This is my bed with 3 months worth of clothes on it?! It doesn't really look like that much...

My first post! Well I wanted to write something before I left just about my trip in general. Started packing yesterday, which I probably should have done earlier but I will still get everything done. This is so crazy that in a day and a half (allowing for travel time) I will be in a different country and won't be coming back for 3 months! I return on December 18th, just in time for Christmas.

I have never been to a different country. Hard to believe, right? Well I guess if you count Rosarito, Mexico as a different country then I have, but other than that I have never ventured outside of the US borders. My first time abroad I will be living there for 3 months. That is just so crazy for me to wrap my head around.

The town that I am staying in is named Valladolid. It is north west of Madrid and from what I heard is about an hour and a half train ride to Madrid. The town itself is made up of a lot of students from the University of Valladolid, and there will also be lots of international students there. My classes consist of two Cal Poly Ag business classes, taught by the professors that are going on the trip with us, and two spanish classes at the University. I think I will be in class with lots of other international students so that will be really cool getting to know some of them as well.

This trip is through Cal Poly so the cool thing is that I am going with a group of about 40 Cal Poly students and all of my units that I will be taking will transfer over no problem! I will also be staying with a host family with one other person from my Cal Poly group. This is the part of the experience that I am most excited/nervous about. I don't know anything about the family except for their name, and I'm not sure how many people are in the family. I am hoping it won't be too hard to communicate with them at first considering my Spanish is not that good...

Must finish packing now, and then off to do some more errands on my LAST DAY in the US! EEEKKKK!!!!!

Abby

p.s. here is my address just in case anyone wants to send me some snail mail :)

Abby Mathis

Centro de Idiomas, FG, UVa

Ciudad Universitaria Miguel Delibes

c/ Cementerio, s.n.

47011 Valladolid

Spain