Small Moments

Lately, I've been experiencing a lot of these small moments where I'll be talking to my host-mom or sitting in class and everything is going along smoothly... then it hits me: Holy crap. They're speaking Spanish. And I'm speaking Spanish! This is another language that is not English and I understand it. How did this happen? Don't I speak English? Spanish? What? ¿Qué?

Then I snap out of it and realize the conversation has moved on and I no longer understand what we're talking about anymore. I don't know whether or not to take this as a good sign...

Plans for October

The pace in Spain has been hard to get used to. The moments range from gone-in-the-blink-of-an-eye to lingering-and-staggering-last-forever kind of moments. I've been here more than three weeks, and it feels like three months, but at the same time I feel like I could never have enough time here and it's constantly slipping through my grasp. Am I making any sense? Time is a funny thing.

I guess what I'm trying to say is better explained by some of the advice I got before I left: "The first three weeks will feel like three months, the last three months will feel like three weeks." This means that most of my lingering-and-staggering-last-forever kind of moments are behind me, and from here on out it's a water slide back to Colorado. No matter how hard I try to slow things down, it'll only keep going faster. So in an attempt to prepare for this, my friends here and I have been planning.

The month of October will be a busy one, that's for sure. Next weekend (Sept30-Oct2) we don't have specific plans, but Jenn, Parker, and I will have our bonos by then, which are a one-time payment pass that allows us to use the buses, trains, and metros in Alcalá and Madrid unlimitedly. So the chances of going to Madrid every day that weekend are pretty likely.

The next weekend (Oct7-9) I'll be working like crazy to get all my homework done for the week before my boyfriend, Jared, comes to visit on the 10th. (So excited!!!) But in addition to the studying (and counting the seconds until he gets here), we bought some cheap tickets to a bull fight for the 9th. I'm having mixed feelings about bull fights, to say the least, but it's a big part of the culture, and I know I'll be asked if I went a million times once I get back. I figure if it gets to be too much to handle, I can always just leave.

Classes are canceled for the 10th of October, so I'll be heading down to the airport to fetch Jared. Once he gets here, we'll check out Festival Cervantes (which has been described to me as a sort of Spanish renaissance festival) and I'll show him around. Three days later, he and I fly out to Marrakech, Morocco, which is sure to be an adventure every second of the way. When we get back, Jared goes to stay in Madrid, I'll have to resume school, and we'll try to find a way to make our two schedules line up as often as possible.

The weekend after Jared leaves (Oct28-30) I've planned a trip to Barcelona with Jenn and Parker and one of the girls who came here from CSU with me. We'll fly out late that night after classes, stay in a hostel for the weekend, do some sightseeing, and be back in Alcalá for Halloween. Not that they celebrate it here, but I plan on creating a celebration of my own.

Somewhere in there I'll do homework. I swear.

(p.s. I've gone back through and added some photos to a couple old posts. So check those out, or see all of the album on my facebook page!)

A "Real" Spanish Night Out

Last Friday night was what I'm deeming my first "real Spanish night out." Around 8:30pm I hopped on a train to Madrid to meet up with my friend Graham, who lives there and teaches history at a bilingual school. By the time I arrived at his apartment, it was already packed with people from all over the world. I met a Germans, Italians, Mexicans, Spaniards (of course,) and a whole group of people from France! The French people were the best since a lot of them weren't that much better at Spanish then I was, so they spoke slowly and had a vocabulary I understood, for the most part. We ate dinner there as a huge group-- risotto and some sort of salad with apples in it-- then hung around the apartment until about half past midnight. In Spain, when they go out for the night, they mean the entire night. We didn't get back to Graham's until around 5am.

I expected to bar hop a lot, but instead we stayed the entire night at this awesome bar called Super Sonic. They played the best music, mostly American stuff but I'm okay with that :) I danced for something like four hours straight! And the best part was, since I was one of only two Americans there, everyone assumed I knew the dance moves that went along with the songs they were playing! I think it was the first time ever that someone assumed I knew what I was doing in terms of dancing.

I got a bit of sleep at Graham's before boarding another train back to Alcalá. Needless to say, the early morning/late night train ride was not a lot fun, but I made it through and back home where I slept most of the day. I'm not convinced that this is the lifestyle I want back home, but I can say that I'll definitely be back at Graham's place before too long!

Three Day Weekends and I Guess Some Classes, Too

Photo of Instituto Franklin where all of my classes are held

My first week of classes ended last Thursday, and I know I promised a blog, but the weekend came and went before I even realized! So you're getting it now.

You may have noticed that I said "last Thursday" not "last Friday" in the first sentence of my post. That is not a typo, but rather a very important detail, and constituted a decent part of my decision in which school to attend. Students of El Instituto de Franklin a la Universidad de Alcala don't have class on Fridays! This means every weekend is a three-day weekend and perfect for traveling around the country, and hopefully a bit around Europe, too! That's only four days of classes each week, although classes last longer here than they would at CSU.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I attend my Cervantes class at 10:30 in morning. (This is my earliest class, too! Awesome!) This is by far the hardest class I'm taking in terms of both work load and content. So far we're only reading about 10-15 pages for each class, but keep in mind that it's all in Spanish so it takes me just about as long as 50 English pages would. The content is a little slow right now, but we're still doing background and haven't even gotten to Cervantes yet.

On Mondays I also have a Spanish film class! This class is three hours long, but meets only once a week. Last week we watched La Lengua de Las Mariposas, which I would highly recommend. It takes place just before the Spanish Civil War, and sympathizes with the Republicans who were in power at the time. It's a sad one, though, and I'll be honest-- I teared a little up at the end. This week was a very different film, La Raza, which I wouldn't recommend as highly, although it is pretty interesting. You can basically sum the film up as a piece of propaganda for the Nationals (who were against the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.) It was even written by Francisco Franco (Spanish dictator) under a pseudonym. The film's in black and white and has a lot of ridiculous scenes with the Republicans breaking into churches to kill crippled children and things like that.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays is my Spanish Culture and Civilization class. There's not much to say about this one so far. I really like my teacher, but for the first week we only discussed some basic geography of Spain, nothing too interesting. Based on the reading we had to do tonight, I think we're moving onto ancient Spain tomorrow!

On Tuesday afternoons (this is another 3 hour/once a week class) I have a theater class. This one should be very interesting and I don't quite know what to think yet. I thought it was going to be a literature class, reading plays and going to see them and such, but it turns out to be more of the practice of theater than I originally imagined. So this means I'm not quite done with theater like I thought; our final exam for the class is to put on a play for our peers. We haven't been told which play yet, but I'm sure the results will be interesting at least!

At lot happened this weekend, too, but this post is already long enough as it is, so I'm going to sum it up as quickly as possible: Friday to buy books and take pictures, Saturday to the "Parque de Atracciones" (amusement park), Sunday to El Rastro (giant downtown flea market) in Madrid! Okay, that's all you get for now! I'll write again soon!

Garlic Bread for Breakfast and Pork For All the Rest

It's been four days and I'm finally starting to feel a bit settled here in Spain. My family is very nice and eager to help me improve my Spanish skills. Pepi, my host mother, shares my love for reading and we spend a lot of time talking about books. Irene, my host sister, is my age and loves boots and cars. She speaks a little English, which helps in confusing situations, but we primarily speak Spanish with each other. Miguel is my host father, who seems like a fairly quiet person because we haven't spoken much at all. There's also Raul, my host brother, who's 12 but tall enough to look 16. He barely spoke to me the first few days, but he has a penchant for violent video games and really opens up when you ask him about them. He promised to teach me the art of Grand Theft Auto while I'm here. There is another student staying with us, as well, named Jennifer and she's very friendly and from Oklahoma. We get along really well and are almost never apart.

My host family and I eat almost all of our meals together, and while I love the company, it will take a while before I get used to the food. As the title of this post suggests, yesterday we had a breakfast that primarily consisted of the Spanish equivalent to garlic bread. Today we switched to the more conventional tostada con mermelada de fresa (toast with strawberry jam), but the breakfasts here are very small and lunch isn't until 2:30 or 3pm most days. Jennifer and I usually bring an apple with us after breakfast to eat between meals. Almost every lunch and dinner I've had here has been based around some pig product. The first day we had spaghetti with bits of bacon, and twice now my dinner has been a slice of pork with a strip of cheese on top. I eat whatever is put in front of me, but I can't honestly say I've enjoyed most of it.

photo of Jamón Serrano a.k.a. the pig leg in out kitchen

It's been four days and I'm finally starting to feel a bit settled here in Spain. My family is very nice and eager to help me improve my Spanish skills. Pepi, my host mother, shares my love for reading and we spend a lot of time talking about books. Irene, my host sister, is my age and loves boots and cars. She speaks a little English, which helps in confusing situations, but we primarily speak Spanish with each other. Miguel is my host father, who seems like a fairly quiet person because we haven't spoken much at all. There's also Raul, my host brother, who's 12 but tall enough to look 16. He barely spoke to me the first few days, but he has a penchant for violent video games and really opens up when you ask him about them. He promised to teach me the art of Grand Theft Auto while I'm here. There is another student staying with us, as well, named Jennifer and she's very friendly and from Oklahoma. We get along really well and are almost never apart.

My host family and I eat almost all of our meals together, and while I love the company, it will take a while before I get used to the food. As the title of this post suggests, yesterday we had a breakfast that primarily consisted of the Spanish equivalent to garlic bread. Today we switched to the more conventional tostada con mermelada de fresa (toast with strawberry jam), but the breakfasts here are very small and lunch isn't until 2:30 or 3pm most days. Jennifer and I usually bring an apple with us after breakfast to eat between meals. Almost every lunch and dinner I've had here has been based around some pig product. The first day we had spaghetti with bits of bacon, and twice now my dinner has been a slice of pork with a strip of cheese on top. I eat whatever is put in front of me, but I can't honestly say I've enjoyed most of it.

Our classes start tomorrow morning at 10:30 am. I think that by the time I receive my first assignment, this will finally stop feeling like a vacation. I'm not too worried about classes, although understanding the language is sure to present a whole new set of challenges. I'll write again soon and let you know how it goes! Take care!

Lost in Alcala

Well the inevitable has happened and I got lost alone in Alcala, and after barely more than 24 hours! I feel like that must be a new record or something. After a long day of orientation and touring Alcala and Madrid, some of the other students from CSU and I decided to go out for tapas and gelato. We had a great time (partly because we agreed to allow ourselves to speak in English until Monday) and decided to head home around 11. The two girls I was with are staying only a few blocks from each other, so they walked in the opposite direction. I caught bus #3 as my host family directed, and rode it for about ten minutes until I thought I found my stop. Of course, I hadn't. So I decided to walk a bit further, thinking I was only a few blocks from home. Of course, I wasn't. Then I decided to wait for another bus, only to have two pass by me without even slowing down. I retraced my steps, found an earlier bus stop and finally got one to stop, thinking that soon enough I'd see my stop and get off there. Of course, I didn't. I ended up near the hospital and decided to get off there assuming they'd have a pay phone. Luckily, this time I was right and I called for a taxi. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, a taxi showed up, but this couple jumped into it before I had a chance to even get close. Then another taxi showed up, but wouldn't let me get in because another woman had called for it. Finally, my taxi arrived (or at least a taxi that would let me get in) and I finally found my way home.

Strangely, I feel a bit better now that I've gotten lost. To be honest, I was freaking out at the time, but now that I'm home safe I feel better about it. Getting lost isn't so bad as long as you keep your cool and have enough money to pay for a taxi, and I'm glad I've done it once so maybe it won't be so bad next time. Or maybe my logic is just off-kilter because I'm jet-lagged and culture shocked out of my mind. So I'll take this as my cue to go to sleep, I'll write more about my other (more pleasant) experiences soon!