Hi readers! I just got back from my weekend spent in a bus going through mountains Morocco, AFRICA, and boy do I have lots to share. So, please enjoy this picture of me trying to reason with a camel and know that I am now a seasoned world traveller with a bajillion pictures to sort through and a paper due on Tuesday. A fun and exciting post is to come!
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Taking all of my classes in Spanish is really hard, and for the better part of the last two weeks or so, I have just been really frustrated with it all.
Every day that I am in class is a struggle. I am a really hands-on learner. I need to see, touch, and speak in order to learn the best. I need to rephrase what the teacher just said and have them tell me it is correct. Am I high maintenance? Maybe. But maybe this is one of the reasons I want to be a teacher.
So picture my frustration everyday in class when the professor asks a question and I have to first figure out what they said (Spanish to English), then search my brain for an answer, then translate my answer (English to Spanish). By the time I happily raise my hand to contribute, the question has been answered and the class has moved on, leaving me in the dust. I just can’t process it fast enough! The same goes for reading in Spanish. Like I’ve said before, my Literature class really is something. Just about every night, I have a reading assignment to complete, which is easy enough, BUT IT IS IN SPANISH. Don’t get me wrong, I can read. In fact, I can read aloud, and my pronunciation isn’t too shabby either. I just can’t tell you what I read. In order to discern any meaning from the texts, I have to sit down with a dictionary and go phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. It takes a looooong time, and as you can probably imagine, I usually don’t finish my reading assignments.
All of this together is reminding me of a Special Education class I had at Eastern last semester, where we learned about different types of learning disabilities. The difficulties I am having in class are really similar to some of the difficulties that go along with disabilities we learned about in class: mainly with needing extra time to process information. In the class I had, we watched a video that showed how frustrating of an experience this is for students who have to deal with it every day. When I had the class, I didn’t really fully understand the frustration that the video was trying to convey, but now, I get it. It’s really hard, day after day, to be struggling to convey your answers in class. And sometimes, I’m so lost, I can’t even find space to ask for help. It’s something I’ve never experienced before, and I don’t like it. Looking at things from a more positive angle, maybe this experience will make me a patient and understanding teacher. I never want a student in my classes to feel as confused and frustrated as I have felt at times throughout this semester.
In addition, I have a hard time seeing the importance of doing my homework (other than the fact that my grades here directly transfer to Eastern: no pass/fail option for me). It’s just that when I am doing homework I usually spend most of the time flipping through my dictionary, looking up every other word, then I give up and look for the English version online or just put my books away altogether. In contrast, when I watch a movie with my host grandparents, go to a bar, or meet with my speaking partner, I can feel my language skills improving: it just feels like a better use of my limited time here.
I guess I need to find a happy medium with all of this homework.
(Also, I have three tests this week and I should be studying, that’s why you are treated to a blog post. Aren’t you lucky?)
Every stereotype that you’ve ever had about Spanish people loving fútbol is probably correct. These guys can’t get enough of it! Little boys run up and down the streets all day long, dressed in jerseys with famous names written across their shoulders, kicking balls back and forth to show off their footwork. In Sevilla, there are two teams with a rather strong rivalry. The first (which I believe is the oldest team in Andalusia) is the Sevilla Football Club, and the other is Real Betis Balompie. According to a taxi driver who drove me home during a game a couple weeks ago, the Sevilla fans are the rich ones, and the Betis ones are not. The part of the city where the street Betis is located is on the other side of the river, further from the city’s center and with older buildings, so the difference between the teams is economic, social, and geographic.
My house with Pilar and Miguel is located right next to the Sevilla team’s home stadium, so on game days, the neighborhood is full of excited, intoxicated fútbol fans. There are a lot of bars in my neighborhood (because it is Spain) and Miguel has warned me to be careful walking home because “men and alcohol isn’t good”. But, when the game is on, the fans forget about everything else. Last week, my friends and I were in a bar during a game and while plays were happening, every mug of beer and plate of food was stationary on the tables while eyes were glued to the television screens as twenty year old men who at eight years old thought they were going to become world famous fútbol players watched their favorite athletes race each other across a field of green. In school here, it seems like fútbol is really the only sport offered. I’ve heard some talk of basketball, and volleyball for girls (but girls don’t really play sports), but fútbol is easily the most popular and most idolized sport in this country. The players are celebrities. They are young and handsome, raking in millions of euros each season, and everyone seems to know who they are. I think that this could be because fútbol is one of the only sports in the country, so there are less pro athletes for people to keep track of.
Anyways, right now I am watching the latest fútbol game with my host grandparents (okay I’m only listening to the game because I’m writing this), and boy is it something. I don’t know why, but seeing seventy something year old grandparents get excited and yelling and screaming about a game on TV is just really funny to me. Pilar can’t handle watching the screen, she runs in and out of the room refusing to look, while Miguel occasionally looks up from his computer. He periodically calls to her to sit down and watch, or otherwise calls out the score so she knows what’s happening. They are both yelling a lot in Spanish, and at one point they were chanting some sort of cheer for their team. Every time something exciting happens, they scream and celebrate, and then either the phone rings, or they pick it up to call and converse with their friends and children about what just happened.
They are really nice people.
Last weekend, my friend Chantelle (she’s from Eastern, #truemu) and I went to Madrid all by ourselves just like grown ups! It really was a nice little trip and we didn’t spend too much money.
We travelled by bus–the company is called Socibus– to Madrid on Friday morning. Miguel drove us to the bus station, and Pilar packed us lunches for the bus ride. Now let me tell you, you don’t know a clash of cultures until you are sitting in your 75 year old host grandfather’s BMW driving past ancient mansions and the Black Eyed Peas comes on the radio and he starts humming along. It was quite funny. All in all, the bus isn’t a bad way to travel if you are a college student with a flexible amount of time on your hands. My only complaints about the bus were that it left late, and I started to feel a little sick going through the mountains. However, the bus was clean and the stations were easy to navigate. Plus, it was really cheap. (There is also the added bonus of a good story to tell: we think that someone got arrested off the bus by undercover police officers–policía incógnito–when we arrived to Madrid. However, we could be wrong because it all happened in crazy fast Spanish.)
We stayed at Hostel Benamar, which was really nice and located within walking distance of cool stuff in Madrid. I was a little worried about the fact that it was a hostel instead of a hotel, but Miguel and Pilar looked at it online and it earned their recommendation, plus it had really good reviews online. For the price, we did really good! It was clean, our room and our hallway locked, and we had a private bathroom. But, tips for any travelers out there: did you know that your driver’s license doesn’t really count for identification once you leave the US? It was news to me, everyone wants to see your passport for proof that you are a real person.
On Friday we went to a late lunch at Steakburger, which is a really cool place. It reminded us of a coffee shop or hipster hangout in a big city: there were exposed brick walls and cool furniture and cool people. The walls and menus were newspaper themed, and the waiters wore newsie hats. Also, the food was the most american-like food that we’ve found yet.
That night, we went on a Sandeman’s New Europe tapas tour. (This is a really cool company: they do tours all over the world, plus we had the option to take the tour in English.) We of course took the tour in English, and amazingly, we learned a lot! For the tapas tour, we paid €14 upfront and got escorted to three different tapas places in the city of Madrid with our tour group. Our tour group had some college students like us, a few families, and a dozen rowdy Indian men from the United Kingdom.
The first tapas place we went to was really small, and they weren’t prepared to accommodate our big group. We got all shuffled up going in, and that’s how I found myself sitting at a table with a bunch of middle aged (please read: old) men with heavy accents who showed me a video of the salsa dancing club they went to the night before about four times. Chantelle ended up at the table with the other college kids, and I still don’t know how that happened. I got a free glass of tinto de verano out of the deal, though, so I can’t complain that much! Here we learned that tapas, the tradition that Spanish people have of eating a small amount of food along with alcoholic beverages, have about a million stories of origin. The two most common stories are as follows:
1. There was once a king drinking wine on a beach or somewhere sandy. For some reason, he left the table for a while. The servant waiting on him, tickled pink to be serving the king, was terrified that the king would come back to a sandy wine glass. So, he picked up a small plate of food from the table and placed it on top of the king’s glass to cover it. When the king returned, he asked what the servant had done. After he explained, the king ate the food and drank the wine. Then, he asked for another glass of wine, with a “tapa”. (“Tapa” means top or cover).
2. Back in the day, water wasn’t safe to drink, so people drank alcoholic beverages. The workers in the fields were really poor, so at lunch, they had to choose between buying something to eat or something to drink. Many of them chose a drink (on an empty stomach), and they would return to the stiflingly hot fields drunk, to get no work done or pass out. The king at the time noticed this phenomenon and made a law that restaurants had to serve a little portion of food with every alcoholic beverage. This improved worker productivity, and probably his wealth. And now, the tradition remains: there are still cities in Spain that serve tapas with your drinks for free.
Next we walked (uphill, Madrid was different than Seville in that respect) to a larger place that was kind of like a deli I guess, except it was really big. There was the most meat hanging on the walls there that I have ever seen in my entire life or care to see ever again. Here, we got to try beer and learn that traditionally, it was seen as really rude to leave your dirty napkin on the counter for your waiter to pick up by hand, so it was customary to just throw whatever napkins or crumbs you had on the floor. While it’s not widely acceptable to do nowadays, this place still does it.
The final place we went to was famous for its cider. Hard cider is apparently really common in northern Spain. The reason that it is famous, however, is the way that it is poured. The waiter holds the glass as low as possible, while he is holding the bottle in his other hand above his head. He pours it from all the way up there, only spilling a little bit, and it is quite cool to see. They do this so that the cider gets air in it. When the waiter pours you a glass, he hands it to you real quick and you drink it right away while it still has air in it (otherwise it is really bitter).
After our tour, we met up with some of the kids we had met and went to a few bars and a discoteca. We had a lot of fun! (It turns out that Irish people aren’t as heavy drinkers as we thought they were, but that is another story). Madrid is a really busy city at night, and you can’t walk down the street without getting hassled by people promoting bars and discotecas. They have business cards and walk with you when you try to get away. I was very disappointed to discover that my fail proof excuse, “I don’t speak Spanish”, didn’t work here: the club promoters know English as well as I do (to nab tourists, I bet! Shame on them).
On Saturday morning, Chantelle and I woke up to a beautiful day and went on a three hour tour with the same company (Sandeman’s). The best part was that the tour was in English so we learned a lot. Some highlights include why some of the windows in buildings are so weird, where to buy sweets from nuns, details about the extinction of Spain’s famous ancient royal family, and finally an explanation as to why ham is included in almost every meal here.
The windows in buildings such as this lovely yellow one are so crazy because the builders were trying to disorient tax collectors after a law was passed saying that half of your property could be taken from you and a stranger could be living in your home. They wanted to make it hard to tell where half was. Tricky, huh?
It really is interesting to learn about the history of Spain, and the people here are fiercely proud of where they come from, so they will tell you all about it. At one time, Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lived in the same cities, working and trading together, learning each other’s languages, and getting along. But then people started getting pushy. All of the sudden, everyone had to prove to everyone else that they were Christian (more specifically, Catholic). Surnames were changed: today there are last names with etymologies that are untraceable. They just appeared out of nowhere, probably to hide a Jewish or Muslim ancestor (remember that in Spain, you receive both your mother and father’s surnames). Suddenly, if you had guests over to dine at your house, you served ham, so that everyone knew that you ate the forbidden animal. Jewish people invented stews that “had to simmer for two days”… but they really didn’t. They would make the stew on Friday and leave it on the fire for Saturday so that they could respect the sabbath without drawing attention to themselves and have something to eat for Saturday and Sunday. People made a big show of having a ham leg hanging in the window of their homes, so anybody who came by wouldn’t be suspicious.
So now, this ham tradition lingers, centuries later it is an integral part of many Spanish dishes. People try to play religion off, and say that it doesn’t matter, especially in the world we live in now, but it totally does. It is everything, it is the reason that the world we live in now is the way that it is. It’s amazing to think about, but it also makes me kind of mad (partly because I am sick of ham). But just think of the level of fear, of desperation, that would have to be instilled in you to make you change your entire way of life, your last name, to make you eat a food you have been taught is a sin to eat. Being in Spain has made me think a lot about religion in general and more specifically what I believe. At times, I have been downright alarmed at the things that I have heard Christians have done throughout history. Being in the cathedral in Granada, for example, I was overwhelmed and almost scared because of what a huge display of wealth and power it is. When I read the bible, I fully understand the necessity to praise and thank God, but never in a million years would the thought cross my mind that he would want me to build this huge magnificent building and fill it with enough wealth to make you sick. The other day at school, we watched the movie Agora, which takes place in 4th century Egypt. Some of the first Christians burned the library of Alexandria because they feared that it was against God, and now there are centuries of history in shadow because all written records of them are ash. These first Christians skinned Hipatia the Philosopher alive, because she was “questioning God”. It’s a lot to take in, and sometimes I am ashamed to learn about the things people who were supposedly following my God have done.
On the tour, we also got to see the Plaza de la Amería and the (old) Royal Palace. Besides being rather pretty, the plaza is special because bullet holes from the Spanish civil war scar the marble it is made from, and the buildings around it. This is cool to hear on a tour on a sunny Saturday afternoon, until you realize that men probably suffered and died right where you are standing. Next to the palace, you can look over a fence and see a hill that was home to some of the deadliest battles from the Spanish civil war. You would think that there would be a memorial or a plaque or something over there, right? No. There is actually an amusement park. This just goes to show the attitude about the Spanish civil war that is still present in Spain: no one talks. It’s safer that way. People are still scarred by the events that occurred in this bloody bloody war. Other effects linger as well: people like to say that Spain is super Catholic, but it’s really not. Most people here are non practicing Catholics. At times it seems like only the old people attend mass on a regular basis. But this is because during and after the war, innocent people were imprisoned and tortured and killed by nuns and priests. And now, the grandchildren of innocent people murdered in prison want nothing to do with the church because they know who was responsible for all the pain. And can you blame them?
On a lighter note, Chantelle and I spent Saturday afternoon shopping and walking all over the city. While it was really crowded, we did get to visit a lot of neat stores. After a nap, we got dressed up and went out to dinner (filled pizza: very fancy). Then, instead of going out to bars like we had originally planned, we went on an intense search for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream (they have that here in Spain). Before we could secure a pint, though, we stumbled across something even better: a fifties style american diner. The decor was right, and so was the menu. To our excitement, Ben and Jerry’s milkshakes graced the dessert menu. When they finally arrived, we were somewhat disappointed. Spanish influence on an American favorite left me wondering how in the world they got double fudge brownie Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to resemble the consistency of chocolate milk. But it was still a milkshake I guess, so I didn’t complain too much.
All in all, Madrid is a neat city to visit. The people there are really proud of their history and traditions, and it is neat to hear about stories that have been preserved for so long. However, it seems that everyone and their brother knows that Madrid is a cool place, because the city is full of tourists. Because of all of the crowds, I didn’t feel quite as safe as I do in Sevilla. I definitely think the relaxed nature of Sevilla makes it better for students looking to study abroad.
In Spain, they don’t like to have lights on in their houses. It’s fine, you get used to navigating in the dark. So, when I got home a few minutes ago, I stopped to talk to Miguel and Pilar in the living room for a few minutes, and then confidently sauntered down the long dark hallway to my bedroom, even though I couldn’t see. I knew where my room was, however, and turned just in time to run straight into the door. Hard. I aaalways leave the door open, and have no idea why it was shut today, but it sure did get me! I am 90% sure that my host grandparents heard me and chose to ignore it.
I have a new definition of “feels”.
It’s when you are walking down the street with your friends with bellies full from dinner, searching for an open ice cream parlor, and casually looking in the store windows at fancy watches, shoes, and handbags. Suddenly, something stirs beneath the dazzling light from the store window, and in the shadows of all the glamour, there are people sleeping on cardboard. Notice I said “people”. Not “homeless people”, but People. Huddled together with all their possessions and sleeping on a sidewalk. They were wondering if they were going to make it through a rainy night without getting wet, and all we were after was ice cream. If that doesn’t make you feel something, I don’t know what will.
I really really hope I never get used to sights like this, and I wish I knew a way to fix it.
Today I survived had the pleasure to experience my second family lunch with Miguel and Pilar. Each Wednesday, their daughter and two of their three sons (one lives with his family in Africa for his job) descend upon the tiny apartment with their spouses and children and I am surrounded (drowning) in Spanish for about two hours.
It is uncanny how similar this family is to my mom’s side of the family back at home. Like my family, this family has a brood of grandchildren stretching from just starting school to late teens, moms who drink multiple glasses of wine/diet coke throughout the meal, a six year old who is everyone’s baby because he’s the youngest, an older sect of cousins who sit with their phones out the whole time, girls who roll their eyes at the goofy jokes from their uncles and grandfather, a set of cousins less than a year apart in age with more than a foot of difference in their heights, aunts who force their teenage nephews to hug them, and lots and lots of noise. They all speak at once, and at times, more than one person is speaking to me. (Sidebar: I feel like Americans are stereotyped as being loud, but they’ve got nothing on Spanish people.) I almost wish they wouldn’t talk to me because I am so awkward, and I really enjoy sitting back and trying to follow the conversations exploding around me. Like most family gatherings I have known, cake is usually present, so that makes me like it a bit more.
Being around this family is a really important thing for me to see, I think. Being a college student in another country, it is easy to get caught up and only experience the bars, discotecas, and churros con chocolate. But part of the whole experience is seeing what is important to these people on the other side of the world. Refreshingly, I have found that their values don’t seem to be too different than those of my family. To this family, family is important. The kids attend the same school, which is located within walking distance of the home of their grandparents. They all go to mass together, and talk through telephone daily. And every week, they cram fifteen people into a tiny apartment so that they can all be together!
Conversations are frequently interrupted with “un besito, por favor” (a kiss, please), and loving embraces are shared between child and aunt/grandparent/father. The littlest grandchild hugs his grandmother’s leg in the same way my little cousins have for years. It’s really nice to see all of this, and though being reminded of home is a little painful, overall I enjoy it because at last it is something familiar. I think it has something to do with the culture shock I’ve been going through. Studying abroad and being completely immersed in a totally different way of life makes you question the way you were brought up and the manner you have of doing things. Being around this family, I see that the way I was brought up isn’t that crazy. This family is loud, loving and normal, just like mine, I don’t know if all of this love and closeness are normal for all of Spain, but I hope that it is.
Hi everyone! As my studying abroad journey continues, I feel the necessity to say again that this whole experience is no walk in the park. Spain isn’t my home, and I don’t think it ever will be. Is this experience unbearable? No. It’s far from it. However, I miss the familiarity of my own home and my own university. I also miss English.
Now, maybe these thoughts are just another phase of culture shock, and maybe they are not. It’s just, there aren’t always rainbows and sunshine and really super interesting people like everyone tells you to expect when you study abroad. It turns out, they call it “study abroad” because you actually have to go to class and do homework. My days aren’t always filled with cultural experiences and interesting conversations with locals. Actually, they are filled with coffee, raised hands in class, and whispers of “what did the teacher just say? It was in Spanish so now I’m confused.”
I’ve had a lot more homework than I expected, and I’ve learned that 18th century Spanish literature is not something you can wait until 30 minutes before class starts to read. (It turns out that procrastination is something that I do even on the other side of the world). My Spanish literature class is really giving me a run for my money. It’s really frustrating, because I know how to read, I LIKE to read, and I just took the American literature version of this class last semester, but in Spanish the texts are really really hard to understand.
I feel like my classmates are on edge too, and tempers are running thin. We’ve been here almost six weeks now, and that’s a lot of time to be constantly put out of your comfort zone.
A somewhat new development in my super exciting life is that I have recently acquired a mighty Sevici card. Now, you may ask, “what is this card, and what powers does it possess?”. Well, it gives me the power to rent out a bicycle from any of the stations conveniently located throughout the city of Sevilla, cutting my commute to school in half, and looking like the coolest chica in all the land. The Sevici bikes are kind of a big thing here. They are well advertised because people don’t use cars that much, and being eco-friendly is an every day goal. Also, the bikes really are an effective way of travel. Lots of people use them, from high school students to men in suits and ties.
Now, people close to me should cringe at the mental image of me riding a bike. Why? Well I don’t exactly have a great track record with bikes. A few rather eventful wipeouts (sorry about your basket, Aunt Alison) coupled with permanent scars (battle wounds) on my knees and elbows have culminated in the suggestion from my parents that I should always wear a helmet while riding a bike. Now, normally (because it is necessary!) I heed this advice. However, when in Sevilla, you do as the Sevillanos do. And I am way too fashion forward to be caught wearing a helmet here. So, I always keep these safety tips in mind, and I want to share them with you:
1. Don’t trust taxis to stop. They have places to go and people to see, don’t you know?
2. Don’t trust anyone to stop.
3. Disinfect afterwards. You just held on to handlebars for like 20 minutes, and people are gross.
4. Don’t do it in the rain. Cobblestone sidewalks are slippery!
5. In general, stick to the clearly marked green painted bike lanes instead of the sidewalks. (Then you don’t have to worry about tables and chairs of cafés, going up and down curbs, etc.)
6. Don’t assume that just because you are in the clearly marked bike lane, you have the right of way. You don’t (it’s literally a law in the center of the city). And when you ask people to kindly get out of the way in both in English and Spanish, they probably understood you both times, but they aren’t going to move.
7. LOOK BOTH WAYS BEFORE CROSSING THE STREET…twice. Check twice.
8. Don’t wear skirts on windy days, unless you want compliments on your underwear.
9. Watch out for small children. They are on the move!
10. Test out the bike before you rent it! The bikes here have a rough life, and some of them have sustained life-threatening injuries.
11. Pray a lot.
12. Be careful with the train tracks!! I’ve told you about the train/tram tracks throughout the city, right? Well I’ve seen them take out a few bikers and roller blading travelers, and it’s a painful thing to watch. If you must cross the tracks, take them head on, not at an angle.
13. Watch out for other people on bikes. There are some crazy drivers in this city.
14. If you are planning to put your backpack/purse/man bag in the basket on the front of the bike, you should have the strap wrapped around either you or the bike. Let’s not make it too easy for the bad guys, okay?
15. Thank God that Sevilla doesn’t have hills.
The bikes really are the best way to travel throughout the city, and while they can be a little tricky at times, I highly recommend them: they give you more freedom to explore larger distances and save lots of time. Here’s to hoping that I can keep my falling-off-a-bike-in-Sevilla count at 0!
Hello, me again. I hope you all enjoy this blog post, because I’m skipping my homework to do it. (It’s all in Spanish, and I’m quite sick of Spanish at the moment). After a weekend of doing pretty much nothing (a result of cultural shock and homesickness?) except hiding in my room and avoiding speaking except at meal times, I am pleased to say that today was a really good day with my host family.
When I left the house this morning, I found myself smiling, and I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was the peach jelly that I get to have on my toast for breakfast (I’m a sucker for peach jelly.). Or maybe the fact that putting sugar in your milk is a thing over here caused me to grin. Regardless, it was rather strange that I was smiling to myself before 9 on a Monday morning. I really like talking to my host parents, and they tell me a lot about their lives. I feel cared for as well. Perhaps this has something to do with the fondness with which they speak of their former American students that they have had through the years.
Dinner today was possibly the most enjoyable meal that I have had in Spain so far, and it wasn’t because the food was good (which it was-I’m also a sucker for good food). My host parents remember things that I tell them, and ask me about it later. They care about my brother, my dog, my parents, and what I want to be when I grow up.
We get to talk about their lives too. When they are having a conversation about someone I don’t know, they are quick to backtrack and explain the super cool thing their grandson just did so that I’m not lost. Today they were at mass with their grandchildren, and I got to hear about the singing and dancing, and was invited for tomorrow (but I have class 😞).
Today at lunch I was excited to tell them that I had received a letter from my grandma, and they asked me about her so I got to tell them about how she lives on the other side of the lake from me, goes to my church, has a dog, etc. Later at dinner, they asked me about the lake I live on. And then tech-savy Miguel pulled out his laptop, opened up google maps and started exploring Lake Orion from the comfort of his living room couch, only slightly puzzled by my pronunciation of the name. It really was cool. I got to show them the houses of my grandparents, the bay I remember learning to waterski in, and where my aunt and uncle live. Then he zoomed out and I got to show them where my uncle and cousin live, and where I went to high school. In the words of one of my professors, it was “super duper guay”.
They asked me how my classes went, and also how a shopping trip with a friend went this afternoon. When I revealed that the shopping turned into sitting and eating ice cream, they laughed and asked what flavor I like. After hearing that in my humble opinion, chocolate is the best, Pilar sprang from her seat and ran to the kitchen, returning with a bowl of chocolates she said I had to try. They were quite tasty if I do say so myself.
They really are gracious hosts. Next, they wanted to know about my plans to go to Madrid next weekend. They wanted to see the hotel we are looking at, eagerly passing my iPad back and forth and bursting with tips about traveling safely, picking good hotels, and where to go in Madrid. Thankfully, the hotel we were looking at earned their seal of approval. It was just a really nice exchange because they expressed the same ideas and concerns that my parents would, making sure that we are going to be safe. Miguel pulled up google maps again, and showed me the street we were looking at, the bus station, downtown Madrid, and adamantly warned me not to take the metro after dark.
While I’m still facing my fair share of homesickness and feeling weary about trying more new things after a solid month of doing so, it is rather nice to come home to the welcoming faces of Miguel and Pilar. Over the weekend while I was semi hiding from the world, I was thinking about living situations a bit. I stand by what I said before: showing up to live with someone in their house with their family for three and a half months is just weird. It seems to me that it could be possible that no one is really thrilled with their living situation-even the students in the dorms have expressed dislike at times. Maybe it’s because when you’re at home and it’s quiet, it’s easier to get overwhelmed by all the differences you have to face everyday, because when you are out taking pictures and exploring, the homesickness kind of fades away. Miguel and Pilar’s love is helping me a lot, though, and I feel like I’m being treated like another one of their grandchildren. I hope they know know important their kindness is to me.
Sam Goes to Spain 