5 weeks in and I feel like I just got here. These five weeks have been filled of adjustment. From adjusting to the time change, living with a new family, the food, the eating schedule, the culture, and the language, I now sometimes forget I am in an entirely different country. Getting through the first week was the most difficult. It really hit me that I was so far from home and could not as easily communicate with my friends and family due to the time change. Eating lunch at 3 and dinner at 9:30 or 10 took some getting used to as well. However, now I don’t know how I ate lunch and dinner so early at home. Or how I have gone this long without eating chorizo! Now the Spanish lifestyle seems natural. I embrace the amount of bread they eat (because Spanish bread is a million times better than American bread) and how often they eat dessert (no complaints about that one either). My host mom is absolutely amazing and makes me feel like part of the family and at home. She has told me that my Spanish has improved immensely since my arrival, which I hope she’s right! More often than not in the past few weeks my thoughts come to me first in Spanish, which makes me think I am getting closer everyday to becoming bilingual. Everyday I am reminded of how lucky I am to be here and how fortunate I am to have such an amazing host mom. For me, living with a host family has been the most beneficial and most amazing part of my experience. I wouldn’t change it for the world! Can I stay longer?
