This week has been a cycle of emotions. Here are some excerpts from emails to friends...
2/3/08
I'M HERE!!! The internet goes in and out, but at least I can get it
sometimes! Nothing to exciting yet, just my senora is super cute even
though I can only understand 20% of what she says. She's an amazing
cook. I'm going to gain weight. I haven't seen much of Madrid yet,
but I'll let you know when I do. It's overcast and sprinkly now. I miss
you and love you and can't really believe I'm here. but I am!
2/4/08
yay giants. i heard it was a boring game til the last few minutes...
i
think i'm too overwhelmed to be super excited about spain, but i
am surviving. i can't believe how independent they expect us to be
already. i successfully took the metro home from la plaza del sol,
where i window shopped with cleo and ali... i successfully switched
metro stops, exited on the correct street of the metro (i completely
understand the metro system but COMPLETELY hate that you can get off at
the right stop but the wrong street and be completely lost. and you
know my penchant for getting lost..) walked the four blocks hooome. by
myself. in the dark. and didn't get mugged. or die. it was pretty much
amazing. i was proud.
we took the train to school today for the
tour. the campus is nice. me encanta. but the train station was the
site of the 2004 terrorist attacks, and they had the terminal all
blocked off as a memorial. it was eerie.
i can't believe that tomorrow's super tuesday. i ♥ barack! go obama! obama baracks my wooorld. CAN'T WAIT!
2/5/08
What have I been doing in Espana? Trying not to get lost. I can get to
school and back! and to la plaza del sol and back! woo. go me. The food
is good. I'm coming back fat. My senora thinks I'm an army of one and
can eat massive amounts of portions of food. So I did, so I wouldn't be
rude. But I can't keep eating this much... it's ridiculous.
I
can never get the key out of the lock when I come back in, so I think
my senora thinks that I am an idiot... it's gotten to the point where
she gets kind of frustrated that I haven't gotten the hang of it yet.
But she's nice. Communication is an issue. I can't understand anything.
I hope she likes me. She acts like she does, but it's such a big
change, and she was telling me about her previous study abroad
students... and I can tell that they were way more accustomed to
spanish than i am... she kept saying how funny this kind John was...
all I could think was that I don't have a sense of humor. and that I've
been kinda quiet because I don't know what to say.
It's
strange. I'm not excited about being in Spain. More in disbelief. Once
I stop spending so much of my energy on trying to survive here, I think
I'll be alright. but it's a huge adjustment. I live for when I can see
the other study abroad girls, I need that English connection. I'm
totally using it as a crutch right now. I want to learn Spanish. But I
need to have normalcy now, and something to lean on.
Despite this, everything's good. Really it is. It's just a lot. And all at once.
No Spanish boys. and No Nakedness. Not yet at least.
My
university is nice, I'm just going through orientation. Today we had
our first class on how to survive in Spain. When to use tu o usted and
music and culture and things.
Then we got to buy cell phones!!!!!!!! EXCITING.
It feels like I've been here forever already, but it's only been 3
days. I know once I get the hang of things, time will go by super fast.
But for now it kind of feels like a marathon. Pero, estoy bien.
2/6/08
it's late. i just finished tarea. so i'll be quick.
we had sad news today too. i had a million emails
from stetson. they were on lock down for 3 hours. someone was suicidal
and possibly armed. sound familiar? i guess all is well. i haven't
heard from anyone. the email just said that the lockdown was lifted.
spain
is going well though. i finally figured out how to lock and unlock the
doors without getting my key stuck and having to do the whole thing
again!!!!!!!!!!! my senora probably thought "it's about time." but all
is well. she's really nice. it's just so different. and hard when i
can't understand anything. yay language barrier! i'm so ready to break
it...
happy news: i heard an enrique iglesias song on the bus that i knew today! dimelo! it was super exciting.
more happy news! BARACK. me encanta.
i had to write a song today for homework, it had to model this song by
the band amaral. and it's a song about the girl being in a hotel room
alone and thinking about her friends. i was like, this is easy. we had
to pretend we'd been here for 4 months and then received news on how
much our friends' situations had changed. so you called me to say
hello, and that your party went well, and that you were visiting in a
week (time frame way off, but it worked in the song..) you also
informed me that barack will be president. i know, i know. barack isn't
a personal friend, but whatever, we talk about him like he's our
friend. then i talked about being far away from everyone and in a
strange but wonderful place. and then the song moved to maggie telling
me that hard times were happening at stetson but katherine was doing
well in tennis (even though she just told me she wasnt) and that she
was engaged to david (again, not reality. but total possibility. and i
was given free range with the creativity) then i talked about how james
quit his job (he told me he wanted to) and when i looked up the word
for quit it said dejar de fumar (quit smoking) so i put that in there
too. then i had to fill in the blanks for so and so moved ______ ...
michael to boston. and ______ had a kid... melinda. it was easy to
write, cause it was about everything i'm going though now. and most of
the things in there aren't all that fictional. definite possibilities.
it was fun.
2/7/08
i had my first spanish beverage con alcohol today! sangria. at a little
bar we found called imperfecto. but the m wasn't there, so you could
only see the imprint of the m in the wood. it was fun. pero, i'm not
going to be drunk in madrid. probably not, anyway. because a) my metro
stop closes at 940, this means i have to learn to take the night bus,
which i haven't figured out yet... b) alcohol es muy cara en madrid...
c) i don't like walking around campus alone at night, let alone around
the sketchy outskirts of madrid when i'm borracha.
i miss you. immensely. but i think i'm done going through my super
cycles of emotions. it's been a stable day and i think i found a
rhythm. i'm sure i will cycle a little again with culture shock and
whatnot. but i feel the most comfortable with spain today than i have
since i've been here. these are good things.
2/8/07
i helped my senora make paella, ensalada, y una ensalada de fruta for guests coming for lunch! it was bonding time, and a breaking of the language barrier-- without using words! i'm working on the language, but it was great to connect in a way sin hablar.
we went to a museum. kind of
boring. until the end, when i got to see rivera and picasso and van
gogh. and dali! i might end up taken the arte class... we'll see.
and then we went to a tapas bar! they
give you wanter and a jar of sangria for your table, and then you just
order a bunch of appetizers and pass them around the table as a meal.
so much fun :)
and then we had CHURROS CON CHOCOLATE. sooo good.
churros are fried. fried dough. and you can taste the oil. but it
doesn't matter. they are delicious. and the chocolate isn't super
sweet, but it doesn't need to be. me encanta!
despues, we walked around downtown madrid (i love sol,
and paseo del prado, and the wonderful nice downtown parts of madrid..
the outskirts where i live, kind of sketch.) but i'm to the point where i'm allowing myself to fall in
love with the actual city. we're going to their equivalent of central
park tomorrow. so we killed 2 hours doing nothing because we wanted to
test out los buhos (means the owls, the night buses). and we did.
successfully. well, i missed my stop and had to walk two extra blocks.
not that bad. but i could have only walked a block home. but it doesn't
matter, i made it home by 1230 (los buhos start at 12).
and that was my exciting day.
2/9/08
today was our free day! we went to el parque del retiro, think central park in NYC. it was just a beautiful way to spend the day. lunch looking out at a lake where people rent row boats, exploring, photo ops, el angel caido, helado. it was wonderful :)
2/10/08
we went to the street market today! it was cool, but the one in
istanbul = way better. but i also didn't explore as much as i probably
should have. it was cooooold. i'm ready for the warmness to come in.
... I can't believe I've been here a week. It's been an adjustment, but I'm making it. I thought that my Spanish skills would have increased exponentially, but it's going to take a lot of work, and it will have to come little by little -- nothing is never as easy as we want it to be. But everything is going well. Overall, I am content with the week. Goal for this week: interact with las Espanolas mas, my senora doesn't count.
