It's hitting me...

It's hitting me finally that I'm leaving. I will be home in 10 days. Today is the last day of work and classes for me. I am taking a four day vaca to Lisbon, Portugal and then finals and I fly home Friday May 10th. Holy wow. There is a new girl here at Paz y Cooperacion today from Sweden and she seems really young and sweet. She is so bright eyed and very nervous about her Spanish. Her English is awesome but her she is very much struggling with her Spanish. I am trying to help as much as I can and teach her things before I leave but how weird to see someone new come in when I am leaving. God works in funny ways and maybe this is remind me of how I started out as well. Doe-eyed and confused. Confusing little words just because you don't know the way people talk yet. She is bright I can tell and eager to work which is great but I can already see how the culture has changed me because she was freaking about when to get a translation back and this environment is so relaxed I was just like..dude...chill take your time. Frightens me a bit for this summer working in America again haha. There is most definitely going to be some reverse culture shock. No, but I don't know whether to look at her and give myself credit for being able to help her and be the veteran one leaving after four months or to get out of my head and realize have I actually learned that much since I've been here? Not to be a negative nelly but my Spanish still is not perfect I do have a way to go to being fluent. My confidence has risen significantly and my comfortableness is this office with not being the timid little American girl anymore. This is an awkward time because I want to keep charging forward and learning Spanish but I also have spent a significant amount of tears, frustrations, triumphs and crazy days here as well and I think come out of it for the better. I love Madrid and I know that I have changed. But I don't feel it. The first two months here were really hard. They were fun and exciting but I feel like I got too swept up in the pressures and trying to let this change me to enjoy where I was. Now I am not saying I was miserable because I know me and I know I was not. It was definitely hard being away from being and making and keeping friends here but I have a feeling that when I come back away from this whirlwind that I will finally see how much I have grown from this all. Traveling takes a lot out of you and is stressful. But it is so fun and so amazing and I've met some really cool strangers along the way. This past weekend in Munich we met some delightful British men on a stag party and just chatting it up with them for a while. The next night I was meeting kids who went to my own college that I hadn't know before and then other random Americans, Germans, the lot. How interesting. I say over and over again how much I love people and its true I think its fascinating to hear people's stories from their own point of view. There has been a significant amount of cattiness on my travels here just from abroad and from home about pointless stuff and although I would like to say I've stayed above it I can't say that honestly. I don't know if it has anything to do with the circumstances but I do feel like that has brought myself down a bit as well. I was in a really really good place in my life when I left the States. I expected to come abroad and just continue that path. I think being away from my family and friends, my college and the people and things that defined me and I defined so well in the past really threw me thorough a loop. I think I was trying or not trying to let the people and amazing places and adventures fill in these holes for me and I do not honestly know if I let that happen or if I blocked it out. Do not get me wrong. I loved my experience here and I would never take it back. I loved every minute of being my own in this city surrounded by a different language culture and new friends. I feel very very comfortable in Madrid but I think my problem was timing and letting myself know that I was comfortable and own that I was confident ya know? If all these things are happening you can't be so aware that you miss it but you also can't be so unaware that you're lost. Well, anyway. Madrid has given me un fuego that I will never let out and I will continue to search for the rest of my life. That is again, wicked cheesy as I often am in these quotes but I can definitely say as scary and new and unexpected it is to live abroad I know I can do it. There was a time here where I really really did not think I could and all those naive girlish dreams of mine to live in a new city every month were crushed but honestly my next adventure is right ahead of me. Senior year. But also post-grad! Being here has given me a very independence view on things and it is very strange that I will go back to the bubble of college but I do feel like if anything this has seriously given me a view of my future. Like I said I really think I need to get out step but and see all that I have accomplished here. I appreciate every moment I have had in Madrid and I look forward to coming back to the city that made me finally feel like a global citizen.

American Ambassador Application

For an American Ambassador position at PC the application asked to describe a "Cultural Encounter" I've experienced abroad and what I learned from it. This was my supplement: The very first day of moving into my homestay in Spain was a whirlwind of emotions as anyone would imagine. I had been in Spain only a few days adjusting, unpacking, meeting new people and trying to wrap my mind around my new home with a senora and fellow program housemate who I didn’t know previously, along with speaking another language of course. The Spanish are known for being more direct and blunt about their opinions and there is no unspoken etiquette of “table talk”. There are no boundaries on politics, religion or things of that sort to be prevented of being brought up and asked directly. My housemate Teuta and I were getting to know Esther having coffee before we unpacked and the conversation quickly turned somehow into gay marriage legalized in Spain. Esther was very clear about her catholic affiliation, if the many crucifixes around the apartment didn’t give it away, but she did not seem to have a problem with legalizing marriage between gays. For an older Catholic woman I thought this was a very beautiful open minded moment and gave me my first real experience of understanding the culture beyond just what people had told me. I had heard different things before arriving in Spain of the open minded European way but the closed minded Catholic rooted country of Spain from various Spanish professors. Esther then started to talk about letting gays adopt and how that was not yet legalized but how she did not support it at all. I did not know Esther or Teuta, I had been invited into this home less than an hour ago and I was not completely sure I was catching everything that was being said. My mind was running with thoughts, am I hearing her correctly? What is she saying? What does that mean exactly? Should I argue? Am I supposed to agree? Would she be offended? She is speaking so passionately about this, is she mad? What is this girl thinking? What if she agrees what do I do? My table manners taught by my mother were running through my mind as well as the confusion of whether to do as the Spanish do and speak bluntly. This was not how I imagined my first interaction with a Spanish person. Teuta being a stronger Spanish speaker than me took control of the situation and started to politely inquire further about the opinions of Esther – I’m sure to be able to fully understand where she was coming from. Esther continued to explain how babies deserve two sets of parents and how gays do not make the proper family; she kept saying it wasn’t natural. Respectfully, with great caution because the horror stories of homestays ringing in my ears, I brought up some common arguments and inquired a bit about why she feels the way she does keeping mark on my tone and facial expressions. Not only was I nervous to offend anyone but to also stay true to myself and my culture but my Spanish was not at a very high level at that point and we had only just met. I chose a Spanish speaking home for the full immersion so did that include siding with the style of speaking or even with the modern political opinions of the country? At such a crucial growth time in our adolescence these are questions that run through 20 year old college students’ minds. Teuta was more fervent with her arguments but I was able to listen with intention and respond as respectfully to both sides when I could. This conversation could easily happen in the United States as well but because of the circumstances of meeting someone for the first time and the way that Esther was expressing herself, there was most definitely something different. It was an extreme push into culture shock especially in such a modern world, me myself coming from a Catholic background and also within meeting someone who you’re going to be staying with for four months. All the circumstances were very strange and I had to learn how to be myself, be strong and speak up but also be respect of the environment I was in, not offend anyone and to properly persuade with a different language. Having Teuta there was immediately better so I know that students coming into the American college experience need a friend that can be the buffer between difficult situations. This instance threw me into the Spanish culture into tumultuous waters at which I had planned to just slowly wade into. It was a good experience to expose my Spanish skills, my house guest skills and my political skills. It taught me about respecting a culture, one’s political opinions and challenging yourself to not just fade into the background of a difficult situation. You want the full immersion of a culture but you also want to recognize yourself and not just be a sponge but make smart choices about your growth. So yes maybe I will choose mayonnaise now with my French fries than ketchup but does that mean I should choose Spanish societal values over American ones? This instance along with many others I encountered during my time in Spain taught me a lot about crossing borders and how you don’t only challenge your environment but the environment challenges you.

London, Budapest, Prague...oh my!

Blog post spring break

So I just got back from spring break. I went with friends to London then on to Budapest, Hungary and Prague, Czech Republic.

The trip was so interesting and I'm very happy I got to see these places. London was very cool - cold - but had its own vibe that related really well to American culture but in its own unique way. Someone was telling me that the UK almost is more similar to American culture than European and traveling to Dublin and London I can see that. The people are very friendly but the history is just so interesting. We saw the old tower in London and the traitors gate where Anne Boelyn was hung. How interesting of a history from the American perspective. This is where we started. Sure seeing roman and Greek influences all over Europe is really cool too but this was the first time I was actually in the place where our founding fathers escaped. Idk it sounds so cheesy but the UK especially England has this whole sense of identity that is so authentic and gritty it's really fascinating.

Plus thinking about the origins of lord of the rings, Harry potter, even game of thrones the Beatles, Kate Middleton haha I don't know London and England is really cool.

Budapest before I got there was completely distorted in my ignorant American mind. I thinking I was picturing somewhere in between the Middle East and like India or something to be completely honest. Which clearly is absurd. I guess I just did not know anything about Hungary before going. But Budapest was beautiful. Their castles and historic structures are so different than anything I've ever seen in Europe. More gothic I guess but really no this totally different style. As well as the way the city is divided in buda and pest. It's beautiful and really interesting. Pest is really hip and interesting and Buda is more classic. Our hostel was great and when we went our for a bit everyone was pretty nice but it was a really beautiful city and I'm glad I got to shake my naivety about Hungary.

Prague was so interesting. We stayed with a Czetch American that had been living there for five years being an artist/DJ/teacher/etc so he had a really cool perspective on the city. Prague was the only city bombed by WW2 bc of Hitler's superstition but that doesn't mean it wasn't untouched. We visited the communist museum and the Jewish cemetery and it was really depressing. Being in America you learn so much about ww2 obviously but it's not like here where you're surrounded by these marks on history and reminders everywheren. Like Christophe kept joking about how commy his apartment was because of its set up and that's something Ive never experienced really. And he made the point of showing that Prague's center is very touristy and where the wealthy lived but its outskirts are dirtier and more clearly affected by the still present corruption in the Czetch.

So it was really cool to get that local intake on everything including the tours and the nightlife. But Prague is beautiful it looks like Disney World in obviously a less fabricated way.

Meant to post this before spring break...

Blog post pre spring break

So all my trips are booked. I'm officially broke. I worry about not seeing enough Spain and too much Europe but how can you worry about that?

I remember sophomore year the summer in between freshmen and sophomore year there was just a lot going on and I was in a very uncomfortable place. I felt lost because I wasn't at school anymore and I just went back to working as a waitress and not seeing my best friends everyday or being in the PC evironment. It was a very lost time for me and I suffered from anxiety and blah blah blah. It was so weird. I got better and got happy with my self towards the end of sophomore year but really in the summer time when I focused my life, found an internship and starting seriously working towards some life goals including personal and career wise. It was a great summer and even greater semester. I was so lucky to have my amazing roommates and find a boyfriend I could really care about.

Then leaving for a foreign country uprooted me again. It's not that I feel as lost as I was at that time but there are overlapping feelings of being lost. This time it is less about the career goals (which is wierd since im staring senior year in the face) and more about the personal things. I know I sound pathetic when I say I was uprooted from the things I love the people that ground me because obviously people are in way worse situations in terms of uprooting. But. I am away from my family, best friends, PC, boyfriend. It's weird. Yes I can call them, Skype, text whatever but its very different than sharing an environment, day to day decisions, time zone with them.

There's that saying not all those who wonder are lost, sure I believe that but they are still wondering right?

I used to think I would visit every continent and experience every culture - a lot of people I've talked to have no interest in visiting the east because of the culture shock especially to white Americans - but I've always had it in my mind of "oh yeah ill totally go there someday".

Idk idk if its just growing up out of naivety or if its actually the opposite and letting the world bring you down into its pessimistic realism?

I think it's so important to travel and see these new cultures but its not always sunshine and rainbow. It's friggen hard. I guess distance, mountains, oceans were created for a reason. But as a global studies student in the year 2013 - is that not the most depressing thing I can think about?

Well I've always liked a challenge and as much as I sound bummed and realistic about world travel I'm not going to let the harsh realities pop my bubble on the first feeling I get when I step into a new country or that homelike feeling I get when I think about madrid.