Orientation Flop

Today was orientation. Gloria walked Gayti and me to school in order to show us how to get there. It’s a pretty easy walk, about 15-20 minutes and a mile from campus. It’s too close to take the train/ bus so there is no way to get there faster unless I buy a scooter, bike or moped which is definitely not happening! Anyways, SLU took us outside of Madrid into the mountains. The scenery reminded me of southern California – houses on the cliffs, a lot of mountains, and not much green plant life. When we arrived at our destination, I felt like we were at rehab. The premises was a large fenced in place with one large building, open grass, parks, basketball courts, tennis courts, soccer fields, trails, views of the mountains, away from the public and other commodities that a rehab getaway would contain.   Orientation is only one day and I wish it was a week-long similar to the majority of other study abroad programs that have the opportunity to travel in their orientation groups to various hot spots around the major city. I met a few people but not as many as expected because people just sat around not really doing much. The leaders enforced bonding for only about 30 min, and then we were free to do whatever we wanted. I met a guy named Mohammed from Saudi Arabia, Ahmed from Egypt and a few other people from other countries such as Germany and Switzerland which was pretty cool. Most of the students are from Saint Louis University in Missouri or Loyola Marymount University in L.A. I guess I have to spend my time bonding with my classmates in class in order to meet new people since orientation was very relaxed, allowing people to stick to their friends from home! Not having phones to easily punch in names and numbers does not help either.  I definitely will never take our cell phone system for granted after this trip that's for sure! Tomorrow is my first day of class – check back to see how it goes!!