Lessons Learned

My journey through Europe is slowly starting to come to a close (sad news forever :( ). I sadly said goodbye to my familia on Saturday morning and boarded a bus to take me to the Madrid airport to get on a plane for Rome. It was very hard to say goodbye to Lidia, Felix, and Juan; just the uncertainty of when, and even if, I'd ever see them again was hard to take after being a part of their family for three months. I've been having a wonderful time here in Rome, seeing all the things I've read about in real life (The Colosseum! The Sistine Chapel! The Trevi Fountain!), but I'm going to save those stories for another post and sum up what I've learned this trip - life lessons, not really academic things this time. 

1) People everywhere are friendly and willing to help, just ask!

I've never been a big fan of talking to people I don't know, but when your somewhat lost in the Netherlands, the only way you're going to make it back to Amsterdam is to ask the friendly policeman why the train station is closed/how to get back now. Just as an example. Every person I've met, once you've gotten past the communication barrier (more on that next) was delighted to provide assistance. Which really makes sense, since I know I'm always pleased when someone asks me directions and I can be helpful. A good thing to take note of for any future travels. 

2) I'm very fortunate to have English as my first language. 

London was the only place I traveled that used English as it's native language, but pretty much everyone I talked to, especially in the service and travel industries, but with the exception of French people, spoke English very well as it is the language of travelers. People with different native languages always defaulted to English to communicate with each other. While they sometimes struggled with their second language, I could always easily get out what I wanted to say. It really is a testament to America's influence on the world that our language is the global one. It does however also make us lazy in regards to learning another language, since we can travel and get by fine without one, a principle I don't agree with, which is why I was in Spain this semester. 

3) Spoken word is only a small part of communication. 

There were time when some one addressed me in a language I didn't understand, or I tried to talk to somebody, and totally communicated effectively with just the gestures employed and tone of language. In fact my first month and a half of listening to Felix talk, I only caught about 30% of what he was saying, but the tone he was saying it in and the context allowed me to appropriately respond with a smile and a nod, or a laugh, or a concerned look even though I didn't totally get what was going on. Another time in France, someone asked me to keep an eye on their bag while they went to the bathroom, the only word I caught was suitcase (malette or sometime along those lines) but just from where he was pointing, I understood what he wanted. It really is interesting to note that, and in fact the majority of species on our planet depend almost entirely on body language to communicate! 

4) Your grammar doesn't have to be perfect!

At the start, I would plan out everything in my head in order for it to come out perfectly. This however doesn't work in real life situations where you are conversing. However just speaking usually ends up in incorrect grammar. News flash! This doesn't really matter as long as the point you are making gets across. That is the point of language - if one person understands what you were saying, objective achieved! 

5) You really do get comfortable just in time to leave. 

When I got back from Barcelona, with about three weeks left in my time in Spain, I finally relaxed into my Spanish family. I understood Felix, Lidia and I had good conversations, I understood what was said on the TV, etc. I had been warned that this would happen, but it is very true. Just when you mix into a culture, it's time to go back to your home country. 

6) I am just fine being on my own. 

I got a bit of a practice run this summer when not a lot of my friends were in town and I had to entertain myself a fair bit. This trip really tested that ability as I toured museums myself, ate in restaurants by myself (a little awkward the first time, but you get over it quickly), and just generally had fun. There were times it would have been nice to share a moment with someone, but overall I could appreciate what I was seeing by myself and enjoy it. This is definitely a good life skill to have in the future, as I'm not always going to be surrounded by a horde of people I love and that are down to do things together like I am at home and at school. 

7) I can do anything I want. 

Traveling by myself has been a huge confidence booster. Basically if I can make my way alone through a foreign country with no issues, nothing else will be too hard to do. When you have no one to rely on but yourself, you have to be on top of everything. You have to find your hostel, you have to make your trains/buses/planes on time, you have to know where you are on your map, everything. Getting off the train in Amsterdam alone for the first time was nerve wracking. But I was fine, everything worked out great. On my way to Italy, almost four months later, by myself, I didn't even blink, I know I'm capable of doing it, so I didn't stress about anything. I feel like many things in the United States now are going to be a breeze, there's nothing that's going to be too hard to do. 

And now as promised, pictures of my Spanish family!

Felix, me, and Lidia (my host parents)

Me and Juan my host brother

More Opinions from Lidia on Franco and the Catholic Church

My history class this semester concentrated on the ancient history of Spain, from the Pre-Romanic tribes up through the end of the Hapsburg kings. There were people in my class who were a little disappointed that we didn't study modern history since we would have learned about Franco's dictatorship and life in Spain under his rule. Luckily I have Lidia here at home who was born right at the beginning and has lots of stories and opinions to share about it. Today after lunch, I got an interesting lesson about the involvement of the Catholic church in the dictatorship, and the suppression of women under it.

Lidia is Catholic and goes to mass almost every Sunday, but she still has a lot of criticisms of the church, specifically bout the hypocrisy of the higher officials regarding the money it rakes in while defying Jesus's message to give away all your possessions to the poor. I didn't really know that much about the Franco dictatorship before coming to Spain (or really anything about Spain) but the church was an ardent supporter of his regime and allowed his power to continue until his death, despite the fact that he killed and imprisoned thousands of people. Lidia was saying that she has a friend who is a priest, and that he became a priest since his parents wanted a layer of protections from the regime, and that's exactly what you got when there was a priest in the family. Additionally, Franco extended his power through the priests of the smaller towns. Lidia said that back in the day, the pueblos basically did what the priests told them to do, including spying on each other. A while ago, I saw a really great movie called La Voz Dormida that you should really watch if you get a chance, that also dealt with church's involvement in the running of the prisons that held the political prisoners. It's very well done, but also incredibly sad, I cried for almost the entire movie. It just came out in Spain last month, but I'm sure eventually it will be available in the US.

Other aspects of life were also strictly controlled by the regime, including the treatment of women in society. It sounded a lot to me like how places in the Middle East are today. Apparently, women basically had no rights: they couldn't open a bank account, they couldn't travel without their husband or father, their passport was in the name of their husbands, etc. Also, they had to take the last name of their husband. This was interesting to me, for I don't really agree with the default taking of the husband's last name that is typical to our American culture. In my opinion, it should be just as easy for the husband to take the wife's last name. But as Lidia was saying, everyone has two last names, and the norm in Spain is for every to keep their family names. The children then take the first part of each parent's last names, first the father's then the mother's. Here's an interesting link that explains it better: http://perez.cs.vt.edu/twolastnames. But under the Franco regime, women had to give up their family name, which is an integral part of their identity. This treatment of women partially stemmed from the very patriarchal church system and partially from Franco's opinions. Additionally, the first name of every girl had to be Maria followed by their actual name. That's why you see a lot of women from a certain generation that are Maria Angeles or Maria Jose, etc., of course named after Maria in the Bible.

It's very interesting to see how a society that was so repressed just forty years ago rebounded so quickly and today it totally modern in all aspects. It gives me hope that all the revolutions that occurred in the Middle East this Spring, will have a positive outcome and result in a more open society like Spain did. The circumstances of the changes were different, but there are some similarities so I guess we'll see.

Spanish Familia

As I embark on my last week here in Salamanca, something that I'm actually trying to block from my mind since I don't want to leave, I thought I'd finally write a blog post describing my family here now that I've gotten to know them over the course of a few months. It took a while to feel comfortable around them, since it takes longer to get to know people when there's a language barrier. However they've have always been very welcoming and I wish I could stay longer now that I've finally gotten to know them well.

The youngest member of the family here is Juan my host brother. I'm guessing he's in his mid-40s and is a police officer here in Salamanca. He doesn't live in the apartment with the rest of us, but eats lunch and dinner here everyday, and is generally around a lot of the time. Juan is much more up on pop culture than Lidia and Felix since he's younger, so we can talk about movies, books, singers, etc. that Lidia and Felix might not know. He's also very good at explaining things to me when he can tell from my expression that I'm confused, and also sometimes clarifies things that I am saying to Lidia when either 1) I'm saying something wrong in Spanish or 2) she just doesn't get what I'm saying. He's a nice guy to have around.

The next member of my Spanish family is Felix. He's in his late 70s and is pretty funny. He really likes toros and so sometimes when he puts the tablecloth on the table for our meals, he waves it around like it's a cape. In the past few weeks I've finally been able to understand what he's saying most of the time. He has a very gravely voice and speaks kind of mumbly, so I'm thinking I would have a hard time understanding him in English too. Most of our conversations consist of him pointing out random celebrities on the TV to me and explaining why they are famous in España. Also we confer about the weather a lot, whether it's cold or rainy or what. He's very sweet.

Last but definitely not least is Lidia, my host mom here. I think I'm going to try to back Lidia up in my suitcase and bring her back to the States with me. Lidia likes to show her affection by giving me lots of food. Her newest thing is feeding my tons of clementines while I'm studying and giving me some to take to class in case I need a snack in the middle of my exam. Every time I've gone traveling, she's packed me a huge meal that sometimes lasts me the whole weekend with a bocadillo (sub sandwich), fruit, juice boxes, chips, and in a couple of instances galletas (cookie-biscuit things) in case I get hungry while "walking around." After dinner every night, we have yogurt for desert, and she's noticed that whenever there was a choice, I asked for the lemon yogurt which is my favorite flavor, so now that's always in the house. On Sundays, we always have a special lunch (lunch is the main meal of the day) with calimocho and ice cream, but on Thanksgiving since it was a "fiesta en tu pueblo" I got ice cream for desert too even though it was a Thursday. It turns out Lidia and I have very similar political views, so we've had a couple good conversations raging about Bush/the amount of the budget that goes toward the military and not, por ejemplo, education/the death penalty/the heavy prevalence of guns. They're always fun. Lidia also has interesting stories from the Franco regime that she likes to tell since she was born right at the beginning of the dictatorship, like how they all had to salute Franco in their schools, and how the Americans sent powdered milk since there was a lot of poverty back then. Lidia also has a good sense of humor; one of the tablecloths we use is a map of Spain, and one day when she was wiping it off she said "Look at how quickly I can clean up Spain, much faster than the politicians, look at me cleaning it all up!" I'm going to really miss her.

Pictures of all my family here are to follow once I get around to taking them, but here are some from around Salamanca that I've taken recently. My friends and I have been playing at being tourists here in order to fit in everything we've been meaning to do in Salamanca before we leave.

The Plaza all lit up with different colors at night

The church and cloister at San Esteben 

Rio Tormes with the cathedral in the background

Casa Lis - an art deco museum with the most gorgeous stain glass windows

Rachel and Hayley pretending to be Lazaro and El Ciego 

Ice skating near the Corte Ingles

Justine watching the Barca-Real Madrid game

You Know You're in Spain When...

You know you've been in Spain for a long time (not too long since you can never be in Spain too long) when:

1) You can no longer write in English since trying to spell it out phonetically doesn't work at all.

2) You read a bilingual Spanish/English sign and wonder briefly why the exact same thing is written twice.

3) While getting a coffee in the afternoon at a cafe, you see people eating dinner and wonder why they're eating so early. Then you realize it's 6:30 and they're tourists.

4) When getting ready to go out at night, you pack a wad of toilet paper since there is NEVER EVER any in the stalls at bars.

5) You start to appreciate the jamón on your pizza.

6) You know enough Spanish to argue politics.

7) You know a puente is more than just a bridge, but not quite as nice as an acueducto.

8) While watching the news on TV, you can hear accents from different parts of Spain. Stop dropping your S's Andalucians!

Do I really have to leave soon?

A Quick History/Political/Geography Lesson

While I may not be learning all that much in my actual classes here in Salamanca, I have gained a much greater understanding of the country of Spain in general: the politics, the economy, the geography, etc. Historically, at the end of the Middle Ages, Spain was composed of several different kingdoms, which were remnants from an even earlier history. These kingdoms still have a presence in present day Spain in the form of the Autonomous Communities. Spain has 17 of these communities, which could be compared to the 50 states that compose America. However, even after over 500 years of unity, the desire of several of these communities to be separate has never really gone away and manifests itself in several ways.

The most marked difference is language. While most of Spain speaks Castellano, known to us as Spanish, three communities in particular, Cataluna, Pais Vasco, y Gallecia, all have their own languages, Catalan, Euskera, y Gallego respectively. I was in Barcelona this past weekend, and I have to say I was surprised by the heavy prevalence of Catalan, as in all the signs were in Catalan, and the menus, and I was addressed in Catalan. It was almost if I was back in Portugal, as I could pretty much reads the signs and understand what was said to me since all three languages are very similar, but I couldn't speak it since I don't actually know the language. I guess I was thinking that while they had pride in their language, Castellano would still be the most prevalent language, but it was very much the other way around. Several people from my group said they could see themselves living in Barcelona in the future, but I couldn't as it would require me to learn another language to use at restaurants and stores etc., and since I've just spent the past 10 years of my life studying Spanish, if I was to live in Spain, I'd want to live somewhere I could actually use it.

At least I could vaguely understand Catalan. I didn't make it the north of Spain this visit (which is too bad, but just means I have to visit again :)) but a couple of my friends went up to Bilbao and San Sebastian in Pais Vasco and came back saying the language is absolutely crazy up there. In fact Euskera has no relation to any current language, and linguistic experts have no idea where it originated from, though several theories have been put out there. It is a very old language, predating the Roman occupation of the Iberian Peninsula. However, while there is no way I would understand Euskera, there is a heavy prevalence of Spanish up there since during Franco's regime, the teaching of languages other than Castellano in school was banned and there are a couple generations of people who never learned Euskera formally.

A sign written in Euskera

Those are just the language differences. Earlier this month the terrorist seperatist group ETA, from Pais Vasco, formally declared it would stop fighting. It originated as a movement against Franco, but even after his death it continued blowing up people. With the militant separatist movement at an end, the separatist political party was allowed to run for the first time in the elections last week and won a good portion of the votes in the community. The Cataluna separatist party also always wins in that province too.

A poor image but the dark blue and the turquoise are the separatist parties 

All in all it's an interesting situation and the nerd in me loves have you can trace the present day situation back to its historical roots :)

Policeman and Prostitutes and Lesbians Oh My!

 So I've just returned from Madrid where I had a roaring good time with one of my best friends Jillian. It was a weekend full of in-your-face real life situations. Por ejemplo...

Numero 1 - Getting Lost on the Way to the Hostel and Totally Flummoxing a Policeman 
After meeting up in la Estacion Sur de Autobuses in Madrid, which in itself was quite interesting since we decided to wait for each other in two different places, Jillian's phone didn't have any minutes left on it for me to contact her with, and we weren't even sure we were in the same bus station to start out with, we hopped on the metro following the directions I had scrawled down in my notebook that morning. We got off at the indicated metro stop and wandered around in the pouring rain until we happened upon the first street in my series of directions. We checked off each step without any problems until we came to the last step: finding the actual street the hostel was on. My instructions informed me that we were supposed to make a right turn off the street we were on, but as we walked and walked, and kept on walking, we began to suspect that either we or the directions had messed up at some point. We stopped at a busier looking street to find someone to ask for directions when a cop car pulled to the side of the road. Perfect! In elementary school they teach you that cops are there to help you when you are lost! How lucky were we! We scurried over and motioned the cop to roll down his window. He obliged and I explained (in Spanish) that we were looking for our hostel but couldn't find the street it was on. He pulled out a little book of maps that I guess cops carry in their pockets and started rather half-heartily looking through it. He was browsing through the index and taking his own sweet time, when his cop buddy came on over too. I explained the problem to him and he whipped out his little map book, found the street we were looking for in about two seconds, and told us it was right there. I guess the other cop wasn't really trying that hard. Anyway, it turned out that the street we needed to turn down was to the left, not the right. Problem solved, we ducked into the hostel and checked in sure everything would be super smooth from that point on. In fact immediately we were confronted by problema numero dos...

Numero 2 - Finding a Movie Theater Using the Method of Wandering Around
After checking in, we dumped our sheets on the beds that (we thought) were free and headed back down to front desk to ask where we could find a (preferably English language) movie theater in order to see Amanecer (Breaking Dawn to you none Spaniards out there) which was kinda the point of the trip. However, the front desk man informed us that there was no extra laptops for us to use and he was too busy checking people in to look it up for us since he wasn't even from Madrid either and didn't know where the movie theaters were. Undaunted, we set out anyway and stopped at a bar to get some tapas and cañas to fortify ourselves for the search. I asked the bar tender where we could find movie theaters, and he told us that there were some on Grand Vía, the next street over. Long story short, after walking in the wrong direction on Grand Vía and stopping at a theater that wasn't showing the movie, we achieved our goal of buying tickets to watch Breaking Dawn opening night in Spain! Now all that was missing was the candy, and the search for it directly leads to real life situation number three...


Numero 3 - Walking Down a Street Full of Prostitutes 
Now they all could have been a group of perfectly normal ladies just out for the evening in thigh high boots, short skirts, and extremely low cut tops... but the more likely scenario is that they were a bunch of prostitutes. 


Candy bought and movie seen (absolutely hysterical btw), Jillian and I were tired and ready for bed. We headed back to the hostel with visions of sheets and individual beds dancing in our heads. These wouldn't seem like things that were out of reach, yet this weekend that's pretty much what they ended up being, leading us to real life situation number four...


Numero 4 - Being Mistaken for a Lesbian Couple for the Whole Weekend
Opening the door to our room, we noticed immediately that there were people sleeping in the beds we had placed the sheets on. This was not a good development. Searching with the light from my cellphone we found two beds without people, however, one of which had a suitcase and other crap piled on top of it. That left one bed for the two of us, but where did our sheets go? We thought we saw them sitting on one of the occupied beds, so with the stealth of a ninja, we took them out from under the sleeping girl and made the bed with them. Jillian and I are used to sharing beds from our riding team days so it didn't really faze us, but it probably did lead the rest of our roommates to the wrong conclusion when they noticed us sharing the bed. Jillian told me that at one point during the night, one of the guys came back (probably drunk) stumbled into our bed, did a double take and started for a few minutes, before going and passing out into his own bed. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. 


Though it may not seem that way, Jillian and I had a super-duper fantastic weekend and took all the problems as just amusing bumps in the road. It was so much fun to see her, since it turned out we hadn't seen each other since the previous December. We did the whole touristy thing and went to the Prado, Natural History museums to see some dinosaurs, Reina Sofia, etc. All in all it was a great time and it was very sad to say goodbye at the bus station on Sunday. Next time we see each other it will be stateside! 

AMANECER!!!

A much needed breakfast at Dunkin Coffee (not Donut here in Spain)

Jillian and I outside of Reina Sofia

Round 2

I've gathered up enough observations that it´s time once more for another fun and exciting round of "Things That are Different in Spain."

1) Spanish News
The news in Spain is a lot more graphic. I´m guessing maybe it´s for the ratings, but I can´t be sure. For example in the United States when they cover a car crash, they never show the bodies, just the clean up of the damaged cars. Not here in Spain however. I´ve yet to go through a news watching segment without them showing bodies lying on the side of the road. Most of the time they are cover with a sheet or in a body bag but other times they´re not. My host family never seems shocked by it, but it seems to me as a gross invastion of privacy after death, and I would be very upset if it was my mother/father/sister/friend, etc. that was shown on TV. In addition to car crashes, they´re also a fan of showing other graphic things, such as torreros getting gouged by bulls, bulls dying in los Correros, clips from abroad such as the Chinese toddler being repeatedly run over, and Gaddafi being beaten. There are no "Warning this clip contains graphic content," advisories, they are just straight up played. I´m not a fan.

2) Dread Mullets
Now supposedly mullets went out of style at the end of the 80s but I guess no one informed a lot of people in Spain. Not only are mullets a regular occurance, but a high percentage of the mullet wearers have upped the anty and DREADED the long part of the mullet. I´m not really sure how they think that it looks good in any sort of way, and I´m guessing they´re going to wake up one day several years from now, look in the mirror, and think,"What the hell is happening on my head?! Did a small animal die up there? Oh wait, it´s just my dread mullet." In my opinion, it's pretty hideous.

An example of a dread mullet (photo courtesy of Google)

3) Nuns
There are nuns everywhere. I guess it makes sense when you think about how large a percentage of Spaniards identify as Catholic (around 80%, though a smaller number are actually practicing Catholics) but it still throws me a little whenever I see one, since I could have probably counted my nun spottings back in the United States on my hands with fingers left over. The most amusing nun spotting was a month or so ago when some of my friends and I went hiking in Bejar. We went to use the tiny bathroom in the bus station, but before we could get in, THREE nuns came out, one after the other. It was a little like clowns leaving a small car. I see them all over town, and I'm pretty sure there's actually a monastery somewhere in Salamanca. 

That's all I can think of right now. However, there's probably more things that I've noticed, so eventually there may be a round three! Hasta luego!