Picnic

So I didn't manage to get any good video of the picnic/festival thing yesterday. But I'll tell you all about it.

Took a bus all by my lonesome with a cousin of my host family to meet my host mom at a remote bus station in the middle of nowhere Spain. It felt like quite the adventure, especially when we sat on the curb of a parking lot alongside a highway for ten minutes. This was one of those moments where the thought "I can't believe I'm doing_____ in Spain." This happens quite a lot. For example,  "I can't believe I'm drinking coffee in Spain," "I can't believe I'm swimming laps in a pool in Spain," "I can't believe I'm walking up three flights of stairs in Spain." They key phrase in these thoughts is in Spain. Mundane everyday things still happen here, and it's usually when I'm doing these less-than-unusual things that I'm suddenly overcome with the realization that I am in a different country. I don't quite know how to explain it.

Also, I made paella. Like actually really authentic paella. It was surprisingly easy. I've been learning that all the food here is pretty much super easy to make. I now have no worries about not knowing how to cook. I was, however, surprised however by how many different kinds of protein were in this particular recipe: rabbit, chicken, calamari, and shell fish. Regardless, it was delicious, but that wasn't surprising.

The festival was basically just a bunch of people from three or so pueblos all picnicking in the same park. There were some bouncy castles set up. A few tents housing street vendors and bars. I met any number of people related in some way shape or form to my host family. Don't really remember their names. Oops.

One repeated theme in conversation was that the weather was extremely unusual--cold, windy, threatening rain. Several people told me this was the worst weather they've seen on this day for a good twenty years, scaring away a lot of people from picnicking outside. Like the tough Minnesotan I am, I wasn't too bothered by the temperature. Although it did don a coat when it started raining.

In conclusion, paella's famous for a reason and picnic's are universally enjoyed.

On Reading

(Pardon the lack of post yesterday--things got unexpectedly busy and I ran out of time.)

I'm auditing two classes this semester--an introduction to Spanish literature class and an Iberoamerican History class. Which are classes right up my alley. The history one is basically AP Euro History again, but this time we ignore pretty much all the other countries. Also, I'm quite proud to be one of the few who knew what the Punic Wars were, so yeah, freshman year history: still changing my life.

You're probably not surprised to learn that I'm eating up the opportunity to read some Spanish literature in the original language, despite (and perhaps because of) the challenges that come with it. I'll be re-reading Bodas de sangre this semestre, and I cannot wait. I read the play last year in school, but only understood about 45% of it. Enough to know who is who and to have a very basic understanding of the plot. But definitely not enough to write an essay, not enough to pick up on subtle symbolism and imagery, not enough to identify thematic elements. Forty five percent, because I was too busy slogging through the language barrier.

But it was this slog that made me understand a bit more about the power found in being able to read. When I was in first grade, I didn't like reading. At all. I remember "reading" (staring at the pictures) a book, bored to tears. But in third grade, something shifted. Maybe it was because three and a half years of trying to read started to pay off and it started to get easier. Maybe I found a book I really, really liked. I don't know. But in third grade I didn't stare at pictures, bored to tears, any more. I stared at words, slowly understanding them. By the next year, I loved reading. And in middle school my consumption of books sky rocketed, and I know that there was a stretch of time in sixth grade when I read a book a day for several weeks. (Oh, the joy of not having very much homework).

So when I hit high school, and suddenly didn't have much time to read for pleasure anymore, but still had to read A LOT for school, I had the advantage of several years of practice doing this reading thing. Basically, reading was easy for me. I didn't struggle recognizing words, comprehending sentences, I could easily grasp the who, what, and where aspects of the stuff I read and school, leaving my brain power devoted to understanding the stories on a deeper level.

That, of course, all changed when I was required to read Spanish stories. It was like being back in first grade again, unable to comprehend how the words fit together to form a story that was meaningful. Every ounce of focus was employed in trying to understand the bare bones of the story, the mere sentences. There was no chance that I was capable of thinking to myself "Hey, the author sure references the darkness a lot" or "How cool was that description? Lorca is definitely utilizing to traditional folklore." Nope. All that when right over my head.

It was only when I could not understand these stories did I realize how fortunate I was to have fallen in love with reading so early on. I'd had enough practice, enough years under my belt for reading in English to become as second nature as breathing. This skill unlocked the world of literature for me. And, man, am I glad I have access to it. And I had a newfound understanding and empathy for people who might not find reading to be as easy, or as pleasurable, because I was unbelievably frustrated at my struggles with Spanish literature.

But now I get another chance. Bodas de sangre here I come.

Finding Some Minnesota

My third week here was difficult. But a trip to Madrid was the start to a great weekend. That led to a great week.
I've met a few locals here, and hopefully I'll drudge up the courage tomorrow to call them and make plans. Also, going to a fiesta in the country this weekend. I'll try and take some video of it without seeming to creepy.

Melón

Ok. I give up. I admit it. I've fallen in love--with the MOST DELICIOUS fruit to ever exist on this planet. I'd never laid eyes on it before coming to Spain and as far as I can tell, it's not easily found in the states--Someone told me us Americans call it Santa Claus melon. Have you heard of it?

Spaniards call it melón. 

http://www.clovegarden.com/ingred/melons.html

It reminds me of honeydew, except it's not the kind of fruit that's left at the bottom of the fruit salad bowl. It's that fruit that everyone picks out first, and only after it's all gone do people go for the cantaloupe and pineapple. It's sweet. It's juicy. And I could eat it until I explode.

This is just one of the fruits I've been eating on a daily basis. I've also eaten more watermelon in the last few weeks than I have in all my previous years. For my host family, desert follows la comida/el almuerzo y la cena (lunch and dinner). I usually enjoy fruit fresh from the gardens of our extended family members: sandía, melón, melecoton, and uvas to name a few.

Things to Remember

(These are some sentences that have been accumulating on a word document with the same title as this post. Excuse the poor grammar and any mistakes: I'm a fan of copy and paste.)

It’s okay to fail—to struggle w/ Spanish, to do something incorrectly.

I will do something stupid at least once a day. But, en realidad, no pasa nada. 

Si quiero mejorar mi español, tengo que practicar y pensar. Tengo que escuchar y preguntar. Y no tengo que hablar rápido, lo mejor es que yo hablo bueno. 

I am only at the beginning of this journey. Take it step by step. Poco a poco. 

The idea of living abroad most of us possess is ridiculously romanticized by the media. Mi vida no es un novel; cosas perfectas no están garantizados.  

This year is about independence. You can travel where you want. Be impulsive. You can travel solo. 

There’s no getting around the fact that I’m an extranjera. Might as well embrace it, so I can loosen up and laugh with my mistakes. 

Also, today, it occurred to me that Spanish literature isn't exactly out of my reach any more. The prospect of opening a door to a whole new part of the world of literature is unbelievably exciting. Of course, progress will be slow, but it's just one more reason to dive into this language.

I Promised You Food

Last week I promised to tell you a bit about the food that I've eaten here. So, here goes.

The spanish tortilla vs the french tortilla

On my second full day here, I was treated to the Spanish tortilla, which, along with paella, is what Spain's known for. Now, we all know what a tortilla is, right? So imagine my confusion when I was served what appeared to me to be an omelet with potatoes. Yep. That's right. On this side of the Atlantic, tortilla = omelet.

Friends of my family will tell you that we're fond of the omelet, so I couldn't be happier with this particular Spanish staple.

For the curious, Spanish tortillas are really thick, whereas french tortillas are thin omelets (I only ever had them with ham in them, and always as a part of a sandwich. And of course, when I was told that we were going to have tortillas francés for dinner, I thought, "crepes?")

La cena de los pobres

According to my host mom, this was a staple in poor families in the years after the Spanish Civil War. French fries, fried eggs, sausage, all mixed up in tomato sauce. Sounds bizarre. Tastes delicious.

Arroz negro

A rice dish. A seafood dish. Not something I've ever had before.

Calamari cooked up in a bid ol' pot with garlic and onions and olive oil. Add some tomatoes sauce. Add tinta de calamar (squid ink) and let simmer for a while. Toss in several hand fulls of rice.

Delish chicken sandwiches 

This sandwich consists of chicken, thinly sliced, sautéed with olive oil and herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, and hard boiled eggs. I will make this all of the time, for the rest of my life.

El Escorial and El Valle de los Caídos

Got a huge lesson in Spanish history over the weekend. I recognized some parts of it, thanks to that AP Euro History class I took, like, three years ago now. Anyway, I was left with a lot to think about.

Also, I realized I forgot to add my footage of El Valle de los Caídos. Whoops. Use your imaginations folks. Or Google. 

Pools and Language

Found a pool. Guess who's going to regularly show up in the morning, every morning? I've been three times so far. And as far as I can tell the majority of the pool's patrons are several decades older than me. Now, I have no bone to pick with people older than me. But, in this case, by the mere fact that I am much younger than everyone else swimming, I am much faster than everyone else swimming. So, I feel distinctly mal educada when trying to navigate the pool.

My game plan for fixing this? Find the time when very few people swim, or find the time when all the young people swim--actually, do young people swim here? I guess I'll find out.

Now, some key words/phrases that I couldn't survive without

no pasa nada - it's okay/no worries/no problem

echar de menos - to miss someone, something

Vale - literally means EVERYTHING: okay, good, I get it, enough, sure, yeah. I probably say this 100 times a day

meter la pata - to put your foot in your mouth. Also a daily occurrence for me.

menos mal - sort of maybe means "good thing," still uncertain how to go about actually using it in a phrase

So Far I've...

1. Been asked three times to take pictures for tourists in front of the Aqueduct.

2. Been stung by a pretty nasty Spanish bee.

3. Wandered all around this city, gotten lost, and even accidentally walked a portion of the Camino de Santiago, something I hope to continue later this year.

4. Hung out in La Plaza Mayor with some of my friends, and admittedly we were chatting in English, so I guess it was pretty obvious that we weren't from Spain. A guy walked up to us, asked if we were cold and if we wanted to go inside someplace warm. He named one of the bars nearby and invited us in for a drink. Since we had actually just said our goodbyes, we declined. The next day, another local informed us that that particular bar wasn't one we should waste our time in. Score one for us bumbling American's avoiding the bad places to go.

5. Made friends with my sassy neighbor. She's ten years old and when I met her, the first thing she said to me was, "My mom says you're really young to be here."As I bewilderedly tried to continue the conversation, she continued her sass. The next day we talked again, this time we got along pretty well. Today, I passed her in the street, and we talked for a bit. I left, celebrating the fact that I have at least one friend in Spain who I didn't meet because I'm taking classes with them or living in their house.

6. Also met some of my older neighbors. They two I've met are on the elderly side, and are extremely sweet. Talking with them has been really interesting, and I can't wait to run into them again.

7. Eaten SO MUCH gelato.

8. Felt a strange version of déjà vu as I've seen the same places in person that I've seen in pictures taken by friends. El Purgatorio and the hot air balloons come to mind.

9. Made friends with a Spanish tourist visiting Segovia. He asked me for directions to the Alcazar, and we walked in the same direction for a while talking. He was delighted to learn that I was from the US, and thus had pretty good English, because he had worked in the UK for several years. Our conversation alternated between languages. It was the first time I talked with someone, unembarrassed of my Spanish ability, brushing off my mistakes as I made them.

I believe a familiar set of pictures can be found in the 2012-2013 editions of Ars Nova

Starting to Feel at Home

Maybe it's that last weekend consisted of the best two days so far. Maybe it's that I've been here for a nearly two weeks. Maybe it's because I'm getting to know the people here a bit better. But I'm starting to feel more at home.

I'm not hovering awkwardly around as much. And I've started talking more. Started correcting myself more. Attempting more difficult sentences. Thinking more about what I'm saying, instead of blurting clumsy words.

Yesterday, my professor bought pastries for the class at the Thursday market. It took a few moments for me to put to and to together, and realize that market day meant that it was Thursday--But wait, it was Thursday only, like, two days ago!

I felt a rather unpleasant shock when I realized that yet another week had passed by without my noticing it.

It's been two weeks. Things are picking up, and I can feel myself settling into a schedule. But a slightly alarmed feeling keeps creeping up on me. Sometimes, I can feel my time here slipping through my fingers. And I panic, because I still have so much more to learn. Still have so many places to explore, and people to meet, and brave things to do. And I keep getting worried that I won't have enough time here.

So far there are only two methods that I've found to quell this panic: to pull out my worksheets and drill myself in the subjunctive, or to remind myself that this is still only the beginning--the beginning of my study of Spanish, the beginning of my time in Spain, the beginning of my year. And I keep forgetting that during this year--this year that I put together myself, that I've dreamed of for a long time--during this year, it's okay to fail, it's okay for things to go not-as-planned, it's okay for things to go unfinished and unpolished.

It's about putting my foot in my mouth today, so tomorrow I'll get the phrase right. It's about doing things and experiencing things.

It is enough that I am here.

Hacer Senderismo // Hiking Up a Mountain

Went on a hike. Made some friends. Spent four hours playing fútbol. The weekend was pretty great.

Not So Much as Culture Shock: Things I've Noticed

1. Probably the first thing I noticed was that my host family always wears their shoes in their house. My Minnesotan soul finds this extremely strange.

2. Water's always out of a bottle here, never really out of a tap. At lunch time, my family goes through at least two 2 liter bottles of water. The only exception are the water fountains that are all over the place--in nearly every plaza, and even on the mountain I hiked up the other day.

3. There aren't many cars here. Well, no, that's not it. There aren't that many cars on the streets here. Every family has a car, but everyone walks. Compared to what I'm used to, the streets are silent.

4. The food. It's great, but so different--next week I'll elaborate more on what I've been eating, other than Gelato.

Breakfast is small--coffee with some tiny accompaniment. Lunch is huge: a salad, some bread, a hearty and meaty main course, and desert. It's not unusual for people so sit down for a snack at about 6 to tide them over until dinner at 10. The size of dinner varies from family to family, but for me, it's a decent sized meal. But there's SO MUCH food. And it's a VERY good thing that I decided to be not-a-vegetarian during this trip.

5. The daily schedule is essentially delayed by two hours. The afternoon doesn't start until 2. Dinner's at 10 or later. Does this mean I'm staying up later than I ever did before? Yup.

Been here for just over a week now. Eeeek! Reminds me of how quickly this time will go by.

As I mentioned above, I went on a hike over the weekend. That'll be the subject of my Wednesday/Thursday video.

Vosostros

Back in seventh grade, I remember talking about the vosotros form in my Spanish class with Profa O. I always though vosotros was pretty weird, because we never used it. We learned it, but I never actually used the vosotros form of any verb in conversation. When my peers and I first started learning about verb conjugations, we were told that the vosotros form was used almost no where in the Spanish-speaking world--except Spain. (For those of you uninlightened folks, the pesky vosotros is basically the Spanish answer to "y'all".)

At the time, it seemed obvious to me that I would probably never travel to Spain, because, well, Central and South America are much closer. And since they don't use the vosotros form there, sometime in the beginning of learning Spanish, I decided I didn't really need to pay much attention to vosotros.

Well, guess who's used vosotros more in the last week than all her years of studying Spanish before? Guess who's found herself frantically looking up the ways to conjugate verbs in the vosotros form? And guess who's found out that they practically NEVER use the ustedes form here? (Uninlightened folks, the ustedes is another option for a plural you, like vosotros is to ustedes as "y'all" is to "you guys.") 

And, get this, ustedes is apparently formal, like usted, which they also don't use often here. If I was ever told that ustedes was formal, it must have been when I was twelve and tuning out everything invovling vosotros vs ustedes. So in my first few days here, with vosotros still awkwardly catching in my throat everytime I tried to use it, I'd often default to ustedes. And get a few odd looks in response. 

So listen up kiddos, become friends with that vosotros form! Or one day you'll spend an entire Friday night familiarizing yourself with vosotros, like I plan on doing tonight.

Meeting Segovia

So...I made a video? Yeah. Figured you might like to get an idea of what this place looks like. (first video of this type ever...so be kind!)

Post Expectation Blues or Let the Big Things Begin

I'm not sure what I expected. In the same way I searched for a dramatic thunderclap or moving music when my family and I moved out of my childhood house over the summer to mark a significant event in my life, but didn't get either, I expected some sort of indication of big changes, big opportunities when I left for my gap year--you know, something that clearly indicated This Will Be a Year of Big Things and that It Has Started Now.

Instead I hugged my parents goodbye, and one delayed flight connection later, stumbled off of the plane, through customs, and BAM! I was in Spain, en route to in Segovia. And it felt the same but not the same as my life before.

To tell you the truth, a little (read: large) part of me had this fantasy that the moment I got to Spain, I'd suddenly become super outgoing, and make friends with all of the people, and learn all of the things, immediately--immediately being the key word here--and then spend the vast majority of my time strolling around Spain, perfectly comfortable and at home in my adopted environment.

Well, no surprise, nothing miraculous occurred when I got off the plane, nor did a transformation, nor a greek choir.

Despite remaining plain old me, I've had a good start here in España. When I arrived on Thursday, my host family was still enjoying their summer vacation in a small town (very, very small) an hour and a half drive north of Madrid. I joined them there in the sleepy little town. The best part of my arrival might have been that fact that my host mom and dad repeatedly said that they were really impressed with my spanish, although I'm not certain how they came about that decision, because I'm quite sure 90% of what I did for the first two days was smile, nod, and say "Sí."

It's was a looong first couple of days. But now I'm in Segovia, and I've met the rest of the students in my program, and I've spent two days wandering around, losing myself in the beautiful city. But I've also spent plenty of time stumbling over my words, asking "Qué? Qué? Qué?" a hundred times, and fighting to understand fast conversation.

Ricardo, my professor, told the other students and me that the first week is always the worst. Yep. That makes sense. But to be honest, if this is the worst it gets, than this is gonna be an amazing semester.