Lost in the City

I wanted to take more pics of the apartment so I can post them but last night I discovered (after fully charging my camera battery) that my camera still wouldn't turn on and thus has died forever on me. great timing! soo until i buy another battery, sarah's pics on facebook will have to suffice. so this morning we had a yummy bfast of cereal & toast. the jelly is phenommm here. she had cafe on the table (i was extremely glad) & poured myself a large cup of it. big. mistake. no wonder spaniards drink coffee in those mini-size cups that look like they should be in a child's tea set. It's SO strong and no amount of sugar made it less bitter (trust me..i tried). anyways so after our madre took us on the bus to the school - about a 20 minute ride- & we quickly began orientation. couple of presentation yada yada we have to speak spanish in the center yada yada etc etc. poor jean's in a panic because she thinks her wallet is already stolen (she put it on her bedside table at night and it was gone in the morning). after some meetings with the program directors and tearing apart her apartamiento, she discovers its actually in her underwear drawer & has no recollection of putting it there. phew at least its not stolen! so after orientation, sarah and i decide were gonna head back to the apt to eat some lunch and take a siesta. we wanna mozy (sp?) on back (it's a 3 mile walk.....) but after staring at the map for 20 minutes and still not finding our street, we realize we have to go back in the school and ask where we live. yikes. now anybody who knows me even the slightest knows i am the absolute WORST with directions. i'm not talkin liiiike i don't know where a bar is because I've never been there before...i'm talkin liiike i still don't know where things in boca raton (where i was born & raised) are even though i've been there like a million times. it's actually kind of embarrassing and my sister alicia gets really angry with me for still not knowing which way is east at home (i know it's towards the beach!) SO. picture me in a city where theres a zapatería and mercado on every street and you can imagine how overwhelmed and lost i was. luckily sarah has more of a directionally-capable brain than i do but not before we got off at the wrong stop that was still about 35 minutes walking distance from our house. cool. some other american girls who heard us speaking english knew we were lost and helped us out with the map so we got baaack on da bus & then after 10 minutes realized we went too far so we hopped off...turned around and walked a couple blocks backwards until we finally reached the casa! hallelujah. i think our madre thinks we're tards now but in our defense she wasn't very clear explaining. after lunch she physically took us to the bus stops again to show us which one to take (89, 71, 90 ??) so hopefully we'll be able to figure it out tomorrow. tonight were gonna meet up w/ some peeps to get a bebida and explore the ciudad! yeyyy we're really excited the city is soo pretty. i can see why alicia loves it here...so urban but has lots of greenery and parks everywhere! its sweet but hopefully ill figure out where i am..........