm continuously impressed that my phone is what I used to take these photos.

After that quick excursion it was back on the bus to Vitoria to meet our host families. I'm pretty sure everyone on the bus was extremely nervous... or maybe that was just my nerves. Anyways once we got to the bus station only one person's host mom was standing there waiting. So we went in the station to wait, I guess they all went out for lunch together, separate ( is that individual?) , in groups (?) I'm not sure. But the room we sat in was like a glass box, so we could see the host families walking up but I'm not sure they were able to see us. Anyways I was extremely nervous and they took like 30 minutes to come but finally I met my host family! Quickly after we got into the car to head to Pamplona...

• New life in Pamplona Madrid- So initally I thought I'd live all 10 months in the city that on day one I feel in love with. Pamplona is really cool and I think I'll go back one day. Pictures of course: 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The city was really pretty. Definitely felt like I was living in Europe... really really old Europe. Was great.
  
  
  Anyways I may be going back to Pamplona in a few weeks cause I applied for my visa extension in Navarra and AFS thinks I will need to pick it up personally. So I wouldn't cry if I had to go back to pick it up! Anyways on day 9 here comes the part you've been warned was coming I found out that I had to change host families. I'm not going to lie and say I had a beautiful first nine days, homesickness was TERRIBLE for me and adjusting to the way the spaniards lived was hard not what I expected (see kids, having expectations isn't always the way to go.) Anyways to be fair to all involved I'll leave it at this... If anyone needs to talk to someone about switching host families or any questions in general feel free to ask me! trevormoore1209@gmail.com or trevormoore79@yahoo.com I prefer the second one. Anyways the day after the whole host family change thing AFS had a volunteer pick me up and I stayed with her and her family (husband and 4 kids) until Saturday. And if you're reading this thanks so much for letting me come into your home I had a lot of fun there!! I didn't find out til Thursday AFS had found me a family in the Madrid Suburbs, but I had been told by someone they thought I was going to Madrid... They were right!
  On Saturday morning I boarded the train from Pamplona to Madrid where I was greeted by two AFS Madrid volunteers who took me on the Metro SO COOL to AFS Madrid's post arrival orientation where I had so much fun and reconnected with all the kids I got to meet in NYC and Madrid the first time around that thought we wouldn't see each other until the very end. Needless to say we've already began to plan meetups with each other. The next orientation is in a few weekends, so that'll be fun!
  
  
  Well this is long and I should probably wrap it up. BTW all the lines through words are places that I made really simple mistakes. Like mispelling misspelling "you're" probably a result of the very little English I've written in the past month without the help of spell check on my phone. Anyway I plan to write much more often so stay tuned! If any one has any questions feel free to email me! It's bolded up above!