All Men Should Drive Glorified Tricycles

Monday January 28, 2008

Mondays are always difficult. After having a three-day weekend and then plunging into 5 hours of Spanish classes, it’s not the easiest thing to do and I think today it showed. It’s frustrating being in class here and understanding almost everything that my teachers say but not being able to respond (correctly or quickly) with my thoughts or reactions to our class topics. I feel like the dumb kid not being able to communicate here, even though I am better off than some people. It’s becoming more frustrating as the days pass. The two things that I have going for me in the U.S. are my intelligence and my sense of humor. Here, I have neither. Today we talked about our 15-minute presentations that are all in Spanish without (or little) notes. We have to do research for these speeches. Now it seems easy enough, and we all know that I have the ability to talk that for that long, but there’s a catch. We don’t have Internet to do research. Therefore, we have to go to the library. I don’t even know where the library is, let alone how to use one in Spain. Every little thing that you know in one culture or place is different in another. Every small task turns into a difficult situation because there are many steps and problems to overcome before I can even start what I originally intended to do. These problems all culminated after class when Sam started a conversation with our Spanish teacher Rocio with the words, “You’re class makes me want to kill myself.” I thought I should then jump in and try and fix the situation and make it a little more positive and constructive. We ended up talking to our teacher for about 45 minutes about the hardships of being a student from the U.S. studying in Spain. It was good to get some aggression, tears and concerns (mostly tears) out with a person who has been in my shoes before. She really calmed me down and it helped to bring the situation down to the earth again. My favorite part of the conversation had to be when we were talking about all of the attention that we get from the Spanish men. Almost instantaneously a guy in a glorified tricycle honked his horn at us and called after us. It served to lighten the mood a little and I’ve come to the conclusion that if all men drove these tricycles, the world would be a happier/better place. After our talk Sam and I headed home for lunch. While walking home for lunch I learned a new meaning for the phrase, “to double-park your car.” There were two cars in one parking spot in the plaza outside of Corte Ingles, parked on top of each other. I’m assuming there was a method behind the madness but until I check the papers tomorrow, I will go on naively joking that it is a space issue. After lunch I did a little bit of homework and then Allison, Sam and I met up with a group of students to go to the bus station to buy tickets to Cadiz, a city in Spain where Carnival is, for next weekend.  After walking to the wrong bus stop (45 minutes later) we headed to the second bus stop across town. On the way there I actually knew where I was going. For one time, I wasn’t lost and things looked familiar to me. I have a horrible sense of direction so this day was a small feat for mankind, directionally speaking. After arriving at the second bus station we found out that we had to return on Thursday because the bus company wasn’t sure what the schedule for the return bus rides would be. Allison and I came home while Sam went to look for the post office. Allison and I had not been successful with the Spanish Internet the day before so we grabbed our computers and headed to Republica where they have WiFi to catch up on e-mails. While enjoying a Cola Cao (Spanish hot chocolate but a lot better) we caught up with family and friends and finally made connections back home. We came home after we were done on the Internet and ate dinner, a sort of fried egg sandwich with cheese and sausage and an orange. For the record, if I come home looking like an Oompa Loompa its simply because I have been eating approximately 2-3 oranges a day. They are fresh and delicious here and its what we have for dessert or for a snack.  I’ll let you know when the transformation begins, but for now I’m enjoying the delicious taste and health benefits that come along with being a compulsive orange eater. After dinner it’s time for more homework and then to hit the sheets.