Cositas de la vida española (and some things not so little)

A note: due to technical difficulties, this blog is being published about a day and a half after it was written. So when I talk about “today”, I mean January 6^th, “yesterday” is the 5^th.  And when this is being published I have already come and gone from Toledo, but I’ll post about that later.

So it has officially been a month since I left the US. In the month in Spain I’ve had an experience very similar to what I’ve had during other experiences in my life: I am so busy just living that I kind of forget to be shocked. At first it is all new, and you get sucked into the novelty of it, but then slowly, day by day, it becomes normal, and I’m finding that very true of this experience too.

So today when I realized that the first month was up, I kind of wanted to think about what kind of month it had been, and figured that it might be good for me to do a sort of retrospective-but-not-really blog so that I could really think about the journey as I’m taking it.

And fortunately, the last 24 hours have been pretty resonant with that theme, so it works well. I’ve had a few experiences very recently that make me realize, in a way it is hard to when it is happening to you, just how much I’ve changed and been shaped by this month of adventure. So onto the stories!

So this morning I woke up and ate breakfast, an ensaïmada (looks like this)

A kiwi, some freshly-squeezed orange juice

And a bit of cereal. Then we walked to class.

In class we discussed the history of Spain. I’m getting a lot of that, but it is all coming from different places and fitting together really interestingly. In my culture class, for example, we are studying the history systematically. We start with the Iberian tribes, then the Romans, Moors, Christian Kings, etc. In addition, in this class we talk about the news every day, and our teacher provides random bits of history that help us understand the news. In my Lit class we are starting at the Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Golden age in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and moving forward. We do this study mostly through literature, but we get a lot of historical context. In my film class we start with the start of modern Spain, the Spanish Civil War and Franquismo and are moving on from there.

In between classes I went to the bathroom and there were some girls in there, and, since the bathroom is very small, I sort of waited outside, but then one of them turns to me and says, in perfect, unaccented American English, “Oh, sorry, you go ahead.” I know this seems like a sort of weird story to tell, but this was probably the moment that made me realize how much I’ve gotten used to being in Spain, because I was shocked. I literally could not respond to her. I had an actual, physical reaction at hearing English spoken by an American not in our group. Because in the last month I have talked to our group, and occasionally overheard English, but mostly my interactions with others have been in Spanish, as you would expect, and if the Spaniards try to speak English, it is clearly not their first language. That’s what I’ve gotten used to hearing, and that’s how I expect people to react to me, but this girl responded in English with an ease I don’t hear often anymore. If she had said the same thing in Spanish, I would have been fine, but I’m no longer used to strangers addressing me in English, and I didn’t even realize that until someone did it.

After culture class we had film class, where we talked about the movies we watched and how society changed in the time periods when the last movie we watched and the next movie we’re going to watch were made. We are moving into the mid-70’s here, and the Spanish movies are influenced by the social/cultural movements coming over from the US (by the way, someone explained the EEUU acronym to me. So it’s E for Estados and U for Unidos (literally just United States), but because it is plural they double the letters. It’s just a thing in Spanish, like the Reyes Católicos I’ve mentioned before become abbreviated as RRCC because it is plural. The more you know.) So he made us list all the stuff that was going on in the US in the 60s and 70s, and then got horrified when we didn’t know various people who apparently are very important, but we’ve never heard of. Oops. 

In the middle of class, we somehow wound up in a conversation about the phrase “I’m sorry” and the concept of personal space. This is pretty normal for this class, we often talk about cultural differences, especially since this teacher seems to know American culture and English better than the other professors. But this conversation struck me because it confirmed what I talked about in my post about the Chinese New Year: personal space is not a thing in Spain like it is in the US. Especially in the south, if touch a stranger on the street, you tend to say something, to apologize or at least acknowledge that it was an accident, but here that’s not true. People don’t move out of each other’s ways here like they do in the US, and more people touch more often. Kisses on the cheek are the norm, and especially amongst the elderly women will walk down the street arm in arm with another woman or their husband, and sometimes two men will do the same. It’s just a more tactile culture. Our teacher thinks that it has something to do with Catholocism, and that may well be, but it is certainly a difference in culture.

Then we started watching a part of a film from the era right after the fall of Franco. It was very… ummm….. it was…. sighs, throws up hands filthy. But that was kind of the point since Franco kept such tight control over the country that the frankly shocking content of the film was an act of rebellion and a declaration of a new society. But that made it no less awkward to watch.

And then an old English guy walked into the room. That didn’t make it any better. But despite this hilarious and horrifying entrance, I really liked the guy. He is a professor of English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Valencia, and he runs a program called Tandem, which pairs English-speaking foreign exchange students with Spaniards studying English and gives them an opportunity to meet and talk and get to know each other and help each other with the language. So he talked to us about that, and he was absolutely hilarious. He made fun of the British and Americans and Valencians, and his Spanish was quite good, and he was such a professor. He had the scarf and the tweed and everything.

So after lunch I walked home from class and passed by this guy who sells books on the street. For the past few days I have walked past and saw this beautiful copy of Voltaire’s Candide in Spanish

 

 and just sort of drooled. The day before yesterday, Jess, who usually walks with me, just turns to me and says, “OH BUY IT ALREADY! You know you’re going to!” And so yesterday I did. I made it a whole month without purchasing a book, but I now have one, and I feel better already.

But this is another example of a realization of how much I’ve gotten used to Spain in the last month, when I took out my coins to pay the guy (because there are no bills smaller than 5, and for most things coins are more convenient) I had no problem telling them apart, even though some of them (50 and 20, I’m looking at you!) look really similar, and that’s something I’ve had a problem with. In fact, this was the first time I’ve ever done it instinctively, like I do with American money (which I am going to hate when I go back to the US. Not that I use it there. Everything is on my card there, which is not the case here.)

Then I walked to the stationary shop by the Plaza de la Reina and bought an agenda/calendar because I really need somewhere to write stuff down. That’s another thing: though I don’t go buy stuff often, I have “places” now, in the way that you do when you live somewhere. Like, I have an ice cream place and a crêpe place, and a school supplies place. Navigation is something I do effortlessly now too. I know where the Micalet is and some of the other major landmarks and big streets, and from there I can pretty much find myself anywhere in the center, the Carmen neighborhood, which is where we live.

So then I came home and worked like a maniac. I emailed the English Professor and within my lunch break he had set me up with a Spanish girl, and we had exchanged emails. I ate lunch, where I recognized what all the food was, knew how to order and what everything was called. I also eat a lot more citrus here. I know, it sounds impossible to eat more fruit, but I eat so many mandarinos (clementines I guess in English) that I’m worried about my body stopping working from a lack of vitamin c when I leave Spain. I did homework, I contacted people for WWOOFing this summer, I reorganized my route for travel this summer completely and skyped Dad to make sure that it was doable. I packed for Toledo. By the way, I’m on a train to Toledo.

Sneak peak of the ride to Toledo. Notice the laptop reflected in the window from which I was writing this blog.

I love trains.

So now we move from cositas to the bigger things.  At 4 yesterday I met up in the Plaza de la Virgen with our culture teacher, we call him Einstein amongst ourselves, but his name is Juan Miguel. This part was a tour of medieval Valencia, starting with the Moorish occupation of the Peninsula. We went by this tower that is the only one completely left from the muralla, or city wall that the Muslims built when they ruled Baleynsia and then we saw the door that led to the Muslim quarter when the King of Aragon conquered Valencia in 1237.

This is the painting on top

From there we walked to the Torres de Serranos,

 which was the main entrance to the city when the wall that the Christian kings built was in place. It was so cool, and it gives me a great excuse to do something I’ve been wanting to do for forever but could never quite justify: RANT ABOUT SPANISH HISTORY!!! (I know I’ve done it before, but this is slightly more in-depth).

Warning: the following paragraph contains things that would put my little sister to sleep.

So a long, long time ago on a peninsula several thousand miles away from where most of you are right now, there remained the last vestige of an early Islamic empire and they called this land…this land, (no sorry, I did swear off Firefly references, didn’t I?) No, they called it Al-Ándalus, but then times got tough and the kingdoms broke up and actually Valencia had its own Islamic King, but then El Cid, who is like… he’s…. A mix between George Washington and King Arthur but for Spain. He was this great Spanish warrior in medieval times, and actually the thing that is considered the first example of Spanish Literature is Poema del mio Cid, and it’s about him. He was real, but he’s that level of famous and revered.  There was a movie about him. But then the Muslims took BACK Valencia, and then the Christian kingdoms in the north of Spain, which had been itty bitty things grew a lot and in 1237 King Jaime of Aragon took Valencia and brought it under the crown of Aragon.  But this is where things get interesting. So I’ve mentioned the Reyes Católicos before: Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile and they united the country into now what we know as Spain. Key word: united. Aragon was its own Kingdom and had its own language and culture and economy. Surprise, surprise, this now includes Cataluña, which is now trying to secede from Spain. Despite Isabel and Ferdiand, these kingdoms remained pretty separate, to the point where Ferdinand was not King of Castile after Isabel died. He was regent until the actual ruler came of age, but he had no claim to that throne. So getting back to the point at hand, by the time the King of Aragon built the Torres de Serranos, the Muslims were gone from Spain, but he built them as fortifications against the Castilians. In fact, the flag of Valencia

References this. The red and yellow stripes are the flag of Aragon, and, because Valencia consistently fought for the King of Aragon and repelled Castilian invasion, the King gave them permission to use his crown on their flag, and it is still there to this day. This is also why it is important to note that people here don’t talk about speaking Spanish. Everyone from here speaks Spanish, because they’re from Spain. The language that has spread to South America came from Castile (it was closer to the Atlantic, Aragon was a great kingdom of the Mediterranean.) and so that’s what they speak, but here, I speak Castilian or Castellano as opposed to Valencian or Catalán, which, especially in the region I’m in, is a common language to speak.

Alright, history lesson over, you can tune back in now.   

So we climbed up the Torres de Serranos

 (by the way, that doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just Towers of Serranos),

 which was so cool. 

A lot of the castles you go to are very beautiful 

(and so is this, 

they wanted to impress people coming into the city),

 but this is a guard tower and it had holes to pour boiling oil down on your enemies.

                                             

And that was cool.

Have some more pictures:

That's Einstein/Juan Miguel in the bottom right, by the way. See why we call him Einstein?

And now some vistas of Valencia:

 That's the Micalet. We climbed that, remember?

 That's the río.

 That's the museum of fine arts

On the way to our next stop I had a fascinating conversation with Einstein about languages in Euorpe and the US (another cosita (which by the way translates to “little thing”, but sounds much cooler in Spanish) is that I have changed the way I think about America. Being in a foreign country makes it easier to remember that people don’t use words the same way uou do, and with that I keep remembering that I while I come from America, so does someone from Chile, and therefore, in both English and Spanish, I have changed from using “America” to using “US”, though English doesn’t have an adjectival form of United States, in Spanish I use that instead.)  But we talked about how German is a really popular language here and a lot of young Spaniards, especially those in engenieering want to speak German, because that’s where the jobs are, and that vice-versa in Germany Spanish has surpassed French as the second most learned foreign language.

Then we arrived at la Lonja,

 which for about the first week and a half I was in Valencia I thought was a church. It’s not. Well, a church to commerce perhaps. So remember how I mentioned that Aragon was a powerful Mediterranean Empire? Probably not if you didn’t read my history rant, but that’s OK. Now you know.

So Valencia was a really important city in this empire, especially for silk production and trade, and it got so powerful that the silk merchants built this massive luxurious place right in the middle of the city to do their business: La Lonja. So first we walked through the patio of oranges, where Valencia’s celebrities used to party

                                 

                                              

And then we went into the main trading floor, 

which was incredible. 

They used the same kind of stone that looks like marble but isn’t in the floor of la Lonja as they used in the floor of the Roman forum in Valencia. 

The columns are made to represent palm trees supporting the sky,

 and the ceiling  was originally painted dark blue with stars to show that this was paradise.

 It also only took 15 years to complete. So that’s as much a show of wealth as anything. Speaking of wealth and power, the silk merchants were so important that these stairs 

lead to a jail where they would put people who cheated or broke contracts. It’s interesting, because there’s also a chapel right below the jail, 

and around the edges of the main trading floor the inscription says that those merchants who have good business practices will not only be wealthy, but will also go to heaven, so it was a very practical sort of place that also is totally tied up in religion.

The final room in La Lonja that we visited was the Consulate of the Sea, 

which was where the most important merchants held court and made decisions. 

It was very impressive. Just look at the ceiling

                                         

I lied. The last room we went to was the basement, where nothing special happened.

 Cool light fixtures

Interesting shadows.

Isn't Valencia pretty?

So then our tour was over and I went back to my room and skyped with mom to tell her about my change of summer plans. By the way, I changed my summer plans. Thought I’d mention it again. When we were talking I mentioned how one thing I found fascinating about my exchange with Gloria, my tandem partner, was that it helped me get an idea of how my Spanish sounds to native speakers, because it’s hard to tell how you sound when the mistakes you are making are more subtle, but this girl and I are both at about the same levels of our foreign language, and so when I read her email, I just had this revelation, that that’s what I sound like to a Spaniard. By the way, the answer to how I sound is “a little awkward, but perfectly intelligible.”

I also couldn’t figure out how to say “foregin exchange student” in English while talking to mom. In Spanish the phrase is different; there’s no literal translation and for the life of me I couldn’t remember the phrase in English, but I haven’t had to use it in English for a while, so… It’s just a part of living in a different language, and it’s not the fist time I’ve had this problem. Writing this blog can be difficult sometimes, because I am having to translate thoughts and names and interactions into a different language, and, even though I know English very well, that can be tough.

Towards the end of the conversation, which took place around 7pm my time, mother, who is ever astute and aware, noticed the time and asked me if I had eaten yet, and I think I laughed, because dinner STARTS at 8, and I almost never eat that early. The idea of having already eaten at 7pm, which was normal for me in the US, is now strange. I was actually kind of worried about making that shift in terms of eating time, but it seems to have worked out.

So then I did homework and chilled and got my stuff ready and went to bed.

I woke up this morning, packed up and cleaned up for my trip to Toledo and headed to class. Today we learned about the play we read and then moved on to Romanticism, which was fun, because I got to pronounce the German that the teacher was hilariously butchering. Apparently the Spanish pronunciation of Göthe (wait, Goethe?) is not as accurate as the English one. Y’all say it Ger-tah, right?

The final cosita of the past 24 hours came this morning in lit class. We were talking about… oh, something, when our teacher brought up the difference between the Spanish and the American philosophies of life. He mentioned that American foreign exchange students always seem amazed at how little the Spanish seem to work and how much free time they have. He chalked this up to the fact that Americans viven para trabajar (live to work) while the Spaniards, especially in southern Spain trabajan para vivir (work to live). For Americans, he suggested, work can become the main part of life, the reason to do things, but in Spain, you work so you can have money to live, that the work is necessary, but incidental to life, not actually the point, and that seems very true to me. Obviously, it’s not everyone’s philosophy, but I know people, even in college, and it was me in high school, who are constantly going from one thing to the next, working and working and trying to get ahead and do everything, but that’s not how it is here. Workaholic isn’t a personality. You work and you study and hopefully enjoy it, but that doesn’t start until 9, 9:30, 10, and when it’s over, the fun really starts.

There’s not much to tell now. After class I came back and got my stuff together and headed to the train station. My train was on time, I got on it safely, and I arrive in Madrid in half an hour and Toledo at 5:23. (Note from future Katie, this was written around 3:15, but due to lack of internet will not be published until at least Madrid, but probably Toledo tonight. Note from a wiser Katie even further in the future: Obviously that didn’t happen. Sorry.)