Deja Vu . . .Yes, I know it's a French word, but it's good to be back in El Escorial!

Hola! Que tal? Here I am again! It is the summer of 2012, one year after the start of my Como se Dice blog! I'm fortunate enough to be back in San Lorenzo de El Escorial for another study abroad experience. This year we have even more students (14 total), and Dr. Marcela Moyano is here with me as well. For those of you who don't know Dr. Moyano (Marcela), she is a great friend of mine so it will be awesome to spend the summer traveling with her throughout Spain, teaching together, and getting to hang out with her adorable son, 3-month old, Nico! Also, Dr. Frank Sicius, founder and director of the Summer in Spain Study Abroad program is here for the first week. Thank goodness! He is introducing me to the people I need to know in town and helping Marcela and I get everything started smoothly.

The original plan was for Dr. Sicius to fly from Chile and arrive in El Escorial on Sunday. Then, he would meet us Tuesday morning at the airport in Madrid. Dr. Sicius has been spending the year in Chile because he received one of the most distinguished academic awards that exists, a Fulbright award to spend a year studying and conducting research in another country. However, he was delayed leaving Chile because of some paperwork issues. I found out the day before we left that he would be arriving on Tuesday afternoon rather than Tuesday morning. That meant that Marcela and I had to make sure that we found all the students who were arriving from different airlines in different terminals and get them safely on the bus to El Escorial.

The flight went well. First of all, when I checked in my luggage, I would like to report that it was at 49 pounds (the limit was 50 pounds!) (Those of you who went to Taiwan with me know that I must be getting better at packing!) (Thanks for the luggage scale Cindy; that was perfect!)

So, Marcela, Nico, one student (Jennifer) and I flew from Miami to Philly, and then Philly to Madrid on US Air. The other students had a variety of different flights with different layovers. Nico was an angel on the flight and things went very smoothly.  Our layover in Philly was really fast (so fast that Jennifer noticed that everyone else had boarded but us . . good thing she was paying attention!), but I had a chance to quickly check my email. It was a very good thing to check because that is when I found out that Dr. Sicius was still delayed in Chile and wouldn't arrive in El Escorial until Wednesday morning! So, Marcela and I would need to get the students from the airport in Madrid to El Escorial, get them settled and do the tour of the town of El Escorial. But, we didn't panic. Marcela has that calming effect on everyone, and we figured things would work out ok!

On the flight to Madrid, I didn’t get to sit by Marcela because she had a bulkhead seat with more room for the baby, but I sat by a student from Temple University who was coming to do a study abroad program in Madrid where she would be staying with a host family. She was very nervous about the trip  (first time going so far away from her family) so it was good to sit beside her and talk about her thoughts about the trip. So, I’m hoping that Sierra from Temple  University is having a great time so far on her study abroad experience!

We arrived at the airport and although it was a bit difficult to find everyone, the students all did a great job finding us! We were all coming in on different flights so they had to find Terminal 1 and meet us there. It took a while and we had said to meet at the information desk outside of baggage claim, but of course . .that was probably not the best meet-up spot because we learned there were many many information desks in the airport. (note to self . . pick a more specific location in the future!) But, the last thing I told the students was “Don’t panic! No matter what, we won’t leave you!” So, it took a while, but finally, the students found the meeting spot, and we hopped on the bus to El Escorial.  Whew! Because we had a few students whose flights were delayed, we made the bus driver wait for a while (remember, I told the students, we would NOT leave them) so Alejandra  (who is here helping Marcela with Nico for the first week) helped to communicate with the bus driver to convince him to wait a little longer.

Once we got to El Escorial, he dropped us off at the bus station. Last year, we were dropped off on the street of our hotel, but at the bottom of the hill because the street is too skinny for a big bus. And, that was challenging to haul our luggage up that hill, but this year, perhaps because we made the bus driver wait, he dropped us off at the bus station, and we had to drag our luggage up quite a few hills to get to our hotel. I’m not sure that I can describe effectively how HOT it was, how HEAVY the luggage was, and what it is like to try to roll suitcases on cobblestone roads, but I have to commend the students . . .some of them had extremely heavy luggage, but everyone made it! It was one of those things where you just had to put on a brave face and keep moving. Once we checked in, we put our luggage upstairs (that takes a while because only one piece of luggage fits on the elevator at a time). Then, we met downstairs to have lunch (tired from our long journeys) However, amazingly, the pictures of us don’t look so bad. Knowing how all of us felt after the luggage haul up the hills and the fact that we were all still in our travel clothes, I can’t believe we didn’t look a little worse. :)

In the pictures below, we are waiting outside of the dining room of the hotel, getting ready for our first lunch in Spain.

Even after that luggage haul in the heat, three of our students (Rosa, Stephanie, and Samara) are still smiling! See pic below!

More students on the stairs of the hotel, waiting for our first lunch!

Christina and I waiting to go have lunch.

And, here are some of us at our first lunch in Spain!

And, there's Nico! I'm thinking that he will probably be the star of the blog this year!

Notice the first plate of lunch is pasta. Let the "carbathon" begin! Off to siesta! Hasta luego!