Becoming a Salmantina

I’ve just completed my second week of classes and, after about a million changes, finally have a set class schedule. I ended up dropping my art history class for another Spanish history class—the art history was just way too hard for a foreigner. I’m struggling with having all of my classes in Spanish, but I know it will be worth it in the end. As the only person in my Georgetown group who has never taken Spanish at the academic level (I’ve only taken grammar classes, although I should have been in a writing class this past semester but chose not to take it), I feel kind of behind all the other Georgetown kids. It takes a lot of energy to pay attention enough to understand what is going on, especially because lectures can be up to 2 hours, but it’s slowly getting easier every day. I just keep reminding myself that as long as I pass my classes I’ll be ok; since my classes are in a foreign language, Georgetown doesn’t factor the grade I receive into my GPA, I just get class credit. Also, all my professors seem really understanding and accepting of having foreigners in their classes, so that will be helpful!

I’ve been enduring some mild culture shock the past couple of weeks. I always imagined that culture shock would come from something actually shocking: the way people interact with each other, how they go about their daily lives, etc. Instead, my culture shock has mostly come from practical annoyances. For example, I went to buy my text books on Saturday afternoon and had to wait an hour for the store to reopen after lunch. And on Sunday, I tried to go to the library to do some homework, only to discover that the library isn’t open on Sundays, and closes early on Saturdays. That was pretty frustrating, considering Georgetown’s library is open 24 hours. So then I went to an internet café so I could use the internet to do my homework, and proceeded to surf the net rather than study. Working out a class schedule was also really annoying because practically every class I wanted to take overlapped with something else. But now that I know how things work here, I’m hoping I’m over the culture shock (for now) and will know how to deal with it in the future. It was just a little difficult to adjust at first. Also, the Georgetown group met with a psychologist today to talk about culture shock. It was a really interesting session, and I know that what I’m going through is completely normal. She gave us a lot of good advice on how to get over culture shock and adjust to Spanish life, which will hopefully help me make the most out of this semester.

I joined a gym here and went for the first time Wednesday. It’s a really nice gym, and I love being able to work off all the food my host mom feeds me! Also on Wednesday, my new roommates from France finally arrived. They were supposed to arrive on Sunday but couldn’t get here because of all the snow in France. It’s snowing like crazy all over Europe except in Salamanca—it just rains all the time here. They’re 2 18-year-old girls, both very sweet, and they’re here for a week. Tonight at dinner they told me that they are Gossip Girl fans, and it made me laugh to see, once again, how American culture has taken over the world.

A funny anecdote: Kristen, Mary Kathryn, and I were planning on going to Barcelona for the second part of our spring break to see the Coldplay concert there on 4/9/09. Mary Kathryn ordered the tickets, and as soon as the confirmation page popped up, we realized that 4/9 is not April 9, as we thought, but September 4! Of course we should have known that, being in Europe and all, but I still don’t understand why they wouldn’t have written the date out on the web page. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to return the tickets because the show is now sold out, so if anyone is going to be in Barcelona on September 4, 2009 and wants to see Coldplay, let me know!

Another cool anecdote: I met a girl from Omaha yesterday in one of my classes!! She’s actually from Denver, but she goes to Creighton University in Omaha. And she even lives kind of close to where I used to live! It always makes me happy to meet a fellow Nebraskan/Midwesterner, and who knew I would meet one in Spain?

A few more observations I’ve had about life in Spain:
-You know how people in the States will stand on street corners and hand out literature or ask for donations to a charity? Well, they do that here too, but I have never been approached by one of these people. I don’t know if they’re just not as aggressive as they are in the US or if they avoid me because I’m American or what.
-I really don’t know how people know I’m American. Of course I’m clearly not Spanish, (the blonde hair, white skin, and 5’9” height kind of gives me away) but why do they always assume I’m American rather than some other nationality? Maybe America is just the safest bet since it represents pretty much every nationality, or maybe I just really don’t look European at all.
-A lot of the public bathrooms are semi-unisex; there will be men’s and women’s stalls but shared sinks, or two rooms but no gender labels on the door. It’s still weird to me to wash my hands with a guy at the sink next to me.
-There are churrerías, or churro venders, everywhere. They have these little stands on the street corners that are just like the hot dog/pretzel/popcorn stands that you see in big American cities. Spaniards certainly love their churros!

As much as I like Salamanca, after 3 weekends here I’m ready to get out. I also really want to meet some Spanish people! This weekend should be really fun, though, because my Georgetown friend Kate, who is studying in Florence, Italy this year, is coming for a visit! I’m really excited to see her because I haven’t seen her since August, and I’m looking forward to showing her the city. She arrives in a couple of hours, and on Saturday the Georgetown group (Kate included) is taking a day trip to the castle of Penafiel for a wine tasting. It will be nice to go somewhere new, and it should be a really great weekend. And next weekend Kristen and I are going to Switzerland, which I’m very excited for. We’re busily making preparations for lots more trips this semester!