Viajeros nuevos

I am sad to see two of my roommates go back to the United States today but I am excited for the next round of international people! Two French travelers are coming today in 8 hours, and I am excited to get to meet them! Supposedly it is a middle-aged couple. I am going to take advantage of this opportunity to practice my French before I go to Paris in a par de semanas. My French is dreadful but I have my practice cds and book as well as a French to Spanish guide book to help me along. I have also begun stepping up my Arabic and have a native speaker to teach me every once and a while. It`s going very slow of course, I have a lot to learn! But yesterday my teacher (my friend Lisa´s boyfriend Adil) broke down the vowel system into a set of phonetic symbols so I can work on learning them. Reading is going to be my biggest challenge. I wish I knew about the French couple earlier, I just found out today. I would have intensified my French studies the past couple of weeks, because I have been slacking.

Yesterday I went to El Escorial with Caroline and Lauren. We were originally going to go to Valle de los Caídos también but it is closed indefinitely so we couldn´t even catch a bus to the area. El Escorial was neat though, a lot of art and history and beautiful architecture. And the bus ride through the mountains to the campo en las afueras de Madrid was amazing. And so was the return- flying down the curvy mountain roads at breakneck speads, just the way I like it. On another positive note, I got a student discount at El Escorial of about 50% off which just made my day! That`s all the more money I can save for Paris, el Sur de España, and Roma which are coming up soon.



I am also freaking out about la Copa Mundial. It starts so soon!! I gotta learn some fast fútbol knowledge (currently it is very basic) and get an España jersey! I thought we wouldn`t have much of a chance but people have been telling me that we might be poised to do well.



I am loving Spain!! The only downer is the lack of Spanish; it is difficult to practice. I mostly read on my downtime so I can learn more, with speaking it is harder to find companions other than when at the store, and that is maybe a few second "conversation". But yesterday I was excited to talk for hours in Spanish to Lisa and Adil at thier house. It made my week and I got so much practice. I would not shut up, I was so eager to speak Spanish with someone!

If I got more than two hours of sleep last night, I would go stay out later tonight, but as it is I think I will ave some fun during the day and then turn in early so I can wake up for Rastro tomorrow en la Latina. It`s the Madrid open air market that happens every Sunday morning. It is supposed to be huge but it gets too crowded to move around 10:30-11am so I was gonna catch the metro around 9 to try and get a solid hour of some decent shopping in. I hope there are some good peaches there tomorrow!

Primer día de trabajo

Well, I have finished my third day of work. The first day was just me following people around and taking notes and poking my head in some workshops. I learned a lot. In order to get papers, a person must demostrate 3 years of residency here and have a work contract. That is the minimum, and most people are here for longer. They cannot leave the country either because then they cannot get back in, so many are here for years without seeing thier family. ACOBE offeres services to people with and without papers trying to get the card that makes them a legal citizen. In Spain, a non citizen is only entitled to 2 things: healthcare and education for minors. And with la crisis of the economy, things are getting tougher for immigrants to make ends meet. Discrimination is high as well.

Yesterday, I was set to work translating thier entire website. I worked for hours! It is hard to translate, frequently there are words in Spanish that can yield multiple English words and vice versa. Occasionally, I would have to ask someone to read the sentence and give me a few synomyns or describe that word in other words a few times so I could pick the English word that I liked the best. And I also had to explain the English words sometime in Spanish and try to explain thier slightly different meanings in order to figure out exactly which meaning they wanted to convey to the public. I still have work to do on the website, thankfully I got a translating break today. I am not a big fan of translating but it wasn´t as bad as I thought it would be. I just hope I do a good job. They are always shocked when I tell them how old I am. I cannot wait to be 20 so people won´t look at me like a baby anymore.

Today I shadowed some more departments. At ACOBE, many different services are offered: there is a legal department of lawyers, a phychological department to counsel people, a cultural department to help with immersion and retaining old cultures, and a labor department to help with employment and consiguiendo trabajo and also to make sure that people´s rights are protected in these jobs. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings are huge because we have a line outside of people looking for the services offered at ACOBE, which is always completely free to the public. They will line up for a while until we open.
Today there was a seminar (there are several a day everyday) that I attended. The leader got a call and stepped out and told me to entertain everyone. I was freaking out for 10seconds and then pulled it together and talked with everyone, telling them a bit about myself and asking about them. They had many questions about the United States. Afterwards, I felt really good. I do not know what happened, but the fear melted away and Spanish just started flowing out. Today I learned a lot and was really happy with how the day went. Yesterday I was mostly alone translating, but I don´t have my own desk so I bounced around several times. Today I got to see a lot more of how things functioned and talk and be more vocal and assertive. I really liked that. And I like what my job does and how it helps people. It has opened my eyes a lot. I will write more on what I have learned later one though, I have a tendency to write way too much in these blog posts! I know that I am teaching English to children in July. At first I was upset to teach English and translate, but I love kids and I will only have one or two classes a week so I will suck it up. Besides, English is one of the reasons I got hired so I have to deal with it sometimes at least. I am excited to see what next week will bring me at work.

Tomorrow is Corpus Cristi, a Spanish holiday. So I do not have work and I was originally going to travel in the South of Spain but I got my Mediterranean Vacation last weekend so I will save that for later. I can´t go a weekend without traveling though, I love it! So I will go on a day trip or 2 (the price is really cheap too!) to some areas near Madrid. I´ve checked off a chunk of my travel list but I still have a lot left! I am going to London the second week in July, Paris sometime this month, and Rome sometime this month hopefully. Also Granada, Sevilla and Cordoba in the South of Epaña. Morocco will be in late July, and then I hope I can hop over to a few more places in Italy (Venice, Le Cinque Terre, Florence) but I don´t know how far in debt I can go over here! So I will cross that bridge when I get there. But I am only young once. I don´t need money and sleep, I can get that working at college again next year! Though I don´t think I will sleep until I am dead.

Tonight I am going bar and club hopping with my roommies! Then tomorrow I may do some outside work on translating that website so I don´t have to translate at work on Monday and can shadow and go to more workshops.

Valencia

My spontaneaous travel style brought me to Valencia this weekend. I bought my tickets the day before, found a friend to go with, and embarked on my journey. Valencia is a 4 hour bus ride away from Madrid. We had to cross out of mountains, into the Mancha, then over some more mountains, then to the coast. The main goal of this trip was to see the Mediterranean Sea. I love oceans, probably something that has to do with me growing up in Florida. We got off the bus, had no idea where to go (I love that feeling of adventure!) and asked around and got a guide book for 1E. Then we just hoped on the metro, my prefered method of traveling, and had to make a few connections to get to the playa. The metro in Valencia is nothing compared to Madrid´s, but it was quite interesting to see that a lot of it was above ground. My host madre would have enjoyed that becuse she always tells me I´m like a little rat for always taking the metro everywhere.

I found the ocean!!! This is the 4th ocean I have seen and probably my favorite now that oil has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico :(

After we got off, we had to find the ocean. After walking for a few minutes we found it! The water was beautiful and smooth and so was the sand. It´s the first time I´ve been to the ocean in so many years I almost wanted to cry. Since there were only two of us, we had to take shifts watching the backpacks. We ate our packed lunches, mostly containing bread because it is barato. I sat soaking up the sun and reading for 45 minutes then it was my turn to swim. I was so happy. I went out pretty far, and tried to catch some waves for body surfing but waves were not the Mediterranean´s strong point. Oh well. One thing I will metion that was quite odd was European Beaches. Ok, I know that there are a lot of nude beached supposedly in Europe, but this was not one of them. However, it was still perfectly acceptable to walk around without a top on or tan topless. It was interesting...and a really wierd thing for an American to see. On a similar line, Europeans do not know the meaning of censuring "mature" moments on television or movies even with children around. I was absolutely horrifyied on the bus ride back with the movie we watched, I mean obviously I am old enough for that, but vamos, a child? Pienso que no.

But back to my Valencia story. One thing Spain has taught me is the value of water...it is priceless yet in the US it is everywhere and free of cost. Water costs just about the same as coca cola in restaurants here and you don´t get refills in Spain. My water thermos was by far probably the best thing I brought with me. It gets heavy carrying around a bunch of water everyday, but it is worth it. You can drink out of the tap in Madrid, so I fill a bunch of water up before I leave for anywhere and take it with me becasue I never know how hard it will be to find water that day or how expensive it will be. My backpack was heavy with water in Valencia, but it was so worth it. One big difference about Valencia and Madrid is the language. They speak castellano and "valencian" which is a dialect of Catalán. I could tell immediately that it was catalán. All the signs were either in valencian or castellano(Spanish as most Americans know it). Soem things were only in catalán. This was not a problem, I could read it and understand it, but it was...I don´t want to say annoying, but it was a tad more difficult to get around because of it. Luckily, all the locals spoke back in castellano and were very friendly and I understood them. But sometimes, as I was evesdroping (which I try to do sometimes to learn the language better) I was confused.

After staying at the beach for a couple hours, we decided to move on to the next thing. Now, Valencia is a city that requires a couple days at least to see and we had but one. That meant we didn´t get to see the Arts and Sciences Museum with Europes largest acquarium (I think it is the largest). While this was sad, I was perfectly content walking the city and seeing where actual people lived instead of being just a tourist. We walked 45miuntes to the town´s center and there we climbed a beautiful castle. And of course on the way we ran into some guay stuff too. After hanging out for a few hours and seeing some neat buildings and parks, we headed back to the train station and walked downstairs to the bus station. There we grabbed a quick bite and got ready for the long bus ride back to Madrid. Therefore, we were in Valencia for maybe 8hours of fun. It was worth it!



So I definitely but locks on my backpack to keep it protected, which was a good call I think. After our rest stop on the way back, I noticed that someone had tried to open it. I am a pro at sleeping on planes and bused and protecting my belongings now, after the flight here and some experience on buses and trains. My backpack went inbetween my legs and I squeezed my legs to keep it secure. My little bag stayed around my neck and on my lap, but with my hand firmly locked over it. And since I cannot function without music and my sleep usually is shallow in these situations and I still can hear it, I keep my ipod on and locked in my hand. It´s the first thing I grab tighter when I hear something stirring in my sleep. I am good at sleeping yet being alert. I heard some movement about 30minutes later on the bus and instantly was jolted awake and securing my grip on my pertenencias. This kind of thing usually is not a problem, but in a 24 hour period, I was around 2 attemped robberies, one of which was on me, so I´m looking out a little bit more this weekend. Nothing serious, and I was lucky to have some guys with me. But it does make me a little more precautiaus this weekend.



After we got back to Madrid, I thought I was going to die of exhaustion but I knew that I had to take the long metro ride back. We got into Madrid around 45 minutes after midnight. The last metro trains on the lines run at 1:30 so we were booking it to try to catch them. Luckily, I only had one transfer and it was early so I made it back to my house around 2am. It would have sucked if I had to walk home from so far south, it would have taken hours! So I am very glad and lucky to have taken the metro.

I didn´t go to Rastro, the Sunday market here in Madrid today, but I think I will definitely head out to Parque del Retiro for a nice reading break before I get cracking with work tomorrow. I am a bit nervous for my first official day, but I am also very excited.

Día típico

Step 1: I wake up and take a quick shower, of course only using water when I absolutely am needing it to rinse off, in the European style, and all the other moments showering without the water on. Then I quickly get changed and eat some breakfast...usually a café con leche and dos galletas (not the cookies you would think of in the USA, different) with some strawberry mermelada and maybe a piece of tostada(again, not American toast, much smaller and premade sort of so there isn´t really butter on it, it is small piece of hard, crisped but not burned, bread that I have come to love. And if I am on the run, I just grab a banana and eat it like a NewYorker on the way to the metro. Most people in Spain actually sit down and eat a breakfast in the morning so I look wierd running with a banana in my mouth. Therefore, if I can I avoid this.

Step 2 is the metro. This can be tricky. It is easy to navigate and use, but in the morning, around the afternoon siesta/lunch break, and again in the evening; this whole process becomes a jungle. There are full out security gaurds yelling at us and telling us where to go (in as nice a way as they can of course) and people shoving an pulling all sorts of tricks and manuvuers to get that coveted spot on the left hand side of the escalator (the fast lane). There are so many people in thier suits, school uniforms, ect running, jumping, and squezing themselves strategically to get out to the open air. My stop for school now is un lío. We are deep in the earth and need 3 sets of pasamanos (escalators), or maybe its 4, to reach the open air. Now, metros also have different bocas. This means to say that there are several different exits from the station that go to different streets. Some have as many as 6 or so, so it is imperative to pay attention and push to your boca. At this point, the crowd is pretty much dispersed to where they need to go. Step 3 is traffic and crossing the busy roads. After that is achieved I have a one or two block walk to school on which I pass my favorite bookstore that sells foreign books. I have already boughten a Spanish to Italian book and a Spanish to French traveling book. There will be many more purchases to come too. I have also purchased some Spanish books at open air street vendors´stands. Next, getting to work takes longer than school. I am in a cutoff barrio in the South of Madrid; there is only one metro in and out. After I get off at my boca I have a 3 block walk or so. My interview went well I suppose because I have the job! I am anxiously waiting to see what my new job will have in store for me.

Al momento I have just finished dinner, it is 22:10 here, or 10:10pm. And I think I am going out for a night on the town with a few roommates. This is after I have some time to read the book I am reading now, La casa de los espíritus por Isabel Allende.

And then I wake up at 7:30am and repeat the process. I don´t know what I would do without my café con leche to get me going in the morning. I have come into the bad habit of drinking as many as 3 cups a day. I drink one at breakfast, 1 at second breakfast around 11:30am and then another in the afternoon if I don´t get my precious siesta.

P.S. I hope Natalie Kozlowski feels better. I am so sorry about your dog!! We should Skype sometime xoxo
Reading in a plaza near downtown

Adjustment Fears

I realized today that I cannot return to the United States. I don´t think I can live there anymore. It will always be my first home and I will always reserve a special place for it, but I need to live in a Spanish speaking country from now on. After I graduate, I am thinking seriously about not doing the Peace Corps or Americorps and just moving somewhere. I know basically what I must do. I need to save enough money to live for 2months without work becasue it is difficult to find. Then I must work in my new country for a few years until I can become a citizen. After that, I´m sure I will become restless again and move to a new country. So maybe I will bypass the new citizenship.



Nextly, I must begin seriously pursuing my next language. I have studied English for a decade and then when I was 10 Spanish began and now I am almost 2o so I must pick my next language to be fluent in. I have been studying Italian, French, and Arabic but doing so at the same time is starting to prove to be ridiculous. I know the most Italian but I am starting to lean towards Arabic and French I think. Any suggestions? I have one month to pick and then I must dedicate myself to its study!

My job interview at ACOBE is tomorrow at 4:30pm. I am a little nervous, but I´m going to go in there with a smile and a dose of confidence.

My new traveling schedule includes, Santander in Northern Spain this weekend, then Granada and Cordoba in Southern Spain the next weekend. The Mediterranean is coming up as well and I hope to hop over to Paris soon!

Continuando mi viaje

I refuse to come back empty handed, I will find me a Spanish man. Oh look I already have one!





I am so small and insignificant in comparison to this!




Salsa dancing buddies in Madrid!

So I am really having a blast in Spain right now. Thursday was the one week mark for me, and I can´t believe how much I have done after only having been here for 10 days. Me and a few girls also on the study abroad went and took a day trip to Toledo, the old capital of Spain and the first city taken back in the Reconquista after it was occupied by the Moors for centuries. I´m delighted that it is finally warming up in Spain! In Toledo it was about 36degrees celcius (about 98degrees) and it was AMAZING! I am going to finally be tan. I can´t explain how happy the heat makes me, it´s just...so relieving. Toledo was very nice, we went to a fancy cathedral, the best in Spain according to many. We also saw the last surviving mosque, and a variety of museums and really cool architecture. It was too fun to put into words, and the view was breath taking. Only a 30minute train ride from Madrid in which we got to see the belleza of the campo and afueras de Madrid and Spain.

I have also gotten a lot of shopping done in Spain! I love European clothing, it is well made and cheap in price. I was talking with the woman from Germany in my Spanish class and she said it was so funny because all her friends love to go shopping when they are in the United States. The grass is always greener on the other side I suppose.

Today I went to a beautiful ancient cathedral for a very traditional Catholic mass in the morning with my friend Caroline. Then we laid out in El Parque del Retiro, pretty much the most amazing place in Madrid to be a hippy and hang by the lake and grass, and sand, and trees and flowers. I would equate it to what I did everyday last summer at the Stoney Creek Metro Park.

I am still being as stingy as I can with lunches to save money for traveling and a future trip abroad next summer. But as I look around, I can´t help but feel that even with my financial preocupances, I am better off than some in Madrid. I have decided to try and donate 1E at least a day to someone homeless in the metro or on the street. Lots of Latin American immigrants and Northern African ones are struggling to make ends meet here (as is everyone nowadays around the world). It´s really sad seeing good women turn to prostitutes to make a few euro. I was walking around the Chuerco district the other day and was shocked. I turned to my friend and whispered "are those prostitutes?!?" and she confirmed my observations. Yes, prostitution is legal here, but pimping is not. And this particular street is lined with them.

I am getting really desanimada with my Spanish studies though. I feel as though I am not improving. I know this is me being ridiculous because I have only been here for 10 days but it still bothers me a lot. I want to learn so much! And I cannot make the Spanish accent either. It´s like an American moving to Britain and trying to be British, everything is so hard to alter to sound different. But my in person job interview is this Thursday for ACOBE, ojalá que pueda ganarlo pero no sé. I am a bit nervous about the fact that I am not as nervous as I should be. I am also worried that I will mess up and say a culturally wrong word. I need a crash course in Bolivian Spanish asap. Hopefully once I am around only native speakers for 8 hours of my day I will pick up some new tricks.

Sleep is the hardest thing to come by for me here. There is so much to do and so little tiempo to do it. But Friday everyone in the Capa Internship Program went to see a nice flamenco show and drink some good wine. Afterwards we went to one of the famous cave bars that are legit. Even though it was a long day, it was so worth it.

I don´t know why I have been complaining so much these past few days, well I guess I kind of do. I don´t know, I just had a really difficult week last week. My great-aunt died unexpectedly, luckily I got to say bye to her via phone. That mixed with my worries and preocupations that I will not improve my Spanish has just led to a devastating week for me. But for the most part, I put on a smile and am happy to have made several new friends here. It is mindblowing how easy it was to acostumbrar myself to this city. I really do feel at home here...even though my home life is strict and full of rules. I cannot imagine returning to the United States, it will be so strange a place to me now.

Más de España

So yesterday was my first day of class. I learned how to fend for myself on the vicious Spanish metro on the way there, but it really wasn´t all that bad. My commute is about 45mins. I may be located in the city, and it may be only a maybe 15minute car ride without traffic, but the Madrid city life adds time to everything.



I really like my class, there are maybe 15people in there from all over the world and only one girl from the group I came with. Native countries vary from France, to Scottland, Britain, Germany, Turkey, and China plus a few more. This makes it so we have the common language of Spanish to speak in, though some other people know some English as well. So far, I spend the majority of my day thinking and speaking in Spanish which is amazing. These past few days have taught me so much via experience. I am comfortable going anywhere and talking to anyone in Spanish.

After class I went shopping for the first time here (not for groceries or essentials, for clothes!!!)!!! Me and Lisa went everywhere, and I love the style here. I bought a shirt and nice trench coat at Blancos a native store to la moda de España. Prices are great too! I got good deals and of course the quality is much better than in the USA.

After that I came home for dinner with the roomies and la Señora. Afterwards I decided that I wanted to go walk around the city alone at night. Sounds like a bad plan, but I knew I would be safe, I´m comfortable here. It´s quite strange how easy it was for me to adapt to living here and to accustom myself to everything and the culture. I feel so normal here. I don´t even glance too much at all the monuments, they are just part of my walk back from lunch. Not completely though, I am still really enamered with the atmosfere here. But anyways, so I went exploring at night by myself in Puerta del Sol. I think night is the best time to see a city because you can see its true colours; daytime is a facade, a trick of the eye. One can see the hard time Spain has feel upon at night. The people laughing and playing music during the day, are reduced to shivering people in a blanket under the archway of a beautiful cathedral. Lots of, for lack of a better word, beggers, have dogs too to try and play on sympathies of toursists for money and also I suspect for companionship. The economy here has been hit bad, protests are all over the place (thought I suspect it is like that always because this is the capital) and tensions are high. It will be interesting to follow politics here, as there are increasing pushes for protectionist measures and backlashes to counter them as well. Madrid by night is bella.

Today I went to class again. Yesterday I was feeling a little discouraged. I realized that it doesn´t matter that I was in a high level Spanish class at Michigan State, I still have a lot to learn when it comes to being in a Spanish city. But today, I woke up anew and ready to conquer the world. Class was good today, I made friends with a lady from Germany and another from Scottland in my class and we sat and spoke Spanish together during our second breakfast break, our only break in the 4 hour class, at 11:30am. It is really cool to see people coming together from all over the world to speak a language together. And the different accents adds a new twist to things. Langauge truly is something amazing.

After class ended at 1:30, I went home for the customary siesta. My one hour nap refreshed me and is super healthy also for the mind, spirit, and body. Then I went shopping with Lisa again at a store called Sfera. I bought a new work dress of good quality for an even better price. We ate lunch around four oclock at the Arabic Restaurant we like and then browsed a few more places. After that, I had a typical rest of the day with dinner around 8:45pm and now it is 11pm. I think I will sleep now though because I have to get up around 7am tomorrow. Without my café con leche and siestas I don´t know what I would do!