Happy 13th birthday Clare!/Semana Santa

Ok so I’ve been slacking a bit, but I partially blame it on my lack of internet over Semana Santa, or rather the only available internet was on a French computer and because the key placement is different trying to type even short emails was intensely frustrating. But there’s been a lot going on so here it is, probably not in correct chronological order….

My theater class went to a private showing of a production called Experimental Lady in a tiny “theater” where most of the class ended up sitting on the floor around the stage. Our professor is friends with the two directors so we were able to discuss their goals and creative process with this experimental type of theater group with the directors and actresses. The play itself was about three women who planned and executed the murders of random men as a way to get revenge on the men in their lives who had mistreated and hurt them. There was a lot of fake blood and stabbing at a table and a mannequin with large kitchen knives and since the women were clearly crazy it made us uneasy to be sitting in such a small setting. I still don’t know how I feel about it and I left the theater really creeped out and kind of disturbed.

We’ve befriended a group of guys from Argentina who live here in Granada and they semi hosted/dj-ed an Argentina party at a club close to my apartment, so my roommate and I went, halfway learned to tango and spent the night being spun around the dance floor by a couple Argentineans. Needless to say we had a blast.

I went on my first date with a Spanish guy last week, which, though fun, kind of played out like a romantic comedy gone wrong. Turns out the reason Carlos was such a gentleman was largely due to him being a Spanish Marine and as the conversation turned political, as it inevitably does with me, I slowly found that he is one of the most politically and socially conservative people I’ve met in my life. He detests the Socialist president who was just reelected in Spain because he thinks Zapatero does stupid things like grant homosexual couples the right to adopt children, is intensely Catholic, is extremely against a woman’s right to an abortion (though his biological reasoning was WAY off), thinks voting is a right not a duty and refuses to do so because he doesn’t like anyone, and on and on. Unfortunately I have a hard time expressing my thoughts on these issues in Spanish because we would have duking it out over coffee. On the bright side I spent my afternoon practicing Spanish.

This past week was Semana Santa/Spring Break for all the students and four of us spent the first part of the week relaxing in a quaint seaside town called Nerja. It was packed with tourists, but it was nice to escape the busier life in Granada and go someplace where we know no one. And of course being on the beach on the Mediterranean was incredible. We also took the trip as an opportunity to eat everything but Spanish food and very happily feasted on Chinese, Brazilian and Italian food instead. The first picture is of our very stereotypically Mediterranean and beautiful view from the porch of our hostel at sunset. Tuesday night we found out that the bus drivers went on strike on Monday, so we ended up waking up really early with the intention of waiting at the bus station, with the hope of there being at least one bus running instead of spending another day on the beach, only to find that the strike had been resolved. I continue to be fairly confused by Spaniards.

My roommate and I stayed with a couple friends here in Granada for the rest of the week, which meant that we were well fed and entertained. Two of the three roommates are French exchange students who are also learning Spanish and English so I spent a fair amount of time the past few days hanging out with them and their group of French friends. I unfortunately don’t speak a single word of French (when asked I could honestly say that ‘bonjour’ and ‘merci’ are the only two French words I know) so that meant I also spent a fair amount of time completely lost in the conversation. Semana Santa is a huge production all over Spain and I was very lucky to be here to see some of the processions, usually with ice cream or candied almonds in my hand, in some ways it’s more of a carnival type of experience than a religious one. One afternoon I spent about two hours wandering the city and I think I managed to watch parts of four different processions in different areas. One of my favorites was the one that filed straight into the open doors of the cathedral and the other was one at night with beautiful music and lots of candles. Watching the processions was also a very Spanish experience as no one seemed to be in any sort of hurry and the entire procession would occasionally pause for reasons that are still unclear. Though I’m far from Catholic myself it was still a profound cultural and spiritual experience in its own way. The second picture is from the beginning of the first procession I saw.

While I had a great week, saw incredible things, read a lot, relaxed a lot, slept a lot, met interesting people, talked in Spanish, I was so happy to come back home this afternoon and it was a joy to talk and eat with my host family again.

I’m missing home, it’s strange to not be in the states for my own family’s Easter traditions and I feel a little out of the normal Easter spirit because I am so accustomed to attending church services this week, but it’s all part of the experience. I hope you all have a very happy Easter with lots of eggs and the energizing fellowship of family and good friends.

bss

psicología social

This week has been well, as my roommate would say, extra. I finally got my university class worked out, it turns out the Education and the Environment class was a complete bore and the class I loved so much was a Social Psychology class. Since the UGR (University of Granada) website is incredibly un-user friendly I spent a miserable hour navigating and desperately looking for this class and professor, neither of which name I knew. When I finally found what I thought was right I took a gamble and registered for it and thank goodness I did because very fortunately I was right and the class is incredible. I was finally able to go to class this Thursday and it’s easily over 100 students, which coming from Southwestern is already a huge change for me. So I sit down and prepare myself for taking notes in Spanish, which is a beast of a task in itself, when the professor walks in and tells us to arrange ourselves in small groups. Asking to join a group is still a social challenge for me here, but I paired up with four Spanish women all of whom were very friendly and accepting of me. The prof starts to explain the exercise he wants us to do and the idea is that we have to select one person in the group who is, for whatever reason, different to be the “marginalized” person. **As a side note, any dialogue in my story is, of course, in Spanish.** None of the others wanted to be that person and I figured it was a unique opportunity to talk so I introduced myself and said hi, I’m Anna and I’m American so I feel like, for obvious reasons, I’m the marginalized person in our group. So we talk about what makes me different, I’m a foreigner, they had never met me, I was wearing red, etc. The professor then has all of the marginalized people stand in a corner at the front of the room because, as he explains, society views marginalized people as being outside the norm and therefore the groups don’t mix. He then has the marginalized people stand up on his desk in front of the class while a group leader explains to everyone what makes us different. Granted it was awkward to stand there on display, but no big deal it was otherwise quick and painless. But then he has each of us stand on his desk again and describe to the class how it made us feel to be considered the marginalized person of our group. For most of the students they were different because they were the only guy or had a different haircut, so most of their explanations and sentiments weren’t terribly profound. They were after all standing in front of a group of their friends. And then there was me. So I climb back up onto his desk and say, “Well as an American student in Spain I’m going to be the marginalized person in many situations for the next four months”. Because I didn’t really know what else to say I hesitated and a girl in the front row rather maliciously calls out to me to speak in English. I explained that I was in Spain to study Spanish so I was going to speak in Spanish while I was here and my sweet professor said that I was a good person for him to practice his English with, but that I was going to continue to speak in Spanish. So I keep talking, explaining that I feel it’s normal that I’m seen as different and that generally Spaniards have lots of questions for me about my country and my culture and that that’s ok with me. This same girl calls out again and says great! now we have someone who is marginalizing herself. Ok it’s really hard to defend yourself in a foreign language especially standing in front of 100+ people you’ve never met, but I tried to explain that it really is ok that people are curious, because I do come from a different place and that it’s really important to have conversations about our cultural differences because that’s how we learn about each other. Anyway I got down, again, a little shaken, but so incredibly proud of myself. It’s a very empowering feeling to take on a challenge like talking in Spanish before such a big group and feeling successfully when it’s over.

The next day we had our first Mediterranean Ecosystems excursion to a place right on the coast called Cerro Gordo. One of the professor started talking and the first thing he said was, “Ok this is the Mediterranean and you can’t see it, but straight that way is Africa.” How many times in your life do you hear that? Any day that starts off that way has got to be good. We hiked around this beautiful area and stopped to look at all these different species of plants, pines, orchids, grasses, etc., and they would explain to us their special adaptations to the Mediterranean climate or their reproduction patterns. I’ve never been big into ecology, but if you are going to study plants this is absolutely the way to do it. Later we ate lunch on the beach and returned home. Despite the horrendous bus ride (apparently it’s normal to speed up to go around turns?) the views in the mountains and of the sea were incredible.

I feel like I’m a little behind on pictures so here are two today. The first one is of one of my biology professors with a grasshopper on his finger. I think it will help you understand why I love the class, these guys are precious and WAY into plants. The other is of my group doing an exercise in my theater class. We had to “create” a machine that represented an emotion or feeling. We were assigned loneliness and though you’re obviously missing the motions it was an interesting and very funny moment that seemed worth sharing. And just for the record, I wasn't dressed up because of some sudden fashion related inspiration, I was literally out of clothes and it was that or a dress.

bss

birthday paella!

It’s been a very interesting and very full week. Classes are still going well, I actually had my first midterm on Monday. It’s so hard to believe that I am already so far into my semester and it’s somewhat nerve racking because I have a hard time knowing what to expect from Spanish professors, but it went surprisingly well.

I’m in a literature/theater class here at IES, though to my surprise it turns out to be more theater than literature. One of our major projects for the class is to select and direct a scene from one of the plays we are reading in class and then “defend” our work and our directorial decisions (in Spanish of course) in front of the class. For the last few weeks we’ve been discussing a play called “La Noche Dividida”, a short modern piece written by a female playwright, so I selected a quite funny scene and a couple friends and last Wednesday I got to watch them perform. It was quite a challenge considering I have no real theater experience, but it turned out well. One of the directors took pictures and I’ll be sure to post one or two when she emails them to me.

On Saturday on of my IES friends turned 21 so a group of us celebrated together over paella and chocolate fondue (check out the picture of birthday paella). My roommate and her friends from last semester are good friends with a Spaniard who is conveniently a fabulous cook so he and his roommate hosted a small birthday party for Kateri. To Kateri’s horror a couple friends gifted her a tiara that read “Besame, es mi cumplianos!” or “Kiss me, it’s my birthday!”, which I think was opportunely lost at some point. Anyway, it was an adventure and lots of fun.

It is a bizarre feeling to be settling into this lifestyle. I finally have a routine that I follow and everyday I feel like less of a tourist and more of a Granadina. But, all the same there are aspects of this life that catch me off guard. I absolutely adore my host family, but I find it very interesting, and sometimes difficult, to interact with a 50+ year old man who has spent most of his adult life raising boys and is suddenly taking care of two college aged women. We are, after all, very different from his sons and he is very set in his ways.

I haven’t been feeling very well the past few days and I spent most of the day yesterday in bed. It seems that my body has not been reacting well to Spain so I’ll clearly have to pick a different Spanish speaking country to live.

I continue to meet all sorts of interesting people here, I even met a guy from Wales living and teaching English here who spent sometime in Costa Rica working with sea turtles. What a small world. Speaking of sea turtles Allison, our one flippered turtle from Sea Turtle Inc., will be getting a prosthetic flipper sometime later this spring or summer. Because her story is so incredible STI has been getting all sorts of great publicity including from National Geographic and BBC. Check out the National Geographic story on her: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080229-turtle-picture.html. Needless to say I’m thrilled and can’t wait to get back to the island.

bss