Meeting TINA...(aka This Is Not America)

Greetings from Spain!

It´s 8:45 pm right now after a very long day of orientation, getting acquainted with San Sebastian, and reflection. Oh...and did I say that the weather was beautiful, clear, sunny 70s??? (We hear it is just a little bit cold and wet back home in Fort Worth!)

First, we all slept wonderfully, trying to overcome our lack of sleep for the previous 36 hours. We started off the day at the meeting room of the hostel, where we learned more about the service work done here at San Sebastian. We also met TINA...or This Is Not America--- differences in our distinct cultures. We are excited to be helping out with a "chat room" day to help Spanish/Basque students practice their English skills and learn about our culture while we learn about theirs! We also found out that we will be busy in schools Monday - Wednesday! We are very excited about that open door, too.

We spent the afternoon walking around San Sebastian. There were a lot of people at the beach today due to the warm weather, and we traveled up to the top of a mountain to see the glorious sights down below. On top of the mountain we were able to have some quiet time as individuals and groups to reflect. We have grouped the kids into 3 groups--Team Marshall, Team Justin, and Team Sam. Let´s just say the guys are enjoying leading their groups - they are being great young responsible gentlemen! Then we headed back down for an ice cream treat and then helped prepare the brand new storefront, "Chat Room", for our big day tomorrow. Dinner was then at a local restaurant where we tried many different and very tasty region specialities.

The kids (and us!) are pretty tired - like we warned in our letter before leaving, we are walking, walking, walking, walking! (Which helps burn off all of the yummy calories we are consuming!) We were also able to go to a marketplace this afternoon and get several bottles of water for each student to carry around. Tomorrow we are going to try and go back for some fruit. We are eating a lot of bread! We are all in good spirits, good health, and look forward to the week to come.

Until tomorrow--- The Spain Team