Okay, okay, I’ll admit. It has been a while since I’ve updated my
blog. The reason, however, is that I
have been a pretty busy bee. We’ll talk
about that later, haha. Since we last
spoke:
To celebrate my arrival in Spain,
I decided to go out on my very first Friday night. Walking through the neighborhood around my
apartment, I found a little Mexican cantina offering cheap margaritas, of which
I had one. Then, feeling a little bit
more filling to talk to people in Spanish (alcohol: the un-inhibitor), I slipped into a little
café called “The Owl,” where a lovely gentleman was kind enough to deal with my
poor Spanish, and then buy my drink.
The following day, Monica and I
were going to go get me a cell phone (to avoid getting lost with no means of
communication, like my first day). But,
first, she had to do some errands, so I accompanied her. I should point out that by this time I was
still not used to Spain’s awkward eating schedule (if I haven’t outlined it
before: breakfast at 8, lunch at 2,
dinner at 9), and was already pretty much starving when we left to do her
errands.
But, alas, the cell phone store
was in sight. It couldn’t be too long, I
figured. Well, I figured wrong. Due to some error on their part, they were
unable to activate the phones. We stood
in the store for a little over two hours, before they finally told us we’d have
to come back the next day. I was pretty
sure a black hole was forming in my stomach, and that it was about to suck in
the entire universe.
So, at 5pm, we started our walk
back home. I was spying restaurants
along the side of the main road we were walking down, but nothing that at this
point I could understand. And then I saw
it. There it was. Two humps and a valley. That sweet, beautiful, golden letter, perched
against a red Colorado sunset. I had
found a McDonald’s.
I quickly blurted out something
to the effect of, “You go home, I can find my way from here, I’m going to eat.” Monica looked at her watch and said, “Seth,
it’s only four hours before dinner!”
because to her 5pm is a very awkward time to eat dinner, haha. I proceeded to tell her that if I didn’t eat,
I wouldn’t survive the walk back home (purposely dramatic, mind you). I walked inside to find the coolest freaking
McDonald’s I’d ever seen. You think
those McCafé-style McDonald’s back home are cool, the one with all the dark
colors and Starbucks atmosphere? You
should try it Spain-style. Anywho. I stood in line for quite some time, trying
to figure out their weird, weird menu. I
got my food, searched for a place to sit down, and opened my present. Maybe it was lingering stress from travel, or
stress from being in a foreign place and understanding roughly fifty percent of
it all, or just the stress of the day.
But, whatever it was, that was the most emotional Big Mac I’ve ever had.
My unrequited love for fast food
aside, I met with all of the international students the following Sunday. There is Sam (NY), Catherine (NY), Kathryn
(Chicago), Francesco (Chicago), Emily (Toronto), Marinke (Holland), Julius
(Germany), Jon (France), and me. They’re
all pretty cool. The next day was the
first day of classes, which meant a placement test followed by boring rules and
regulations. I was placed in the upper
level (yay!) and have been going through classes now for three weeks. Our last class is next Friday, then a five
day break, and then big-boy school.
Alright, so, with as much as I
talked about not understanding anything earlier, I should talk about how much I
actually do. On the day I first got
here, I estimated to myself that I understood about 50 or 60% of what Monica
and Matthew said, and 0% of what the people said on TV. About a week later, thinking of my estimate,
I reevaluated myself at 80% of what Monica and Matthew said, and 25% of the
TV. About two weeks later (now), I
understand 100% of what Monica and Matthew say, and a significantly large
majority of the TV. If that isn’t progress,
then I don’t know what is. I’m not
saying this to brag (I don’t really know how effective bragging about language
learning would be… lol), but I’m simply saying that I am quite impressed by
just how effective hurtling your body into a foreign environment can be.
But, Seth, have you made any
Spanish friends? Why, now that you mention
it, I have! Met through a friend of a
friend, I now have a Spanish friend named Fermín. He and I went to a café one night and chatted
for a few hours. He is from Andalucía,
the southern region of Spain—which, like in the United States, makes him far,
far, far more difficult to understand, haha.
However, we managed to talk about a thousand different things in one
night, and understanding him is getting easier and easier. To flip the tables a bit, we actually got
lunch yesterday (at T.G.I. Friday’s, of all places), and he tried to speak entirely
in English the whole time. It was
amusing, until I realized that that was what I sounded like to him. Haha.
But wait, there’s more! While going to class, going to bars, and
making friends definitely describes the Madrileño lifestyle, we can’t forget
the city itself! I have been to the
Prado Museum, one of Europe’s largest and prestigious art museums (along with
the Louvre and the National Gallery); I went to the Royal Palace, where some of
the most important kings of Spain have lived, although none in the past two
hundred years; I went on a walking tour of the historic part of Madrid, which
definitely beats the heck out of Downtown Little Rock; and I traveled to the
town of Segovia, about an hour away, and saw another awesome castle that kings
used to live in. Pictures of all of this
can be found on my Facebook, if you haven’t seen them already.
Well, if you aren’t bored of reading
about me in Spain yet, then . . . read all that again, ‘cause I’m about to see
what I can scrounge up for lunch. Upon
saying that, I realized that the time here is 2pm. I guess it doesn’t take too long to get
accustomed to an entirely different lifestyle, even down to something as basic
as when our bodies want to eat. Cool!
Nos vemos,
Seth Ancil Allen
