Grumpy grump of a grinch

This post is gonna make me sound like a grumpy grump of a grinch.  I'm going to address the aspects of the program that I am not fond of, because yes, even while studying-abroad life isn't perfect.  

As many of you know, I am studying abroad for the second time not for the fun of it, but for the Spanish.  Sure, it's fun!  It's a great time, no doubt.  But I'm abroad for the second time to become as fluent as any native English speaker can become.  For that, I have much to learn.  I so far from my goal right now actually that it's a little depressing.  Hold it together Dan!  You're in Spain.  

Alright.

So my deal is, there is way too much English here.  You'd think that going to an entirely Spanish speaking country would mean there'd be Spanish everywhere, right? 

Well. I did.

Turns out there is a ton of English.  Even some road signs are in English.. which I'm assuming is because Spain is in Europe and since it's so easy to travel to different countries here they decided to use the current universal language... English.  But I'm not upset because the road signs are in English, I'm upset because while walking the streets of Segovia I hear English, in bars I hear English, and in restaurants I hear English... why is that?  Because everywhere I go, people can tell I'm not a Spaniard, so they either first, or right after they hear me speak, switch to English.  

It's a little bothersome.  

It's almost like it's a slap in the face that my Spanish is so bad that their English must be a better language to converse in.

I'll move on from that and get to the most frustrating part of this Spanish program.  We are attending a University solely consistent of exchange students.  And to top things off, those exchange students aren't studying Spanish, but another language.  Can you guess which one? 

English.

Not only is there no way to meet Spaniards at my school, everyone else speaks English about 80% of the time.  

Segovia is a pretty awesome city.  I mean, it has the aqueduct... a humongous roman built water duct which was used to bring water to the city a long time ago.  What the city is known for is it's bars and churches... so I've been told, and can now attest for as there are plenty of both.  The only place I have been able to meet people my age has been at the bars, and because of the Spanish culture - that doesn't take place till about 2:30 in the morning when my Spanish peers first make an entrance at the bars/clubs.  Conveniently, anybody you'd meet at that time in the morning is going to be so drunk that having an intelligent conversation is unlikely, and maintaining a friendship which began like that is pretty much impossible.  Also, the clubs are mainly filled with, again, exchange students looking to live it up in their time abroad.  

I'm not writing this to complain, because non of what I'm saying is the worst thing that could happen, and there are still things I can do to continue learning Spanish, like read a novel in Spanish, watch movies dubbed in Spanish, and speak with my host family and friends who are willing.  I'm just trying to be honest in my experience.  

A pocos más detalles

Even though I've only been here for 12 days it feels like much longer.  I have a good relationship with my host parents (which I'll talk about later) school is well on it's way, and we've already visited another city - Salamanca - with Madrid our next destination (this Saturday).  I also know my way around Segovia fairly well.  I have now ventured into New Segovia and even developed a few favorite restaurants, cafes, and bars.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  First, the most exciting story.

I saw a fight!  I know this isn't cultural or anything, but it was exciting and I was lucky enough to have my camera with me.  At the time I was walking to one of those favorite cafes I mentioned earlier... a place called "La Niagra" to do homework with a few friends.  Two minutes after leaving my apartment I saw two people somewhere around 30 yards ahead of me clearly arguing on the sidewalk.  I thought to myself that any intelligent study abroad-er would avoid the situation entirely, which is why I should at take another path to my destination, or at least cross the street and walk on the other side.

That was before I remembered I had my camera.

With camera in hand I walk towards the fight, planning on taking some pics from a distance, then quickly sneaking by, undetectable to the preoccupied Spaniards.

Before I could activate my camera, the more aggravated of the two threw the first of many wild and inaccurate punches.  The other fellow's reaction was to throw his arms up to block, and then follow that devilishly clever move with a surprisingly powerful shove which literally sent the first man flying through the air and finally to the ground where he landed with an almost audible plop on his rear.

Man number two, lets call him Pablo, decided that man number one, Carlos, would not be in a good mood upon standing up, so he decided to book it.

It was then that I realized just how truly un-athletic both of these men were.  As Carlos heaved himself to a standing position, Pablo had covered maybe 10 yards in his attempt to run away.  I was sure that Possibly-The-Most-Awkward-Runner-Ever-Pablo would be quickly run down by a now fuming Carlos, but Carlos was no olympic athlete himself.  At this point I was able to snap a pic of the chase.

Carlos in the orange chasing Pablo in the black

Carlos was able to catch him after a short and thrilling chase.  Pablo seemed to not want to fight, as he put his arms up as if to plead "Please!  Let's talk this out!"  But Carlos' rear reminded him of the shove. Carlos continued his attempt at punching Pablo, but was so bad at it that I couldn't help but laugh.

I tried and tried to take a video of the physical exchanges that were taking place, but my camera would not work.  Unbelievable.  It works when I want to take a panoramic shot of some boring scenic site, but fails me when I randomly encounter a street-side scuffle.  Oh well.

Pablo gives up the run and tries to sweet talk Carlos

"Please!  Let's talk this out!"

After not much time a car drove by and opened it's door, assumingly to chew them out for fighting on the street.  Carlos and Pablo then walked away together, still arguing. And thus ends my exciting fight story.


I'd like to talk a bit about my host family situation.  First off, it's going great!  Angeles (host mom) and Juan (host dad) are both fantastic hosts, and I really don't think I could have been given a better situation.  I am able to talk plenty with them, or relax in my room if I so choose.  As I mentioned before, the food is fantastic.  It's not like I haven't eaten good food before, because my mom is a wonderful cook.  The food here, however, is different than what I'm used to.  It's Spanish food first, and European food second... both of which consist of food in which I'm not used to.  The quality of the food is through the roof.  I am convinced that many of the dishes Angeles prepares could easily be featured in a fancy Italian restaurant, or marketed for how healthy they are.  How she finds the mix of delicious and healthy food is something I am looking forward to enjoying for the next three months.

One thing about my host family is that they are always at home.  This isn't a problem what-so-ever, but it made it difficult for me to take pictures of the place.  I'm sure that they would have been fine with me taking pictures, but for some reason I just didn't feel comfortable doing that in front of them.  It wasn't till a couple days ago when I came home from class with a friend and found an empty apartment.  While they were grocery shopping I was able to snap a few pics.

Looking out my bedroom window

Bedroom

Living room - I've never seen it used 

Kitchen

Where we eat and watch TV

It'd take an army to break into this apartment

In addition to attending classes in Segovia, every weekend for the first two months we will be traveling as a group to varying Spaniard cities.  Last weekend we went to Salamanca for a day.  It wasn't very exciting, as it rained the entire time we were there, and thus were only able to check out one church... which we did with incredible detail (as we had nothing else to do).  It was truly enormous.

This weekend we will be heading to Madrid, which most of us are really looking forward to.  We will be staying in a fancy hotel (from what our director has told us) for two nights.  I'm hopeful that I will fall in love with Madrid because Segovia is a fairly small city and after a couple months I might desire some new scenery.  Madrid is about an hour bus ride (or half an hour speed train) from where we live, so if I ever wanted to explore Madrid a bit more, it wouldn't be too difficult.

If there's anything anybody would like to know about which I'm not already writing in my blog, just make a comment and I'd be happy to write about it.  I'm probably forgetting a bunch, but for now, this will do.

Información sobre todo

I should probably write about Spain at some point.  I have made it through four full days here in Segovia!  In reality, it feels like it's been at least a month... I'm really sure what that means.  I do know that I'm having a spectacular first week, with no problems filling up the time.  Filling time in itself is something I'm not worried about, especially now that the homework has started flowing like the river jordan.  

I am taking four classes at a university for foreign exchange students.  Yes, for exchange students.  That is kind of a sore point with me.  You see, without a school to facilitate meetings with actual Spaniard students our age, it hasn't even come close to happening yet.  The only hope I have left for meeting Spaniards is this coming Monday night when basketball starts.  Even that I'm not so sure about, because it's through the school so wouldn't that mean that the only participants will be from the school??  I really hope not.  

My four classes are as follows:

Advance Spanish.  I look most forward to this class, as our teacher is fantastic.  She apparently is a widely known professor with many achievements, but all we know her as is a pleasant Spanish proff who knows how to make a fun learning environment.  In this class we learn whatever our group might require most.  So far we've started slow and with pretty basic Spanish, but I'm sure it will pick up soon. 

Spanish myths and Legends.  The title in itself should describe how awesome this class is going to be.  We've only had one class so far, and it was pretty much a syllabus day, so I don't know much more than the title describes, but the proff appears to be really down to earth and student friendly!

Cinema:  I'm not really sure what to expect from this class other than a few movies which we will analyze.  We haven't had class yet so I can't be sure.

Seminar: This class is taken by all study abroad programs, and it's purpose is to help us with the program as a group, and teach us about the culture.  So far as I can tell, it is by far going to be my most difficult class.  We have purchased four novels with a 5th pending, depending on how fast we read the first four.  There will be a thorough analysis of the books as well as class discussion.  

My typical day looks like this:

Wake up a little after 8 - shower, make my own breakfast usually consistent of a freshly squeezed orange juice, toast, and a glass of milk.  I then get ready and head off for my first class which is at 9:30 every morning besides Friday (11:00).  After that it differs daily, sometimes finishing classes at 11, other times not till 1:45.  

The Spaniards have a much different eating schedule than do Americans.  As we learned today, the typical Spaniard eats five times a day. 

Breakfast - 7:00: Glass of milk or juice with some piece of fruit.

Snack - 11:00: Some sort of snack... an orange, sandwich, something like that.

Lunch - 2:00: The most important meal of the day... usually pretty big in size.  Often times there courses. Varies in food and quantity just as lunches do in the United States.  

Snack - 5:30: Similar to the morning snack.

Dinner - 9:00: Differs from family to family.  Sometimes two courses, where in other families there are three.  

The meal of course vary from person to person, but are generally pretty accurate.  My personal schedule includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Breakfast is pretty small, but lunch and dinner are enormous and I love it!  I have always received enough food, and the quality is through the roof.  My host mom is a marvelous cook, and we often times eat food which would only be found at the nicest of restaurants.  For example, today we had chicken which was marinated in apples, oranges, and one other fruit which escapes my memory right now.  The oranges were literally placed underneath the skin of the chicken to better soak in the flavors.  

At one point during the meal my host mom asked me if I was just enjoying the meal or if I was in pain because I couldn't help but let out the occasional moan of enjoyment.  

As for generalities, as stated before I am having a great time, but there are a few things that worry me.  Because of the lack of native Spaniards at my school, I have not met any yet.  We also can't seem to find them at any restaurants or bars at night because the young people here are apparently so poor that they hang out together in the parks or at a friend's house until three in the morning when they go to the clubs because there is no entrance fee that late at night.  I am a late night-er, but I don't expect to stay out past dawn very many nights here... so that becomes a problem.

In addition to the lack of natives, I hear a large amount of English in my school.  Most people, in fact, are studying not Spanish, but English.  Why they came to Spain to do that I will undoubtedly never know.  All I know is this is my last semester abroad, and I'm going to have a good time when I'm here, yes, but I'm here to learn Spanish, and that's what I intend to do.

First days

After approximately 18 hours of traveling I finally arrived in Spain.  I'm gonna keep this post short cause there is so much to explore right now, and also because my host mom is making lunch and anyone who knows me knows I wouldn't want to miss lunch.  

I live in Segovia, Spain - a city with about 45,000 people but in reality it feels much smaller.  It can be described as very quaint, consistent of mainly churches and bars which according to my study abroad director - Gladys - are in competition with one another.

Bird's Eye View of Segovia and the aqueduct

While still in the states I decided that I was not going to waste any time during my second semester abroad, as such the first night (last night) I went out at 11:00 pm to explore the city after getting to know my family and taking my first spanish siesta.  I brought with me a camera and a map, and here's a bit of what I came across.

From the highest point on the aqueduct which can be reached

Even in a quaint Segovia

Apparently 50 shades of grey is a world-wide phenomenon

In regards to my host family, they are great.  I have a host mom and dad.  Both are retired from work, and always in a good mood.  We have already talked for hours upon hours, and I couldn't be more excited about my situation.