We departed on Saturday, May 12 from Raleigh airport at 5:30 p.m. 
Prior to departure we had 2 orientations in which we discussed in great detail all aspects related to the culture and what to expect from the program in general.
The students received a large manual with instructions and assignments to explore political, historical and economic aspects of both Spain and the United States.

We met at the airport at 2:30 p.m.  The student's first assignment was to be at the airport no later than 3:00 p.m.  We had a great start, everyone was in time.

 Our flight left right on time.  We stopped in New Jersey where we had a 3 hour lay over and met the rest of the group. Joe, Kelly and Amanda joined us in Jersey .  I remembered on the way to Jersey that I forgot to tell the students about Amanda, who was joining the group from Saint Joseph's College in New York.

Elyssa was very pleased to finally know who her housemate is Spain was going to be.   She has talked to most everyone and still had not figure out who her housemate was going to be. On the other hand, Amanda was also happy to realize that she was not the only one who did not know the others.  Although all the other 16 students came from UNCW, not everyone knew everyone.  

We arrived in Madrid's Barajas airport on Sunday after 8 and half hours in the air plus other 4 hours of waiting time.  Our flight was 30 minutes ahead of the scheduled time though. What a great start! We had a private bus waiting to take us to Ubeda which is about 4 hours south of Madrid.  We found the bus but not the bus driver.  I walked back and forth between the airport and the bus parking lot for about half an hour before we realized that the bus driver had been sleeping inside the bus the entire time.  We were a little frustrated at first but laughed afterwards.

Once we left Madrid we started to see the most beautiful landscape and many bull metal silhouettes. The landscape was very beautiful and different.  It was very hilly and covered with thousands of olive trees.

We arrived in Ubeda right at the scheduled time. Isabel Ruiz, the host family coordinator and the host families were waiting on the group at SA.FA (Escuelas Profesionales de la Sagrada Familia).  We went into one of the classrooms to meet the host families.  The weather was perfect!