I finally have a large block of free time where i have access to internet and dont have to worry about a dwindling power supply, so i will write in detail about my experiences thus far in Spain!
My journey to Madrid was quite long. first a flight from Nashville to Detroit, from Detroit to Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam to Madrid. the flight across the Atlantic was the biggest plane i had ever been on. all of the seats had an interactive television screen on the back for everyone, a blanket, headphones, and i had my first in-flight meal. All of this was very intersting and new. i watched Star Trek, which i hadnt seen yet, and played bejeweled. and then i fell asleep sometime. i woke up when we were descending into Amsterdam. I would like to say i have been to Amsterdam, but i dont think it really counts when you´re just in the airport, and 80 % of your time is spent standing in a line to get through customs and to your gate. From Amsterdam, the flight to Madrid was a short 2 hours. i got my luggage and eventually found a place to store my huge backpack at the airport while staying in Madrid. In case you didn't know, Madrid is the 4th highest city in the world where you are most likely to get pickpocketed. Barcelona is number one. Needless to say Spain has a problem with this kind of theft. SO I got my things, and made the trek by subway to my hostel, where i spent my first 2 nights in Spain. Cat´s hostel. It was an interesting environment full of Europeans from all parts, mostly students, mostly traveling.
One of the things that i immediately noticed, and that has taken a while to get used to is smoking. it seems like everyone smokes here. and i probably wouldn't have noticed so much if the laws hadn't changed in Tennessee. But its true. everyone smokes. Even my señora, who has a miraculous cancer survival story, and who attributes her survival to a miracle from God, still smokes like 3-5 cigarettes a day. things i will never understand.
In Madrid i walked around for a little bit the first day (i arrived at 6 pm). Being scared of Spanish food and spending money, i bought a small hamburger at Burger King (which was still like $4!) and drank a bottle of water. i then tried to stay up as late as i could to accustom myself to the time difference, yet still fell asleep at 10 pm. This is extremely early for Spanish people my age, especially on the weekend. In many places, leaving a discoteca at 4pm is leaving early. Anyway, i woke up at about 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. Before i left the states, i emailed my Spanish professor/academic adviser about what i should do in Madrid. He sent me back a detailed message describing a street by street route i should take to see all the important things in the city center, including an obscurely located restaurant at which to eat cheap authentic Spanish food. This was very helpful, and i spent all day walking around. i saw public gardens, the Museo del Prado, the Plaza Mayor, the old Government seat buildings, the beginning of the Spanish highway center (KM 0), the Royal Palace, the main Cathedral, and much more. In the afternoon, the Museo Sofia Reina was having free admission, so i walked around the museum for 4 hours and saw all four floors, which included the Guernica, and a lot by Dali which has been a dream of mine for a while. so that was awesome!
This was an appropriate introduction to Spain in general, including the walking atmosphere of most Spanish cities. The following morning i took the subway back to the airport and met up with the IES group waiting to leave. To my surprise another guy had brought a banjo. what luck! Some other people said i looked familiar, and we figured out that we had all stayed at Cat´s hostel. Because of this thread of commonality and their general friendliness, i hung around these people for the first few days. They are all from Chicago and all have funny accents. These people are: Alexina Valdez, Laura Romero, and Jenn Kosciw. We were soon supplemented by my roommate Matt De Ronde, Laura´s roommate Martina Kinkle and Matt (el Lobo) Merskey who is just another guy. This was for the first couple days/first week and a half of orientation and being in Salamanca. Now we´re more spread out because of schedules and everyone hangs around everyone in the program more or less. but i am getting ahead of myself.
we arrived in Salamanca a short 2 hours after leaving Madrid, passing by the famous city of Avila. In Salamanca, Our host families met us at the bustop to take us to out home stays. My señora, María Iglesias Rodríguez, is a character. She is 65, has two children, a son who is a government employee in charge of tourism in Salamanca, and a daughter who is a policewoman in the Basque Country, which is where the Terrorist group ETA is heavily active. María talks a lot in general, but mainly she likes to talk about three things: Her children, her past foreign exchange students, and food. Obviously she is obsessed with her children and talks about them whenever any subject relates to a story or quality about one of them. Thus, these three main subjects of conversation are often thrown together into the same sentence. (for example she´ll say something like "David doesn't like this kind of soup at all, wont eat even a little bit, but I had this one student from Japan, man he would eat his soup so loudly and sloppily, oh my God, he would make me so mad!!)
But she is an excellent cook, and we eat typical traditional food everyday. If you were to buy our meals at a restaurant, it would probably cost around €20-30 a meal. I feel really lucky to have this situation as opposed to that of some other students. i was talking to two girls yesterday whose host mom makes them frozen American food every day, like french fries and chicken nuggets. No thanks! Also, María prides herself on thinking like a younger person, so we never get a talking to after getting in late or anything like that. There is a lot more about maria that i will probably tell in a later post.
My roommate, Matthew De Ronde, is a good guy and we get along real well. He is from New Jersey, and goes to a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania called Franklin and Marshall College (F&M). He is a Spanish Italian double major with a French minor. His family is Italian and he loves cooking. These things are all fortuitous for María because he has a large Spanish food vocabulary and general interest allowing them to talk for days about Spanish cuisine and how to make it. We have a lot of the same spiritual and personal priorities, which makes things a lot easier. He found the church that we go to right down the street from our house, which has been a big blessing to be a part of so far. We are both pretty easy going, and generally nice and sincere people. I am enjoying living with him so far.
To wrap up this post, i will talk a little bit about Salamanca. It is a very old, beautiful, interesting and small city. It boasts the oldest university in Spain, two towering, elaborate and intricate cathedrals built right next to each other as one big structure, a grand Plaza Mayor, 1800 bars, and many other notable ancient buildings. Most of the old buildings here were constructed out of a kind of sandstone that is typical of this region that actually has gold flecks in it, so when the sun hits the stone right, the bricks sparkle a little bit. As i said, it is a small city, allowing the majority of people to walk everywhere. At a normal walking pace, one could walk from one end of the city to the other in about 40-50 minutes. During the school year, the street population is about 50% students, which adds an interesting dynamic to the social life of Salamanca.
Things that the youth are into here:
1. Talking. (loudly, quickly, and all at once, even in class)
2. Shoes (a general first priority for most people in Spain)
3. Mullets (guys and girls)
4. Arabic pants (mostly girls, the big, poofy loose, low crotch kind. the strangest that i constantly see are in denim)
5. Staying out late (4,5,6,7am. i´m not sure how this works physically speaking)
6. Smoking
7. Public Affection
Some Important Cultural differences:
1. Always wear shoes or slippers in the house, sometimes even wearing your outside shoes is unacceptable, but NEVER walk barefoot in the house. This is extremely rude and gross in Spanish culture.
2. When at the table, keep your hands above the table at all times. To have them in your lap is bad manners because they think, “What is he doing with his hands?”
3. Contrariwise, to ask for something politely at the table is considered a little weird. If you want more bread, you just say “give me more bread”.
4. Furthermore, it is a little rude to say yes the first time someone asks you if you want something. You have to say no a couple times to be polite, and then say yes when they ask again, to make them feel like they are being very hospitable I guess.
5. Water and electricity and phone services are very expensive, and thus, senoras care about them very much. Short showers, not-too-hot showers, darkness, and short telephone conversations are a must. However, no matter how much the electricity costs, the T.V. must be on at all times, because the T.V. here brings us such wonderful things as:
News. This is the most important program of all. It comes on during the main meal times of the day, and is much more graphic than American news.
Political Debates: Spanish-style debates consist of two opposing parties (in political debates, usually the socialist and popular parties) talking about an issue all at once, without much listening or counter-pointing. Thus, I think the debate winner is decided by which side can talk the loudest and the longest and with the most attitude.
Celebrity Debates: this is basically when a celebrity does something scandalous the media hires popular journalists/interviewers to grill and destroy that celebrity or someone related to that celebrity Spanish-debate style, journalist panel vs. celebrity. For example, recently, a well known artist got married to a woman who was made famous for being on Spanish Big Brother and having multiple sex-changes. (I think that’s what Maria said). So they brought the guy’s mom on the show and they argued for like 2 hours about how it was her fault he married the girl because of what a horrible mother she is. Why do they agree to do it? 300,000 Euros.
Game Shows: My personal favorite. Mostly word game shows like Password.
And,
Old overdubbed American movies: mostly 80’s - 90’s action and comedy movies.
But no matter what garbage is on, and no matter how pointless, ridiculous, or stupid that garbage might be, it must be dispersed!
6. People are very affectionate in the street, sometimes to the point of provoking disgust. I relate this to another culture phenomenon involving the lack of property ownership. It is extremely rare for people to own a house, much less land on which that house is situated, which in English we would call a yard. The majority of people who live in the city live in a flat, or a floor consisting of a kitchen, a bathroom, a couple bedrooms, and a living room. Thus, the majority of living spaces are very small. Furthermore, said small living space is very expensive, more than the average houses’ rent in the States would be. Hence, a person cannot have their own place until they are pretty firmly financially established, and in this culture that doesn’t happen until around 35-40 years old. Thus, men and women live with their parents until that age. But of course these people are going to have significant others’ with whom they want to be affectionate, and I can imagine how being so affectionate in front of one’s parents, or in such a small living space, might be a little uncomfortable. Thus, the streets are flooded with Public Displays of Affection, until these love-muskrats manage to scrounge up enough money to buy their own place.
Things I like:
1. You don’t have to give waiters a tip. They don’t expect it, and it’s a little strange if you do
2. Everybody walks everywhere.
3. It is very easy to buy locally grown food, and most of the food in the grocery stores is more local than in the U.S because the country is smaller and more farm-based. Thus, I feel like the typical foods here are a lot better for you body.
4. With these two things, combined with the eating schedule, which is eat a lot in the middle of the day, and a little in the morning and at night, the culture here in general is more conducive to a healthy lifestyle.
5. Very related to this, I see old people out walking around all day every day. People 80-90 years old are out walking around until 10, 11, 12 pm!
6. There is ice cream everywhere and a lot of the time it’s way better than American ice cream.
7. The buildings are very impressive.
8. The sunsets are very enjoyable.
Things I don’t like:
1. Everything is more expensive. A pretty good example is McDonald’s, the staple cheap American fast food joint. A typical McDonald’s meal consisting of a hamburger, french-fries, and a drink would normally cost 4-5 dollars in the U.S. Right? In Europe the same meal costs about 6-8 Euros. If you do the math, that’s about 9-12 dollars. For McDonald’s. Think about it.
2. If you want customer service, too bad.
3. If you are walking, and somebody crashes into you, do not ever expect them to say “excuse me”, or “pardon me”, or “oh, I’m so sorry I almost caused your shoulder to become part of your back” unless they are pretty old. Otherwise it just isn’t done.
4. Most seafood and all tomatoes.
5. Cell phone service is expensive.
But all in all I am having a wonderful time and i am so glad i decided to do study abroad, and glad i chose Salamanca as the place to do it.
