I'm going to walk you through a typical day in Alcala.
I wake up at 7:30. The sun has yet to rise on Spain at 7:30 am, did you know this? Breakfast consists of (every day) tea, pineapple juice (sooo good), milk (semientero, which has no real equivalent in the US... it's like double whole milk, I think), 2 tostados, and cookies (I guess they figure it goes well with the milk?). After breakfast I walk 20-25 minutes to school, right through the downtown area of Alcala. It's a very beautiful place, and every morning I walk through the Plaza Cervantes (http://www.uah.es/grafica/universidad/galeria_alcala/plaza_cervantes.jpg) right as the sun is rising. Pobre mio!
School (http://www.facebook.com/#/photo.php?pid=30569644&id=1107720003) is a pretty nice place too. It's just a couple streets off of the Plaza Cervantes so really it has to be nice looking. Classes get out at 2 pm every day, which is ace because from 2-5 is siesta, during which you eat an enormous lunch (lunch is the big meal in Spain, whereas in the US dinner is the big one), play guitar, write in your blog, read, run and sleep, not all at the same time, but somewhere in the 3 hour span of siesta. After siesta, typically I will continue doing the same things I was doing during siesta until 6 or 7. Then maybe I'll do some homework before dinner, which is at 9 pm. It took me a while to get used to the time changes for meals (I'm used to eating way earlier) but I think I might prefer it this way. One advantage is that after eating dinner, your body is digesting, which at 9:30/10:00 pm is pretty strenuous for the body to handle... it's easy to just pass right out at 10:30.
But if I don't pass out right after dinner, I typically will watch the news and try to decipher what they are saying. Then comes sleep!
So that's a typical Monday-Thursday. Fridays I have no classes, so weekends are always 3 days... I would walk you through a typical weekend but there really is no such thing. I've done something different every weekend, from traveling somewhere (Madrid, Segovia so far... Toledo, Barca, Lyon, Sevilla and many more to follow...) to "going out" with my Spanish brothers (I use quotes because it's not at all the same concept as in the US. In the US if you are "going out," it's basically inferred that you and your friends are going drinking, correct? Well, in Spain this can be the case but it can mean a lot more activities than just drinking/clubbing. Live music shows, going to the "navi" (basically a warehouse that kids rent out and use as a hangout place) and doing anything there from ping pong to foosball to videogames (though I am awful, the Spaniards destroy me on the xbox), or just hanging around talking).
That's a lot of parenthesis. Anyways my one other point about Spanish weekends is that Spaniards are crazy. They stay out way too late, and I mean way too frickin late. At 4:40 am one time I was like "hey guys, I'm exhausted and I want to sleep. How do I get home from here?" and they were all like "Seriously, dude, it's so early..." So I had to put my foot down and explain that I don't like to sleep all the next day to recover from my ridiculous nightlife habits. Aka I told them I was still adjusting to the time difference...
Such is the life of an uncultered American studying abroad. I have to get going 'cause there's a soccer game on which I do not want to miss but I'll be keeping you posted... If anyone's got questions, ask and I will make sure to responderte!
Peace out, suckas!!!
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Interesting article
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/21/haiti-and-the-pat-robertson-paradox/?icid=main|main|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2010%2F01%2F21%2Fhaiti-and-the-pat-robertson-paradox%2F
I like this article for several reasons:
1. It casts even more light on the monstrous creature that is Pat Robertson.
2. It is evidence that people care about faith, or at least spirituality.
and
3. It was actually very interesting.
I have nothing else to report at this moment.
Hasta luego, papanatas!!
I like this article for several reasons:
1. It casts even more light on the monstrous creature that is Pat Robertson.
2. It is evidence that people care about faith, or at least spirituality.
and
3. It was actually very interesting.
I have nothing else to report at this moment.
Hasta luego, papanatas!!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Blogging is kind of like a chore.
I have some free time and I feel bad about not updating on this yet, so... hear you go.
We went to Madrid last Friday for a field trip. I enjoyed it, we walked around as a group and saw where all the museums/palaces/cathedrals are. Madrid is a beautiful city, expensive but beautiful. The day after that my Spanish bro (the one that is my age) was refereeing a soccer match, so I tagged along and tried to communicate with the Spaniard next to me in the audience. I successfully told him the score at halftime, thank you very much, and also I learned that Spaniards love it when people visit their country- this man was very happy to hear that I was studying in his hometown. I think a lot of times we feel unwanted in other countries because we travel around in packs of Americans, speaking our foreign language and looking very intimidating to the locals. Think about it- when you see a pack of Chinese people at college, are you interested in going up to them and welcoming them to the USA? No, you look at them once or twice, which can easily be interpretted by them as us being snooty Americans. Or something along those lines.
Classes here seem to be on the ridiculously easy end of the spectrum. This may be a result of the teachers just trying to go really really slow, as we are all still adjusting to the language change and to Spanish life in general, but either way I'm not working very hard thus far. The interesting thing is that I am learning a ton, in fonetics, Spanish history and culture, or whatever else I study, and I'm really enjoying it. Which leads me to a mindblowing question... why doesn't this happen anywhere else in my life? Why in every other instance don't I learn a lot and enjoy it? And why does it take so much more work to get such a smaller amount of satisfaction? These are questions to which I have no answers, I won't even try.
Such are the woes of my life... outside of schoolwork, my life here has been very social, much more than I thought it would be. I figured I'd awkwardly sit in my room a lot, but I don't! Most of my free time is spent either eating with my Spanish family or out with the other students from my program. So that's good news. Hopefully I can keep the English-speaking to a minimum, so as to learn more Spanish. Given that my whole purpose in being here is to learn the language, I think that's a reasonable aim.
Also, we are supposed to talk in Spanish and only Spanish the whole trip, even to each other within the program. We had to sign a contract and everything, which I intend to take mildly seriously- I'll be the guy who responds to English comments in Spanish.
I don't know how to segway into this next part so I'll just go straight into it: the other night my Spanish brothers were asking me something at the dinner table- "Has visto ______" (Have you seen_____?). I couldn't figure out what they were saying, until finally one of them got a good enough American accent together to stutter "Star Wars?"
(DISCLAIMER: if you didn't already know I am a nerd you are about to find out that indeed I am)
Well, I told them, of course I've seen Star Wars. For one thing my dad loves it, and for another thing I was raised on it. I'm pretty sure I have been both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker at some point for Halloween. So anyways, after dinner I usually just go straight to bed, but that night we watched Starwars episode III in Spanish, and I gotta tell you, I do not regret it. First of all, I found it hilarious that they called R2-D2 "erre dos!" the whole time. After declining some "hashis" from my Spanish bro, which I can only guess is hash, we got into a discussion of the plot holes within the movie, as well as our moral objections (for example, how can somebody "lose the will to live" when they have two newborn babies to raise?? Madness!).
Anyways, now that you all have had a glance into the past couple weeks for me, it is time that I bid you adieu for the time being. La cena is almost ready and I refuse to be late. ¡Hasta luego y buena suerte!
We went to Madrid last Friday for a field trip. I enjoyed it, we walked around as a group and saw where all the museums/palaces/cathedrals are. Madrid is a beautiful city, expensive but beautiful. The day after that my Spanish bro (the one that is my age) was refereeing a soccer match, so I tagged along and tried to communicate with the Spaniard next to me in the audience. I successfully told him the score at halftime, thank you very much, and also I learned that Spaniards love it when people visit their country- this man was very happy to hear that I was studying in his hometown. I think a lot of times we feel unwanted in other countries because we travel around in packs of Americans, speaking our foreign language and looking very intimidating to the locals. Think about it- when you see a pack of Chinese people at college, are you interested in going up to them and welcoming them to the USA? No, you look at them once or twice, which can easily be interpretted by them as us being snooty Americans. Or something along those lines.
Classes here seem to be on the ridiculously easy end of the spectrum. This may be a result of the teachers just trying to go really really slow, as we are all still adjusting to the language change and to Spanish life in general, but either way I'm not working very hard thus far. The interesting thing is that I am learning a ton, in fonetics, Spanish history and culture, or whatever else I study, and I'm really enjoying it. Which leads me to a mindblowing question... why doesn't this happen anywhere else in my life? Why in every other instance don't I learn a lot and enjoy it? And why does it take so much more work to get such a smaller amount of satisfaction? These are questions to which I have no answers, I won't even try.
Such are the woes of my life... outside of schoolwork, my life here has been very social, much more than I thought it would be. I figured I'd awkwardly sit in my room a lot, but I don't! Most of my free time is spent either eating with my Spanish family or out with the other students from my program. So that's good news. Hopefully I can keep the English-speaking to a minimum, so as to learn more Spanish. Given that my whole purpose in being here is to learn the language, I think that's a reasonable aim.
Also, we are supposed to talk in Spanish and only Spanish the whole trip, even to each other within the program. We had to sign a contract and everything, which I intend to take mildly seriously- I'll be the guy who responds to English comments in Spanish.
I don't know how to segway into this next part so I'll just go straight into it: the other night my Spanish brothers were asking me something at the dinner table- "Has visto ______" (Have you seen_____?). I couldn't figure out what they were saying, until finally one of them got a good enough American accent together to stutter "Star Wars?"
(DISCLAIMER: if you didn't already know I am a nerd you are about to find out that indeed I am)
Well, I told them, of course I've seen Star Wars. For one thing my dad loves it, and for another thing I was raised on it. I'm pretty sure I have been both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker at some point for Halloween. So anyways, after dinner I usually just go straight to bed, but that night we watched Starwars episode III in Spanish, and I gotta tell you, I do not regret it. First of all, I found it hilarious that they called R2-D2 "erre dos!" the whole time. After declining some "hashis" from my Spanish bro, which I can only guess is hash, we got into a discussion of the plot holes within the movie, as well as our moral objections (for example, how can somebody "lose the will to live" when they have two newborn babies to raise?? Madness!).
Anyways, now that you all have had a glance into the past couple weeks for me, it is time that I bid you adieu for the time being. La cena is almost ready and I refuse to be late. ¡Hasta luego y buena suerte!
Saturday, January 16, 2010
talk about pressure
So this is the long-awaited, cleverly named Spain blog. Although it's not that clever, given that I'm not exactly in Madrid, I'm actually 40 minutes by train away in Alcalá de Henares. Anyways, I have titled this post as such because I hate it when people read what I write. I get all self-conscious about it, if it's funny and witty or whatever. So I figured, what better way to combat this fear than to bring it to the foreground and announce it to you all? This way, the pressure's off.
Right, enough with my boring writing fears, let us talk about the way this blog will work. Updates will be massively inconsistent in terms of frequency, overall length, level of interest, and degree of effort which I put into them. They may or may not be interesting at all. And if I can figure out how to put pictures on here then they may include visual aid for your viewing pleasure!
I don't have any time to give an actual update right now so for the time being this blog introduction will have to do. I don't want to make any promises but I have a sneaky feeling that getting this first one out of the way will open the floodgates to a river of blog entries. Could life get any better? I know.
I guess this is farewell for now... but we'll be in touch.
Right, enough with my boring writing fears, let us talk about the way this blog will work. Updates will be massively inconsistent in terms of frequency, overall length, level of interest, and degree of effort which I put into them. They may or may not be interesting at all. And if I can figure out how to put pictures on here then they may include visual aid for your viewing pleasure!
I don't have any time to give an actual update right now so for the time being this blog introduction will have to do. I don't want to make any promises but I have a sneaky feeling that getting this first one out of the way will open the floodgates to a river of blog entries. Could life get any better? I know.
I guess this is farewell for now... but we'll be in touch.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
