This week I started to realize how little time I have left in Spain. We passed the half-way mark a little bit ago and pretty soon we start almost an entire month of traveling. I think we only have three more free weekends in Oviedo! Spain has been amazing so far. I am so grateful that I have been able to take advantage of this opportunity and experience the Spanish culture. Everyone should study abroad if they can!
After realizing the brevity of my Spanish adventure, I started reflecting on life here so far and all of the observations that I have noticed. I was also asked to talk a little bit about how Calvin Christian High School prepared me for Spain. (Sidenote: I currently go to Calvin College in Michigan and I went to Calvin Christian High School (CCHS) in Escondido. That might be confusing because they have the same name. I'll try to keep it clear which one I'm talking about.) So, this blog post is going to be a mix of reflections/random observations with a little bit of high school thrown in and some important events at the end. Here goes:
Observation 1: People in Spain dress very well. Fur coats are everywhere. Even the dogs (and almost everyone has a dog) have cute little sweaters, and sometimes even rain boots. Human shoes are VERY important as well. Of course, in order to fully experience the culture, I had to buy new shoes. Also, there are t-shirts with words in English, and chances are, they don't make sense. Also there are probably some spelling errors. It is so funny to look at them.
Observation 2: Everyone talks so fast! I remember getting to Oviedo the first night and meeting my host mom, Beatriz. She talked so so SO fast and I had no idea what was going on. Slowly but surely, my Spanish has improved. I can now understand about 90% of what people say, even when they talk fast, and can mostly express what I want to say, though usually in very simple Spanish. I have also started to speak with a "Spain" Spanish accent. Of course, it's known as a lisp in the US because we speak Spanish from Mexico. But according to everyone here, having the "lisp" is correct. CCHS might not have prepared me to speak with a lisp, but it definitely helped with a general knowledge of Spanish. I was actually able to come to Spain because of CCHS. After four years of Spanish, I took a placement test to see which level I would be placed in my first year at Calvin College. I was put in the highest level, which allowed me to be eligible for this semester in Spain. I am so thankful for Señora Silva and learning all about the Spanish language, culture, and literature. I would also recommend that everyone take Spanish 4 at CCHS. I really liked it, plus you can plan a fiesta whenever you want (which was almost every week for our class because I love planning things like that).
After realizing the brevity of my Spanish adventure, I started reflecting on life here so far and all of the observations that I have noticed. I was also asked to talk a little bit about how Calvin Christian High School prepared me for Spain. (Sidenote: I currently go to Calvin College in Michigan and I went to Calvin Christian High School (CCHS) in Escondido. That might be confusing because they have the same name. I'll try to keep it clear which one I'm talking about.) So, this blog post is going to be a mix of reflections/random observations with a little bit of high school thrown in and some important events at the end. Here goes:
Observation 1: People in Spain dress very well. Fur coats are everywhere. Even the dogs (and almost everyone has a dog) have cute little sweaters, and sometimes even rain boots. Human shoes are VERY important as well. Of course, in order to fully experience the culture, I had to buy new shoes. Also, there are t-shirts with words in English, and chances are, they don't make sense. Also there are probably some spelling errors. It is so funny to look at them.
Observation 2: Everyone talks so fast! I remember getting to Oviedo the first night and meeting my host mom, Beatriz. She talked so so SO fast and I had no idea what was going on. Slowly but surely, my Spanish has improved. I can now understand about 90% of what people say, even when they talk fast, and can mostly express what I want to say, though usually in very simple Spanish. I have also started to speak with a "Spain" Spanish accent. Of course, it's known as a lisp in the US because we speak Spanish from Mexico. But according to everyone here, having the "lisp" is correct. CCHS might not have prepared me to speak with a lisp, but it definitely helped with a general knowledge of Spanish. I was actually able to come to Spain because of CCHS. After four years of Spanish, I took a placement test to see which level I would be placed in my first year at Calvin College. I was put in the highest level, which allowed me to be eligible for this semester in Spain. I am so thankful for Señora Silva and learning all about the Spanish language, culture, and literature. I would also recommend that everyone take Spanish 4 at CCHS. I really liked it, plus you can plan a fiesta whenever you want (which was almost every week for our class because I love planning things like that).
Observation 3: The English that people learn here in Spain is from the UK. It is not uncommon for a Spaniard to speak English with a British accent, which I think is just hilarious. Sometimes it's hard to understand because it's British English with a Spanish accent, but I love it. Also everyone wants to talk to us in English, which is sometimes annoying. Many people say "hi" or "hello" to us when we walk down the street. I mean, in the US we don't go up to someone from Mexico or Spain and say "hola." But people here don't care about being politically correct and don't get offended as easily. The culture is just different.
Observation 4: I get more attention here than I have in my whole life combined. It is possible that the group of 10 blonde girls in our group from Calvin College are the only blonde girls in all of Oviedo. Being tall and blonde and blue-eyed is pretty rare for Oviedo, since it isn't really a touristy city, so we get a lot of stares/honks/piropos. But I was also told that the Spanish culture just looks at people more. (By the way a piropo is a word we don't really have in English. It's a mix between a compliment and a pick up line. It's kind of like whistling at someone when they walk by. It's very common here. Usually it's someone saying "guapa" when we walk by.)
Observation 5: Religion seems to have lost importance for many people. I have gone to mass here almost every Sunday (because there aren't any CRC churches around) and have noticed that it's mostly older people. I heard a statistic that only 28% of people in Oviedo today consider themselves Catholic. I find this very sad. Even the people that consider themselves Catholic may not be a practicing Catholic and probably don't pray or go to church. One theory I have heard that explains the younger generation's rejection of the church is because Franco (dictator from 1939-1973) forced Catholicism on Spain, the rejection of Franco includes the rejection of the church. Just a theory, but very interesting to think about. I am so thankful for the Christian community that I have had both at CCHS and Calvin College. I think growing up learning all about the Bible, both at home and in school, has built a firm foundation that helps me to discern (what a good CRC word) what I see in Spain and hopefully influence my faith positively. Cultural discernment, especially in Spain where the culture is fairly different, is very important because faith is very important to me and there are many opportunities for both spiritual growth and spiritual loss.
Observation 6: There are wild peacocks that just walk around here all the time. I'm not really sure why but they live close to this one bank and I see them in the park all the time. There are around 15 of them and one time the traffic had to stop because there was a peacock crossing the street.
Observation 7: Everyone walks everywhere. Oviedo is the perfect size because it's a pretty big city, but everything is within walking distance. I have a 25 minute walk to class and a 15 minute walk to the cathedral. I think I could walk across the whole city in around 2 hours. There are plenty of cars, but especially when the weather is nice, everyone is out walking. Beatriz doesn't even own a car! Walking is the most common form of exercise. No one really runs here, even though there are plenty of parks, but most people are fairly skinny. I attribute this to both the walking and the smoking. Everyone smokes, literally, all the time. I don't smoke, but just from the second-hand smoke, I have probably inhaled 2 packs of cigarettes. Thank goodness they can't smoke inside most buildings, or there would be a constant cloud around me. I think all of my clothes smell like smoke.
Observation 8: When you order a drink, many times you get something free. I LOVE this. When I order a coffee, I get a a free cookie or small piece of cake and sometimes a free baby cup of fresh squeezed orange juice. When I order a wine, I get a free pincho o tapa (look these up, it's worth it). I will take the free food in Spain over free refills in America any day.
Observation 9: Spain loves the fiestas. Each pueblo has their own festival and there are many national festivals as well, such as Carnaval. The festival for city of Oviedo's is in September, so we don't get to experience that, but just in general, the night life is crazy. The sleeping/eating/going out schedule is so different here. After a lunch at 3pm and a dinner at 9pm, the young people start to meet to go out between 12 and 2am. It is not uncommon to stay out until 8 in the morning on the weekends! That is just too much for me. I could never walk home in the sunlight. Also sleeping in until 4pm is not my thing. This is another opportunity for discernment taught by CCHS and Calvin College. I think our group has been doing a pretty good job of cultural discernment while still having fun with the nightlife, if I say so myself.
Observation 10: Spain in general is awesome. I have loved traveling to the south (Madrid, Córdoba, Toledo, Granada, Segovia), the north east (San Sebastián), the north west (Santiago de Compostela, León), and even France for a day (Hendaya)! I look forward to going to Barcelona with the group in April. Also a whirlwind Spring Break includes Prague, Vienna, Budapest, and road trip through Portugal. Traveling in Asturias (the province where Oviedo is located) has been great too (Gijón, Proaza). Oviedo is just in a cool location near the mountains and beach. Lots of cool hikes. I have so many pictures of these places both on Facebook, and the gallery on this blog so I won't put any here.
It's hard to describe a whole culture in only 10 observations. I could mention so many more little things as well, but maybe I'll save that for another day. I'm just going to mention a few events that have happened recently very briefly because this post has become much longer than I expected.
We had Carnaval a couple weekends ago! Carnaval is the same as Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras and is a huge thing here. Everyone dresses up and there is a parade for the kids. My friends and I dressed up as cowgirls and had one of our Spanish friends take us out. It was so fun!
One Sunday we went to the beach in Gijón. It was beautiful weather and I even got a tan. Not bad for March! I guess California is having tanning weather now too but Michigan is definitely not. So I'm happy to be in Spain.
A couple of us also went to a Real Oviedo fútbol game! It wasn't that exciting because it was a 0-0 tie, but it was fun to be in the stadium watching soccer in its element.
So over all, life in Spain has been so wonderful. I am really grateful for this opportunity and am so blessed to have friends and family that support me and even stay in contact with me despite being 6,000 miles away. Calvin Christian High School has helped to prepare me for this opportunity and I am thankful for that too. I am so blessed! I miss and love everyone back home in California and Michigan!
Beso, beso