by Stephanie Cook '12

Greetings from the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City! I am sitting at the gate with my fellow Catawba classmates waiting to board our plane at 11:20 PM. It is only 8:30 PM right now, so we have a few hours to kill. Even though we have had to wait for awhile, we were fortunate to have seen Beyonce and Jay-Z walk by us! When my friend Mary Alice pointed them out to me, I quickly ran closer to the couple to see if it was indeed the two celebrities. It was! Both were well dressed and only had one bodyguard protecting them, which was quite surprising. I wanted to go and introduce myself, but I figured I would hold back the temptation to do so. Millions of people have probably tried to introduce themselves to the two stars, and I doubt they would want another person doing the same. It was just cool to at least see them and be close in distance to them!

Earlier in the day, I had taken a flight from Atlanta to New York City. The flight was only two hours, which wasn't so bad. I slept for some of it, which killed some time. I started chatting with the guy sitting next to me when I woke up, so that made the time pass by quickly. After telling him where I was going and what I would be doing, he told me I was going to have the time of my life. I could not be in more agreement with him! I have never been out of North America, thus I am very exhilarated about this exciting journey! It will be an even better experience since I will be with friends the entire time. Besides having fun and traveling, one of my goals for this trip is to improve my Spanish as much as possible so I can become closer to obtaining fluency in the language. I am going to try to speak as much Spanish as I can; I want to become immersed in the culture and language during my time in Madrid.

That's it for now, I will update when we arrive in Madrid! Adios!

PHOTOS: Study Abroad in Spain