Orientation Day

Monday Morning.

Can't believe it's already that time of the year for school again.

Isn't crazy enough that we are abroad?!? Do we really have to do this school thing?

Ok so it wasn't that bad. It was just orientation day. And actually I was really looking forward to the school year. Spring semester had really left a bad taste in my mouth. Orgo and Bio nearly drove me insane. Abnormal psych quickly became a joke of a class, and stats and social psych were okay just not the most exciting of classes. So yeah I was really looking forward to my new schedule. Plus physics this summer went really well so I had gained back some of my student mojo. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Orientation day.

So getting around Madrid, a city I did not know whatsoever was going to be a challenge. I had my phone data turned off for the semester so when usually I would just whip out my handy dandy notebook, just kidding iPhone (blue's clues reference) to find directions, I could no longer do so. The night before I had made sure to take a picture of the directions so that we would have a fighting chance of finding the school for the first time. So John and I embark on the endeavor of finding the school for the first time. We start walking in the right direction and then make the first turn with no problem, but then we start walking and find ourselves at an intersection with a lot of different options of where to go and I can't find the road that is on my directions so it was definitely an "well shoot" moment. Two American guys with no clue where to go. Luckily John still had access to his map on his phone and got us going in what we hoped was the right direction. After a few turns and small roads I was very turned around, but luckily we found groups of students being led by people in the famous SLU blue polos so we felt like we were in business. We tagged a long for the last leg of journey and finally saw some friendly faces in Theresa, Sarah, and Steph. We had made it to school haha. We grabbed a sticker that told us what room we were in, mingled for a little bit outside, and then in we went.

For those that don't know, SLU Madrid is a fairly small campus that consists of just three buildings named Padre Arrupe Hall, Padre Rubio Hall, and San Ignacio Hall. For the orientation we were going to be in Padre Rubio Hall which I consider to be the main building, not sure if it actually is, but it's in the middle of the three, has most of the classrooms, and houses student life.

So I was expecting orientation to be really informative because I had no clue what was going on. I had just gotten off a plane in a completely different country just the day before andI didn't really feel ready for anything. I also figured since it's SLU, everything is going to be organized and make sense….

Well not really, orientation wasn't that great or helpful. Went over a lot of basic stuff like logging into your account and how to work blackboard, the SLU online homework site, which being a billiken. I knew all about. It was definitely more towards students that did not attend SLU, but it was ok. I remained patient and got through it.

The weirdest part though was that they said there was going to be a snack, so I was thinking yes finally a chance for some water or lemonade… but no. all they did was dump out a bunch of chocolate bars. Chocolate was the last thing I wanted. One thing about Madrid at least for me, is that I get dehydrated so fast. I don't know what it is. Either the dry air or the fact I'm walking everywhere, but I am always wanting water it seems. And not knowing anything like I said, I did not pack a water bottle among the 80 lbs of luggage that I probably brought with me. So no water for Erik or lemonade which is something I soon started to crave here.

So with the presentation being over, that was basically the last organized orientation thing I took part in… yep thats all folks. The nice thing about the rubio hall is there is this awesome patio in the back that is very good for chatting, relaxing, chilling, reading. It is very pleasant. So everyone ended up milling around there afterwards not really knowing what to do. They did have a table set up for grabbing your Id and health insurance card so I did that and then just mingled, meeting new people, talking with familiar faces from SLU.

Strange thing happened. Me and John had just met this girl and mentioned that we liked basketball and then out of no where this girl says, yeah I know someone that knows somebody on the US team….
We were both like who?!?! and she didn't know which was lame, but the even stranger part was that she offered us free tickets to go to the championship game in Madrid… What ?!?!?!? We had just met this person. It was nuts either she was being ridiculously nice or had no idea what she was offering. But in never panned out… dang would have been sweet.

We got some lunch in the cafeteria and then decided to go to this public health and physical therapy meeting that was on the schedule to see what they had to say. It was kind of sill though because they had nothing prepared and were just staring at us to see if we had any questions. Nobody did. But they did talk about this unique hands on/shadow experience that I believe John and Theresa are going to take advantage of so it wasn't a complete wash.

We (John, Theresa, Sarah and I) then broke off from the rest of the group we had been walking with so that we could go in search of school supplies. We found this place near SLU called Carlins which had a ton of stuff to choose from. SO that was a clutch find.

After that I believe we headed home and rested for a bit as we waited for dinner. And then the night was finished with another basketball session. First full day of Madrid in the books,

Next up SCHOOL!

Here are some shots of my new school!!!