Sunday, September 27, 2009

Adios Sevilla!

Yesterday we arrived in Cordoba and now Sevilla is but a distant memory. Ok, maybe not so distant. The first two weeks in Sevilla were amazing, and I was a little sad to leave. (I do stress “little”, as I was also really excited to get to Cordoba and start looking for a place to live. It’s no fun living out of a suitcase.) I left very grateful that I chose to spend the extra two weeks in the immersion course for a few different reasons.

One: I’m convinced that the greatest benefit of the immersion course was not the classes. We had nearly 4 hours a day of classes, but this did not help as much as just being here for those two weeks. My difficultly with Spanish had nothing to do with learning the difference between the preterit and imperfect tenses. My greatest hurdle was (and still is to some extent) being so timid about speaking the language (and heaven forbid!) getting something wrong. Folks who know me probably giggle because they know this is true. I don’t want to look like a fool, and doing something wrong that I know I can do right drives me up a wall. Unfortunately, you just can’t wait in line for 15 minutes for helado just because I can’t think of the present-perfect-tense for haber querer immediately. So these last two weeks have been most helpful in just getting me to talk. Whether I say it perfectly or not, I’m saying it and I’m practicing it, and they’ll understand me (eventually).

Two: I loved the people in the program. Given two weeks of being foreigners in a strange country, you get pretty familiar with the people in the group, and I know the same bonds would not have been made during a 4 day orientation/party at a hotel. I was sad to separate from them after the two weeks, but the silver lining (more like platinum lining) is that I now have a group of people all across the south of Spain that I’m totally stoked to go and visit.

Three: It is an invaluable experience to live with a native family and given the opportunity, I will always try a live with someone (as opposed to a hotel) when traveling. I’ve only done a homestay one other time of my life, where I learned a lot. I was most fortunate that this time around I had another good experience and actually learned even more. They were a very kind and generous family and helped me with my speaking and understanding of the language a great deal (did I mention how patient they were!). But even with that, that was not my favorite part of my homestay. For example, the second week of my stay with them, three more girls from Switzerland moved in for the week as they visited Sevilla through a school program. My senoras reactions and comments to these three girls and their behavior was a more enlightening experience than for which I could have even asked. My senora became irritated as the girls kind of stayed to themselves and didn’t really interact much with me or the family. And she was absolutely incensed by the fact that one of the girls was a vegetarian. Not very sympathetic (or maybe was just ignorant to the general guidelines of vegetarianism) she would feed her leftovers of a dish that had been cooked with chicken and pork (just picking out the meat), and at the end she simply fed her the same soup, calamari and everything (I’m not sure if she was hoping that she just wouldn’t notice the obvious fish taste and chewy pieces or she was just left up to picking them out herself). Suffice it to say, being a former vegetarian I had a good feeling that these two weren’t going to make very good impressions on one another, and I was grateful that I had already made the decision to go full-meat eater in Spain. Overall, these differences are the kind of thing one would not really know (or at least fully appreciate) if they had merely stayed at a hotel while visiting Spain. They would also not know that going barefoot in the house is absolutely out of the question, or it’s completely routine to eat dinner at 10:30 in your pajamas. And I am so grateful that I now know about these things.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Living in a movie

So far it’s been wonderful. I’ve already fallen in love with Spain. It’s so hard to believe that people actually live here (as oppose to vacation here, or take extended vacations here as teachers, eh em) and walk through these beautiful streets and buildings without (it seems) a second thought. Heck, even when I lived in Los Angeles, I still got thrilled every time I drove by the Chinese Theater or Capitol Records building.

It’s definitely already been a sufficient challenge working on my language skills, but nothing that felt too daunting yet. I’m able to understand most people about 40% of the time. My host family is very kind and I understand them much better as I’m sure they do try to simplify their speech a little bit for me. They’re wonderful about correcting me and my grammar or helping me with my vocabulary. It only gets difficult – rather impossible - when they all start talking at the same time. Understandable. But all very exhausting too.

The first full day they took us on a tour of Sevilla, finishing off with tapas, drinks, and finally a flamenco show. I had previously been exposed to flamenco in Spanish restaurants in the states (not much, but a little), and actually saw a show when I was in Granada last year. This particular show blew all my previous exposure away. It was held in a patio within a building with vines growing up the walls, lanterns lit at the front of the stage not more than 10 feet from where we were sitting. The woman was gorgeous, sensual, and extremely talented. The man had an Antonio Banderes look to him (perhaps a slightly more petite version). By the end of the show, his shirt was sticking to his chest and back, the ends were untucked, and his hair (wet with sweat) had come out of the elastic. (At one point, before all his hair had come out, he made a quick turn with his head and a single, wavy strand fell in front of his face. I nearly let our a gasp as it seemed like it was straight from a movie.) Increible! The show has probably been one of my favorite things yet (can anyone wonder?!).

The other day as I was walking back to my home stay, I crossed over the river just as the sun was setting. The rain clouds that had been out all day were lit just beautifully behind the tall, decorated buildings and towers along the river. It was so nice to take it all in and know that there are many more months of similarly breathtaking experiences.

Monday, September 14, 2009

The journey to Spain

Preface: I wrote this the day I arrived and have only now had internet. I'll do another update the next time I have internet. It's very long, I apologize.

Well. It’s official. I’m in Spain.
Other than that, there’s not much to show for my trip. I realize that once I relay the story of my journey over here, it’s going to seem as if I had never really traveled before, which is far from the case. Simply a series of mishaps that managed to pile up like a snowball, burying me along with the avalanche that came down with it.

It started of innocently enough. My bags were at a good weight, and I only had to leave 2 things at home to bring them right under the 50lbs limit, neither of which will be missed (they were last minute adds anyway). Although I had requested a window seat, neither of my US flights were assigned as windows. A bummer, not life ending.

Got to Philadelphia on time only to wait for an open gate on the tarmac. Fortunately, my two gates were fairly close together, and the delay wasn’t an issue. On the flight to Barcelona, I managed to snag a window seat in an open row, and I thought: what a good omen!

Haha. Joke’s on me.
Because of weather in Philadelphia, our flight didn’t take off until an hour past schedule. We arrive 45 minutes late. According to my itinerary, I originally had a 1hr 50min layover.
I found someone coming off the plane with me that is also doing the CIEE program and is also taking the same flight to Sevilla.

T-60 minutes until my flight to Sevilla. I get to immigration. I can’t find my passport. Fast forward 15-20 minutes, I find it. No big deal. I’m not worried yet because I get through immigration quickly and to the baggage claim where most of my flight is still waiting for their luggage anyway.

After 15-20 minutes of waiting, the luggage belt stops and my bags are nowhere to be found. I’m thinking they might have missed the connection since my flight was late coming in. I go to the desk. Whoops. Bags are supposed to be picked up in Sevilla. What?! Granted I haven’t traveled internationally extensively, but my experience has led me to believe that passengers usually go through customs in the first city they land in another country other than the one they departed from (as also confirmed by my ticket agent in Phoenix). Obviously, today was not the case (is this common in Europe? Can’t say I’ve done many flight transfers in this continent). At this point I’m upset because of my passport debacle, I was separated from the only other person that might have gotten me on the right track from the beginning.

T-15 minutes. I book it to the check in counter only to find a long line and manage to get to a side agent who checks me into the flight (already thinking it’s probably closed, but telling me to run anyway).

T-10 minutes. I had never run with such purpose in my life. I get through security relatively quickly. On the other side, just can’t find my gate. I look everywhere for it and finally find someone to ask for directions (I usually pride myself on my ability to get around any airport - a total blow to my ego). Turns out, it’s at the end of the concourse and I get there just 90seconds before the plane pushes off. IT WAS AT THE GATE! Just too late. I figure, not a huge deal, I’ll get the next one.

Haha. Joke’s on me.
Turns out SpanAir has no more flights to Sevilla, and I must contact my booking agent and book/buy a ticket on Vueling, which has the next (and last?) flight from Barcelona to Sevilla (my feeling was that they were the Southwest Airlines of Spain with much hotter flight attendents).
I run around, find a phone card. I run around, find a telephone. I call CheapOAir (yes, I purchased my tickets from a website called “CheapOAir”. Now is not the time to comment. Snickers will suffice). Waited for 15 minutes to get a hold of a man from South East Asia whom I can barely understand. Had to purchase a ticket . I gave him all my info and credit card number. As I’m waiting for it to be processed, we’re disconnected.

You have got to be kidding me.
Called again. Tried using a different touch-pad number to hopefully get through to someone faster. Wrong. Waited 20 minutes with no answer (but I thoroughly understood that my call was “very important”).

T-80 minutes to next flight departure. Hung up and tried again through the original route. Didn’t wait as long (thank goodness!) and got through to the same person (thank goodness!) who assured me that he had been trying to contact me the last 20 minutes and had been leaving messages (um… guess he didn’t catch on when I told him I was stuck in Barcelona). Regardless, transaction processed. A pretty penny later and I’m on my way again.

Haha. Joke’s on me!
I run around trying to find where I can get my ticket issued. A kind woman at information directed me towards an Iberian Air desk on that side of security that should help me. Sweet, I’m thinking. Don’t have to go through security again.

Haha!
I get to the counter, they have no record of me purchasing the ticket (even though it’s been the allotted 10-15 I was told it would take to issue the ticket) and now they are asking for 102 Euros. I’d have to go outside of security to the actual Vueling check-in counter to figure it out.
T-60 minutes to departure.

At the check-in counter, they can’t find me either. Thankfully, all is not lost, and after a few phone calls, I am found in the system and my ticket is issued. I ask them if there’s anyway a call can be made to the Sevilla airport/baggage claim as my luggage should be arrive their on my original flight, and if something could be done to make sure it was in a secure location where I could claim it when I finally did arrive (as I had been able to do on occasions in the US, as flying standby this had definitely happened to me before). Unfortunately, no such call was able to be made, and I was just told that I’d have to wait and see when I got to Sevilla (but they did see to make sure I was aware that if there were any problems with my bags not making it, that I was to take that up with SpanAir, NOT Vueling).

Whatever, I’m thinking. I’m sure they’ll be waiting for me.

Haha. (You know the cue).
Our flight to Sevilla is delayed by nearly an hour because of a change of aircraft (the pilots make good time and squeeze the window down to just 40 minutes late). Phew. I’m here. But where’s SpanAir? Well, apparently, because they don’t have anymore flights in an out of Sevilla for the rest of the day, they all went home for siesta and aren’t even answering their given phone numbers. I don’t blame them, except it’s highly problematic that my luggage may or may not be locked away in their possession (best case scenario).

So here I am. In Spain, in the hotel, immensely grateful I brought along a couple changes of clothes and my toiletries. I sweat so much today from all the running around, I already changed my shirt once at the airport (I caught a glimpse of myself in the glass while I was waiting the 20 minutes for a booking agent and realized why everyone had been looking at me strangely – it literally looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water at my back. Not pretty. The upside was that I was probably fitting in quite nicely as I most likely smelled like an infamous European too.

Sitting for my last flight (the one I finally made), I did make a striking comparison. Being that our flight was almost an hour delayed, without many updates from the gate agents as to the status, I was remarkably encouraged by the fact that no one seemed to be the slightest bit irritated or inconvenienced. In fact, many of the travelers seemed to be in a relatively good mood (maybe they had more information from the start than I did, but I’d like to believe this was actually evidence of their good nature). And that wasn’t just at my gate. Overall, the airport just didn’t seem to be full of the frustrated and frantic people that dominate US airports. It was refreshing and definitely put in me in a better place to roll with the punches today threw at me. And there were certainly enough of them! Bottom line is: I'm here, and it's gorgeous, and I'm so happy to begin the next 10 months!

Update: I received my bags 36 hours later! I couldn't have been happier. Phew!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Farewell my friends!

Last night I had a send-off party at a friend's house. It was wonderful. My friend Lindsay, whose house it was at, was absolutely amazing, and pulled out all the stops. We came up with a menu partly inspired by Spanish cuisine: homemade sangria, prosciutto on melon, olive tampanade on rye bread, poached pears with blue cheese and almonds. All amazingly tasty, and I couldn't get enough. The rest was fabulous too: BBQ pulled chicken, potato salad (best ever!), brownies, fresh salsa (props to Ed), and s'mores (best I've ever had).

Of course though, the best part had to be the company. Not all my favorite people could make it, but those who did made it very memorable and enjoyable. Thank you so much to all of you that did make it. And for those who didn't, you missed an amazing meal, but you will be missed even more!

Most of all, it just made me feel immensely grateful for the people I've met the last 15 months I have lived back in Tempe. After college, I never really thought I could meet such a wonderful group of people who's friendship I would treasure so much. I only feel badly that in many ways I've come to this realization too late and there's not more time to reinforce these amazing friendships (many of which too I didn't have much opportunity to cultivate outside of work/gym, which I regret).

To all of you: I will miss you very much. Please keep me updated on your lives, loves, and families. And if you ever find yourself in Spain (or would like to find yourself in Spain), there is always a place for you to stay. Much love to all of you!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

7 Days and Counting


I was reading the Lonely Planet guide to Andalusia (for those of you that are unfamiliar, Andalusia is the southern region of Spain where the CIEE program operates and where Cordoba resides). I thought, since my last posting was about the things I expect to miss while I'm gone, why not discuss those things I'm truly excited about? The Guide was only getting me more pumped up. So, in honor of my departure only being a week away,

The things I'm most excited for about living in Spain:

Being immersed in a Spanish-speaking country
This is also something I'm completely anxious about too, but the excitement definitely supersedes the anxiety. I've been "learning" Spanish off-and-on for the last 10 years and part of the reason I decided to do the CIEE program was so I could finally become fluent and make all those years worth something. I always knew becoming fluent would demand that necessary step of fully immersing myself in a Spanish-speaking country. Actually, the part that actually makes me the most anxious is the Castilian accent - I've grown up with and learned Latin American Spanish, so I somewhat feel like I'm stepping into a new language all together. Regardless, I'm excited!

Living with History
Growing up in Arizona, very little around me has been more than a few decades old. I'm excited to be walking on cobblestone streets and exploring centuries-old churches and passing through historical plazas that many generations have already explored.

Great food and wine
I doesn't get much better than dining on delicious tapas and regional wine with great friends and atmosphere. I haven't eaten pork in about 8 years but have resolved that once I'm in Spain, I'll so as the Spaniards do (which is to eat lots and lots of cured ham and sausage) and I'm super excited about this. Although I was kind of bummed I wasn't placed in Granada partly because of the free tapas with drinks (who wouldn't be excited at free food?! A great reason to want to be anywhere). There will be great fresh breads, creamy tangy cheeses, high-quality olive oil, roasted chestnuts on the streets, chocolate y churros for snacks. My mouth is watering!

Public Transportation and a Walking City
Neither Arizona or LA can pride themselves on being one of these, and I'm excited about being a short bus ride or walk away from work, the grocery, restaurants, friends. I expect my legs to get quite the workout!

Seasons!
Arizona has two seasons: hot and hell. I got a little more taste of the rumored four seasons in LA and even more in New Zealand. However, this will be the first time I will experience a full winter in a cold(er) place (aka, somewhere one actually has to wear layers and a jacket). Luckily, I've always had a fetish for coats and scarves despite living in the desert (call it wishful thinking) and I'm - mostly - prepared for the cool road ahead.

Meeting New People
Really, it's mostly why I do it. I love meeting people, especially when I travel (especially when I'm meting others that are also traveling). For some reason, these are the friendships I've valued the most. Although I'm not in close contact anymore with many of the people I met on my past journeys, I still hold them close in my heart and memories. I'm excited about adding to that collection!