Arrival in the Homestay

Our second day in Spain was when we got to met our host families and go home with them. This must be what Oliver Twist feltlike. I already knew a little about my hostmom from the housing email. She has two children but lives by herself, her son lives in Madrid and her daughter in Granada. I was somewhat happy to hear she spoke no English, thus I would be forced to learn Spanish. Or I could just point at objects, make over exaggerated gestures & grunt.

To be honest I wasn't really nervous to meet my hostmom that day, maybe I was just delirious from jetlag and too little sleep. Though leading up to the trip I was somewhat nervious about what kind of family I would live with. I kept having a reoccuring thoughts of them having me make cheap wallets and souvenirs in a dimly light, dungeon-like basement with people yelling at me in Chinese.

When we meet it was kind of awkward, not to mention I hadn't spoken Spanish since finals week (about a month) but she seemed very nice. Soon we were off to my home for the semester. The ride to the apartment was pretty quiet, especially when I realized how much different speaking in a classroom is compared to an actual Spaniard. Its alot easier to have conversation in class when you have been studying the vocabulary and grammar leading up to.

With our arrival at the apartment, she proceed to show me everything and explain how it all worked. Things like the tankless water heater, how to lock the door, where to put my keys, how to turn off the lights, etc. Ofcourse she had to repeat everything over and over again. It was a strange feeling for me to have a middle aged women show a (somewhat) grown man how to turn off the lights, not to mention have to repeat it several times until I understood what she was explaining.

One of my main phobias is misinterperting semi-important directions, which is why I often ask my hostmom to repeat almost all directions. I think she thinks I am kind of slow, which is fine by me, it will give me an inch for when I do mess something up...

Overall the first day I think I managed to craft about a half dozen somewhat comprehensible sentences in Spanish. I ended up going to bed at 8 exhausted.