Spain Update and Christmas in Europe

For those of you bitting your nails about whether, a week from now, I'll be flying home, trying to make it in Europe on my own, or moving in with a host family in Spain, I figured it was time for an update. I got an email back today from the woman who is going to be my host mother (who I've been trying to get a hold of for two or three weeks now) saying that they're looking forward to having me join their family this January. They are a family of five who live in the suburbs of Madrid. The father works for some big international company, the mother works at home and they have three children, a 10 year old daughter, who I will probably be working with the most, and two teenage sons. At this point, I am corresponding with the mother over email about when they would like me to arrive. So all is going well, and my plans are back on track.

In other news, we had a lovely Christmas. In Paris we met up with Mel's roommate, Amelia, who has an apartment in Paris for over winter break. As it turned out, her apartment was literally across the street from our hotel. So we spent a lot of time with Amelia and her friend Rachel. They had us over for Christmas Eve dinner. We had pasta carbonara and hung around. Mel called it her idea of a quaint European Christmas.

On Christmas day we actually woke up at 6am to catch our train to Amsterdam. The train ride was fine and we arrived in Amsterdam hungry and disoriented and had a mellow Christmas evening. Since then we've been seeing the sights of Amsterdam, which is a mercifully small city and easy to get around by foot. So far, it has to be one of my favorite cities that we've visited. The canals are beautiful, the people are friendly (a nice change after Paris) and we don't really have many plans except to relax and enjoy the city. This afternoon, we're going to go check out some museums and Mel's really excited for the after Christmas sales.

Tomorrow Chris flies back home. We'll see him off at the airport. Then Mel and I catch a 15 hour overnight bus to Prague where we'll be for New Years.

Hope that everyone back home had a lovely Christmas and will have a happy New Years.