Why is that gypsy throwing rosemary in my face?

Branch, white-out and social butterfly.  The three new words my English student learned in our two hours of conversation.

I’m amazed at how well she can speak English, along with Spanish, French and I’m pretty sure German (and write Latin and Greek).  And, she dresses well.

It seems like the kids in Spain eat better, speak ten billion languages better, dress better than most kids in the U.S.  Can I raise my kids here please?  And yes, she does go out with her friends and watches movies like many high-school students.  But this girl watches French movies like Amelie and Delicattesen.  Can you say culture?

My friend lives on the fifth floor. When he looks out his window, he sees socks that have fallen into the trees below!

Cultural Differences
Speaking of culture, life in Spain is different than anything I have experienced in the states.  After living in Spain for just over two weeks, I’m pretty sure that I am now more comfortable with making mistakes and forgetting words (in Spanish and English) than I have ever been in my life.  Some people talk about big “C” culture and little “c” culture.  Here are a few of the smaller “c” things that make Spain, well, different.

Underwear on Clotheslines.
You’ve seen it in the movies.  Laura Ingals Wilder hangs her petticoats on a clothesline to dry while the tumbleweed blows accross the prarie.  Well, here in Alcalá there is a clothesline hanging outside the window from the first floor to the tenth, complete with underwear, bras and socks..minus the tumbleweed.  And if you’re on the first floor, let’s just say the fact that you wear “granny panties” will never be a secret again.

Our tour guide advises us to steer clear of the gypsies.

Everywhere you turn, there’s a Chiuwuiwa.
So many small dogs.  Seriously.  Because all of Alcalá is like one giant apartment, there’s nowhere to fit the Golden Retriever.  It seems like everyone owns at least one small dog.  It’s SO difficult to walk by these little Poodles without stopping to pet them.  Sometimes I pretend to say, “hi” to the owner just so I can whisper, “Hola, perro,” really fast as the puppy tags along behind.

Don’t look at the gypsies.
That little sprig of rosemary the kind lady gives you? Not a present.  It’s a way to find out how much money you have.  So far, I think I have been advised five different times to just keep walking whenever a gypsy tries to give me a “present.”  They seem completely harmless, but when our tour guide, Roshan said, “Yesterday, I was accosted by two of them,” I’m pretty sure they mean business.

Do people in Spain ever get the munchies?
Three meals a day.  But what about the fourth, fifth and sixth?  I definitely eat less often then I did in the states.  If you don’t count raiding the kitchen in the middle of the night.  Just remember, when it’s dark you can’t really tell that those cookies are really digestive bisquits.

Even the graffiti is pretty here..

Graffiti as a form of artwork. Graffiti probably covers about half of Madrid’s building space, and bridges, signs, streets, trees.  Slight exageration, but I have never seen so much graffiti in my life.  I guess the old, deserted buildings in the parks and around the city make for a really good canvas.

But not everything’s different.  There are startling similarities that I never realized would exist.  There are still health nuts, like me, living in Spain who eat weird things like seaweed and waaay too many apples.  (My host mom for example loves making us soup: lentil soup, garbanzo soup, pea soup, tapioca soup…)  But that’s a topic for another blog post.

In the meantime, what do you think?  I want to hear your stories about cultural adjustments.  Have you ever experienced a cultural difference?  What did you do to adjust?  Any and all survival tips are welcome.

Are you new here? Why yes, yes I am.

The running path is so beautiful. It's worth waking up early to see the sun rise behind the mountains.

This morning, I went up to an exercise machine in a park close to our piso, or apartment.  I think you are supposed to stand on it and swing your legs back and forth which will hypothetically result in rock-hard abs.  After walking around it a few times, trying to read the directions and hopping on like I knew what I was doing, the guy standing next to me asked, “Es tu primer tiempo aqui?”  (Is this your first time here?)  How did he know?

Earlier that day, I learned the importance of knowing how to turn the key in our door. I spent about ten minutes turning the key to the left and to the right before I finally gave up.

“Charo, la llave no funciona,” I asked my host mom.  (Charo, the key doesn’t work.)

Yes, the key did work.  You just have to jiggle it to the right a bit turn it three times and pull at the same time to open the door.  Hey, at least I know we’re safe at night.

The sun is just coming up behind the cliff, which seems like it's formed out of rock, but it's actually dirt. I wouldn't want to scale that wall..

Later, I found out how to spell Exuperancia.  I have never heard of such a unique name in my life.  Thankfully, I wasn’t alone.  The six other students that I’m teaching (English) readily assured me that it’s a difficult name to write even if you aren’t a native Spanish speaker.  The most fun part was trying to write her name on the board, with each person trying to help me find the right letter.  Let’s just say there was a lot of laughter involved.

I’m slowly getting used to most of the major cultural differences (like the siesta after lunchtime…that was an easy adjustment) but I’m just now starting to understand some of the smaller cultural changes.  Such as…besos (kisses) are custom when greeting someone, but that’s not an excuse to ask for more besos when you’re out dancing! But that’s a story for another blog post…

So much learning in one day.  And it’s only been a week since I got here.  Can you imagine how much I’ll learn in four months?  Actually, as long as I know how to unlock the door to our piso, I will be content.

Sabe usted a donde puedo encontrar..?

Standing on a random rock in the Juan Pablo II park near La Escuela Cardinal Cisneros.

The title of this story is: “Do you know where I can find…?”  Another title could be: how many local people can I ask for directions in less than an hour?

This morning I decided to take the bus to school.  After getting (what I thought were) clear directions from Charo, my host mom, I thought, “I can do this. I know Spanish. I can make it from the post office to the bus stop to school. Easy.”  Well, with a lot of questions and a little direction, I finally made it to my class a half hour late.  Being late was completely worth it.  Why?  I got to practice my “street Spanish” all morning long.

My first stop was the tobacco shop to buy a bus pass.  I asked a lady on the street where it was after I had turned down a few wrong streets.  She looked at me like I was a little bit crazy and pointed to the store right in front of my face.  My second stop was the post office.  I asked another lady walking her tiny dog where I could find Los Correos.  Again, right in front of my face.  We both had a good laugh.  After the post office, I tried out of few bus stops before I finally found the one that just seemed to be the right one. (Actually, I waited at one bus stop, got impacient and went to a different stop, before talking to a couple and realizing that I had the right one to start with!) Once on the bus, I met Angel (pronounced an-hel) who was going to visit his granddaughter at the school right next to mine.  When I heard that my heart sang!  When we got off of the bus, that sweet old man told me to keep going straight.  I, of course, had to take the first left I found.  After two more people gave me directions, I finally reached the school gates.  I have never been happier to see two large pieces of metal in my life.

My friend, Nicolas, and I are getting exercise in the park with bicycle pedals in front of the bench...very different cultural experience: you don't just watch your kids play, you get your exercise too!

So, like I said, quite the adventure, but I got to practice asking questions to random Spanish speakers all morning.  It was so challenging, but strangely fulfilling at the same time.  The culture in Spain is so different.  I’m not talking about the big cultural differences, like the fact that all the stores close down around two in the afternoon so we can all take siestas.  I’m talking about the small things.  I originally thought that people in Spain just weren’t all that friendly because they hardly ever make eye contact or smile on the street.  Today, after talking to ten different people, I am slowly changing what I thought before.  Not only were the local people willing to help me..they were willing and enthusiastic to talk to me.

It’s only the fourth day here in Alcala, and I am starting to feel like part of the community.  Even though I’m still trying to find the best route to school.  I can’t wait for the day when I know the route with my eyes closed (I would never do that, Mom!)  Vale, poco a poco.  It will all get easier little by little.

Culture Shock…kind of.

Trying to stay awake in the Madrid airport. Photo taken by Shayna Noonen, my awesome roomate.

Eating a large meal at two in the afternoon, sleeping after the meal for an hour, walking around downtown at9 p.m. and watching families with their kids running all over the Plaza Mayor and the streets.  These are cultural norms I learned about before, but when I actually saw them in action, it felt radically different.

After a short overnight flight, I woke up to a city full of lights.   So many lights, it seemed like the major parts of the city of Madrid were connected by circles of glowing lite brights.  I was in awe of the modern-looking airport with huge bright yellow supports to hold the building up.  After spending five hours there waiting for the program directors,  I got over my awe for those supports. We traveled less than 20 minutes to Alcala traveling through what seemed to me like a glorified mountainous desert.  Some places were bare, very mountainous and at some points green trees popped up for miles.

Our new host moms were excitedly waiting for us at one of the bus stops. I just knew who our mom was even though I had never met her before.  Sure enough, I was right, and we walked five bloks past supermercados, apartamentos and tons of other small shops y barros before we reached her apartamento.  As soon as I walked in I knew I was in love with the city, this apartment and everything about Alcala.   After lunch, soup with garbanzo beans, celery, carrots and couscous, bread and a strange kind of fish (tasted like tuna)  it was time for siesta!  One hour and I was up and going like a crazy person with plenty more energy to finish the day out.

I'm finally here!

As we started our tour, I began to realize that everyone we walked by was speaking Spanish.  Obvious right?  Well, even though I had been speaking Spanish to my host mom the entire afternoon, something about being the odd one out, the one who didn’t know the language well enough to fire out more than a few sentences rapidly, caught me off guard.  Definitely a chance to enhance my skills of observation..and now I know how it feels to be in a new place where I don’t really know the language as well as I thought I did.

Tapas, appetizers, are an important part of Spanish culture, because they give people the opportunity to gather around small appetizers and drinks, and spend time talking.  It seemed like we talked all night!  Well, I mostly listened and threw in a few phrases here and there, but what else can you expect for the first day?  (and ate all night…I thought we were done after the first order of seven tapas. Nope. Our host families ordered another round along with drinks. So many potatoes, hamburgers, tuna fish in tomato sauce, sausage, bread and cheese, bread and sardines, bread and tomatoes, you get the idea.  Lots of bread. )

That’s it for the first day.  Did I experience culture shock?  To a certain degree, absolutely.  Alcala is so different than what I am used to, but that’s the beauty of it.  I get to learn every day from a new challenge to understand and experience a different cultural norm.  I am so thankful for an opportunity to get rid of some of this jet lag..sleep.