Excerpts from Ashleigh Loudenback's Letters Home:

I discovered that I was really and truly in Spain in -- of all places -- the metro. I was so preoccupied that I missed my metro stop, a mistake that would turn my usual ten-minute ride into an hour. A few stops later, three men came onto the metro and began to sing and play their guitars for money, a typical occurence in Spain. All of a sudden, the man sitting across from me rose to his full five feet and ten inches and began to sing along with the trio. His voice was strong, like an opera singer's, and it overpowered everything. The tight spaces of the metro amplified the sound. This would almost never happen in the U.S. It was in that moment, watching the singing man, that I realized I was in Madrid.

My first impressions of being here come from noticing a large change in myself. I feel constantly overwhelmed, and I can't ever seem to stop thinking. I have never wanted to turn my brain off so badly. My brain even dreams in Spanish.

As of now, the biggest problem I have encountered is being in public. Everyone seems to walk around avoiding eye contact and no one smiles at each other. On the metro, everyone looks away, staring instead at signs, shoes, and the metal door handles; you simply do not look at others. If you do make eye contact, by mistake of course, you pretend that you did not, and immediately look away. It is not that people here are mean, it is just a different way of interacting. Smiling is a reflex for me and as of now, I have been unable to stop it.

Another thing that has been really frustrating for me is the language. I am used to being able to ask questions when I want to and not being afraid of offending other people every time I speak. In Spanish, I seem to stick to the five phrases that I know are grammatically correct.

Life here for me is so up and down. Sometimes, I condemn everything and cannot get over how foreign this lifestyle seems. The cars almost hit you even when the crosswalk says you can go; Spaniards eat dinner at 9:30pm and still believe that a cookie breakfast; the teenagers literally stay out all night and still manage to go to school; and for some reason, they keep their milk in the cupboard. On the other hand, Spaniards love to spend time together, are not afraid of singing out-loud in public, do not seem to fill their lives with stress, and appear to be happy with so much less. Spain is amazingly wonderful and constantly challenging, and I want more of it.