¡mi familia española!

I've had multiple requests for pictures of my host family here, and on my last day in Valencia I finally got around to taking a couple pictures.

Amparo- mi madre española :)

Ainhoa- mi hermana española

I really liked the family I was placed with, they were very helpful and my host mom made the transfer to Spanish culture so much easier.  She was always ready to help me with any question I had and always made sure I ate copious amounts of food and had many many blankets.  Today she wrote out 2 recipes for my favorite foods that she makes and is going to show me how to make tortilla de patata tonight- something I will definitely be making myself in the future.  

I didn't blog about my trip to Madrid/Segovia, but I'll put up some pictures of it. It was a short trip, I got to tour a material engineering building/labs because that's what Chelsea is majoring in and she visited one of her professors who is doing research in Madrid.  I also saw the "center point" of Madrid, which is marked with a tile that says "kilometer 0," supposedly all of the roads start or end there.  Segovia was the first city in Spain that I saw when I was here three years ago, I stayed with a host family there for three days.  It was fun to be able to go back there and see the aqueduct and alcázar castle- I definitely never imagined that I would get the chance to go there again.  It feels like I've come full-circle with my Spain traveling but hopefully there will still be more opportunities to come back here in the future. 

Chimo - my intercambio