La primera semana

Hola a todos! I have now been in Salamanca for a full week, and I love it! I’m having so much fun living in a foreign country and learning about Spanish culture. Before I talk about the past week, let me rant a little about my internet situation: my host family doesn’t have wireless internet in their house, which made my first few days here really hard. I wanted to be able to check my email, skype with people at home, and read up on all the inauguration coverage, and it was especially frustrating because everyone else in my program has wireless internet where they live (albeit rather inconsistent wireless). I bought a portable internet device, but I had to go back to the tech store where I bought it 3 times before it worked; it still only works about half the time, so that whole situation was really frustrating too. So, being a spoiled American who has access to internet wherever she goes, I was really upset about not having internet for the first few days. While it’s still hard to not have internet whenever I need it, I’ve gotten used to the idea of using internet cafes and my portable internet during the rare times that it works. And once classes start on Monday I’ll have access to the network at school. So things are not as bad as they seemed (they rarely are, I suppose), but just to warn you, if I have a skype date with you and I don’t show up, I apologize in advance; I probably just wasn’t able to find an internet connection.

Now, my journey to Salamanca. I left Georgia on the afternoon of Thursday Jan. 15. My friend Kristen from Georgetown is also studying in Salamanca this semester, so she came down to visit me in Georgia for a couple of days, which was really fun, and we flew out of Atlanta together. Thursday morning I finished up my packing, ran a few errands, and took my sister Meg lunch at school. She was practicing an a cappella song with her friends for their upcoming talent/rock show (Coffee House), and I got to listen! I’m glad I got to watch them, but it really made me miss my a cappella group at Georgetown, the GraceNotes. Then Kristen and I went downtown to have a final lunch with my friends Jennifer and Mary Kathryn, and my parents drove us to the Atlanta airport afterwards. It was hard to tell my parents goodbye, but I wasn’t as emotional as I thought I was going to be. (I will admit, I did cry a little bit Wednesday night as I was packing. I was pretty nervous.) We flew overnight from Atlanta to London and then had a 7 hour layover in the London airport, which was primarily spent surfing the internet and fighting off jetlag. It was during this first part of our journey that we realized that we weren’t going to arrive in Salamanca until about 11pm, and we started getting really nervous about getting to our host families late at night with no means of communicating with anyone. So we decided to hastily book a hostel for Friday night and deal with contacting our families on Saturday. It was extremely nerve-wracking trying to book a hostel and figure out all the transportation, and fortunately Kristen handled all the details, for which I was very grateful. After landing in Madrid, we had to take a bus to Salamanca. Our bus platform wasn’t posted until minutes before departure time, and once we got down to the platforms the numbers kept changing, so Kristen had to race around finding our bus while I tried to keep an eye on our 6 bags and not get trampled by the traveling Spaniards around me. The 2.5 hour bus ride felt about twice as long, but we finally made it to our hostel (fortunately the reception desk was still open), took showers, brushed our teeth, and crashed. It was an exhausting 30 hours.

We checked out of the hostel at noon on Saturday, and Kristen and I parted ways as we went to find our host families (we are living on the same street though). When I buzzed up to my apartment, I was told that my host mother wasn’t there and to come back at 2. I knew they were expecting me, but I didn’t know what to do other than wait until 2, so I lugged my suitcases to a neighboring park and settled down with my book. It was actually quite nice. When I returned at 2, my host mother told me that she had been expecting me to come between 1 and 2, which is probably what the person I spoke to before (either her husband or son) told me, but I failed to understand. I really love my host family, despite their lack of internet and their tendency to fry everything they cook. The mother, Mari (nickname for Maria) is really sweet and always helps me with my Spanish and offers to help me with homework. She calls me “amable hija,” or kind daughter. There is also a father and a 26-year-old son—people tend to live at home for much longer here than they do in the US. I’m also living with 2 girls from Wisconsin, although I’m technically not supposed to live with Americans, but they’re leaving next week so I figure it’s not a big deal.

After lunch Kristen and I met up to do a bit of exploring. We got some hot chocolate—the really thick kind like in the movie Chocolat, which I’ve wanted to try ever since I saw the movie. It definitely lived up to my expectations. We eventually bumped into our friend Carter from Georgetown who is also studying here this semester but came a couple weeks early for a language program. He showed us around the city, and in the evening we met up with the rest of the kids in our program and our program director for tapas. Afterwards we did some bar hopping, but the 3 of us that had gotten in Friday night had to call it quits at about 2am—extremely early by Spanish standards…they usually stay out till about 5am. It was a fun night.

There are 7 students in our program, 6 girls and 1 guy. We are doing direct matriculation, meaning we are official students of the University of Salamanca (USAL) and take classes with Spanish students—15 credits, all in Spanish. Apparently most other programs don’t do it that way; students come and take language programs, and maybe 1 or 2 classes in the host language, which kind of surprised me. I’m excited and terrified about taking all my classes in Spanish. I know I’ll improve a ton, but it’s going to be hard. At least my grades don’t go on my transcript, so all I have to do is pass to get Georgetown credit. Also, it will be fun to study at USAL, which is the oldest university in Spain and the 3rd oldest in Europe. While not quite as prestigious as it used to be, it still is quite important historically.

On Sunday we went out for churros and chocolate, which is a traditional Spanish treat (who doesn’t love deep fat fried dough dipped in liquid chocolate?), and in the afternoon we had a historic tour of the city. Monday through Friday was taken up by orientation: we took culture and language classes, registered for classes at the university (an extremely complicated process), and adjusted to life here. It was a pretty laid back week, and it was kind of weird to not have a million things to do every day. Every morning we would have pinchos (small snacks, like tapas) around noon in one of the various cafes; this typically consists of café con leche and maybe jam or a small Spanish tortilla. Tortillas are absolutely delicious and nothing like Mexican tortillas. They are egg, potato, and onion concoctions kind of like quiche, but without the pie crust. I think they are my favorite food in Spain so far. Lunch, or la comida, takes place around 2 or 2:30, and is the biggest meal of the day. Literally the entire city (and I presume country) shuts down between 2 and 4 so everyone can go home for comida and siesta. Dinner is smaller and happens around 9 or 10. It’s a different system, but I like it. It leaves lots of time for hanging out in cafes with your friends, which is a custom that I really enjoy and participate in pretty much every day.

I haven’t really experienced much culture shock or homesickness yet, just a few small annoyances that kind of grated on me. However, on January 20 I wished with all my might that I could be back home in Washington for the inauguration of President Obama. I really can’t believe that after 2 ½ years of living in that city I missed one of the most important and exciting days in American history in my lifetime. I’m so envious of all my Georgetown friends who got to go; I’m sure I wouldn’t have slept Monday night so that I could leave in the wee hours of Tuesday morning to get down to the National Mall. I’ve seen pictures of the day's events that people posted on Facebook, and they are absolutely incredible. All of the Georgetown kids in Salamanca watched together in a bar on the Madrid news, which was fun, but I could have done without the Spanish dubbing. I’m going to have to go back and watch the speech in English on Youtube. But it’s exciting to see how the rest of the world is reacting to our new president; Obama is all over the news here, and there is a general sense of happiness and renewed faith in America. I’m excited to see what the next 4 years will bring.

Please forgive me if I rambled on a bit; there was a lot to write about from my first week abroad. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 5 months will bring!