First full day!

Okay, wow, Spain is awesome. This morning after I woke up, I went down to the restaurant and had some cafe con leche and a muffin type thing, and then proceeded to head over to the school.  On the way there, I turned a corner on calle de las mesas, and there was a little boy walking with him mom.  He turned around to look at me a few times, and when I got closer, he had a huge smile on his face and joyously yelled at me "HOLA!" hahaha it was one of the funniest and cutest things I've ever seen!  And then he said "Yo te vi ayer! Caminando con su perro!", which means "I saw you yesterday, walking with your dog!".  I don't have a dog, clearly, and his mom explained to me that he thought I was someone else, hahaha, but it was so funny.

I walked up to the school to find all of the kids gathered outside, many of younger ones with their parents still. I waited around a little bit because I had no idea where to go, and eventually one of the teachers asked me if I was Mary, probably because I looked so confused and I was walking in and out of the building looking for someone!  I met pretty much all of the teachers--they are really nice and helpful.  Two of them live in a town nearby called Villarrobledo where I wanted to live because there is more to do, but didn't have a way to get there and back for school, and they offered to share rides with me and to help me find an apartment there--so nice!  I really enjoyed talking to all of the teachers and getting to know them.  They laughed every once in a while about my use of South American Spanish :).  It's what they taught me in school and what I grew up with con mi mama, and so I've had to make note of a couple of things.  For instance, if you say "carro" here instead of "coche" (car), they will know what you mean, however "carro" in spain means a cart that is lead by a donkey. Also, no one says "computadora" even though they teach you that in school.  Se dice "ordenador" or "ordenador portatil" for a laptop.

I also met all of the kids, that was really fun, probably my favorite part!  A lot of them were like the little boy I met walking to school, the younger ones at least.  One boy with a faux hawk asked me if I spoke english :), another girl asked me if I was related to the previous auxiliar, Anastasia :), it was so cute.  I probably don't speak as good of Spanish as she did, but hopefully I will improve!

Oh, and one of my bags arrived, and the other one should arrive tomorrow. Yipee!!

Here are a couple of pictures so far...I haven't taken too many, more to come!

my hostel room, very cozy! it has a cute little balcony too :)

The view from my balcony

Side view from my balcony of El Provencio!