The Very First Day by Lia Stavros
- mpstavros
- Aug 4, 2024
- 2 min read
We stopped in New York JFK on an overnight layover. I was feeling good about our trip to Europe. So, I woke up the next morning and got ready to get on the plane to Alicante, Spain. It took us about 8 hours to get to Alicante from NYC. But in total, it was about 13 hours from Arizona. We got off the plane in the morning and took a taxi to our new apartment. Mateo and I will be sharing a room with two twin beds and our parents have a slightly bigger room with a queen bed. After touring the apartment, everyone got settled in by putting all our clothes away, setting up homeschool stuff and organizing our bathrooms. Immediately after that we took about a 5-hour nap since we were barely able to sleep on the plane. I was so tired that I could've just fallen asleep on the floor. We decided to set an alarm for our nap, so that we would not sleep the entire day because we were trying to adjust to the new time zone (9 hour difference!), so we woke up to go grocery shopping at Al Campo (local large grocery store) since we needed some food. We struggled at first on how to get in to the grocery store, how to pay for a grocery cart (yes, you have to pay for it!) and where things were inside the store. We had to ask lots of questions from Spanish speaking locals. Luckily, after struggling some more, we managed to get out of the building alive with tons of things from the grocery store in our hands. Our stomachs were full because we filled up on the food in the food court upstairs since we were so hungry too. After walking back to our apartment in the humidity lugging multiple bags, it was the best feeling to get to our apartment with full blown AC. Sadly, Mateo and I had to help put away all the things that we bought instead of just relaxing, but we were still able to read a book before we went to sleep at about 3 AM. Our jetlag was so bad that we had a really hard time falling asleep. I was feeling a lot of sad emotions since I missed the dogs, my grandparents, my cousins, my friends and my home. But, as soon as I realized that God and my family is always there for me even when I might feel lonely, I felt a sense of calmness come over me. So even though I might feel sad and afraid at times about this new experience, I know that I won't feel like that for long, because it is so nice in Alicante with the beach, a nice apartment, my family and so much more to appreciate!
XO Lia Stavros
Boarding our flight from Madrid to Alicante
Landlord left us a welcome champagne and strawberries. So we bought whip cream to eat with the strawberries.
Settling in to our apartment.
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