Host Family, City, School

Slowly but surely everything is coming together for me to hop on a plane in September.  The company I'm going through, Intrax, has placed me with an older, single woman, Maite, who lives with her 27 year old daughter, Cristina.  They live together in Cádiz, a region (and a city of its own) located in Andalucía.  Their house is about 10 minutes outside of the city of Cádiz, in a town called San Fernando.  San Fernando is referred to as "La Isla" or "The Island" and its natives are known as "the islanders."  Cristina attends university nearby, studying to become a lawyer (I think), and Maite works at the school I'll be attending, Colegio Amor de Dios, as a receptionist.  Every day we'll take the train into the old part of Cádiz together to get to school.  Apparently the train ride is gorgeous, and since San Fernando is an island, the train tracks are more or less surrounded by water.  The old part of Cádiz is said to be the oldest city in Europe and a lot of the buildings have Moorish architecture.  

Picture of a street in the old part of Cádiz:

Here are some maps that show you where Andalucía, Cádiz, and San Fernando are:

So, in about 65 days (September 18th) I'll be heading on a plane from Washington D.C. with all of my fellow Intrax students to Frankfurt, Germany and then Barcelona.  In Barcelona we'll meet up with some other exchange groups who go through the Spanish program called InterHispania and stay there for the weekend to check out the city and attend some in-country orientations.  From there I'll fly to Jerez de la Frontera to be picked up by my host family, the De La Higuera Calvos.  Long last name, I know.  I'll start school on September 22 at Amor de Dios - not too far away!

For now, I've finished up the grueling process of applying for a Spanish student visa.  I visited the Spanish Consulate in Washington D.C. on Monday and (hopefully) in about 5 weeks I'll be able to pick up my passport with a brand new stamp in it, saying that I can stay in Spain from September until the end of June.

I've been emailing with Maite, my host mother, a bit and all of us Intrax students have been talking about how excited we are.  We have a pre-departure orientation soon, by phone, so we're all looking forward to that.  Until September 18th, I'm planning on enjoying my last few weeks in the United States with family and friends, enjoying the summer.