I Made It!

Wow, I made it to Guadalajara! I left Wabasha this morning about 6 a.m. for the airport with my mom, dad, and Brian. I was feeling good and happy about everything until I gave everyone hugs and kisses and then the tears started to flow. They didn't last too long, but then they came again as I was sitting on the plane! I flew out of Minneapolis/St. Paul around 9:30 heading to Houston, TX. It was a pretty good flight, except for I can't find my Ipod so of course I had no music. :(

Anyway, I had a two hour layover in Houston and my flight left for Guadalajara at 2:30. It seemed like a pretty quick flight. I was pretty nervous about my connecting flights and all the little things that go along with flying. I landed in Guadalajara at 4:45 and we were transported via bus to our door to enter Immigrations and Customs. Everything was going really well up to this point. I walked through the doors from Customs into the main entrance of the airport to be surprised by the mass of people waiting on either side of these gates. I felt like a superstar! So I saw the place where I get a taxi and got that all done. It was somewhere around 30 minutes to get to my house from the airport.

I got to my house, which is a little condo-like building with a gate in front and I knocked on the front door. I was getting really nervous at this point! My host mom yelled "Whitney?" from the upstairs window and I answered, "Sí!" She came to the door and gave me a big hug and kiss on the cheek! It was great. I knew at that point it was going to be all right. :)

After she showed me the house, we sat down at talked for a long time. Her Spanish is really fast and it's a little hard for me to understand it all right now, but I'm hoping it'll only make me better. She's already complimented me on my great Spanish already! I showed her pictures of friends and family as we were sitting there.

My host mom, Eugenia is also a host mom for her grandson Alejandro who stays here at the house too. I also met her husband Luciano tonight, who seemed like a nice man. Two of her other grandkids stopped by, a little boy who's 3 and a little girl, 1. They are adorable!

I've just gotten everything settled into my room and am getting tired! Eugenia is walking me to school tomorrow for my evaluations and orientation type stuff. My roommate is coming from Virginia tomorrow and will be here early in the morning too.

What an awesome adventure this is going to be!

-Whitney