Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Culture shock

Well I have been in Spain for 10 and a half days. I was pretty homesick the first week but yesterday I kind of had an epiphany. I didn´t like all the differences at first because it took my so far out of my comfort zone. Now I accept that there are differences in everything and thats the real reason why I wanted to be an exchange student. Yesterday I had a legit conversation in Spanish with my host father (like I actually understood so fast I interuppted him a few times). However usually I just say ´´sí, no, and como´´. I can have a conversation if we I am talking one on one with someone but usually im in a group and im trying to talk to someone while some other people are having their own conversation and then I can only say yes or no. At this point im pretty used to hearing the language so I don´t get language exaughstion as intense as the first few days. Today was my first day of school, but, all they did was put us in what I think was homerooms but im not sure, and they called role, and I think explained the rules of the school and the schedule of the day. Im not completely sure since the teacher was talking faster than my understanding pace and it was a classroom full of teenagers so of course the teacher was not the only one talking. The only thing I understood was don´t use your cell phone and no smoking in the school. That all took about an hour and then I just hung out with some peope in Huelva and we went to a hamburger stand (it was kind of a hamburger version of the taco stand in Bend....so yeah it was delicious). A lot of thing are different here for example, there is a city, the beach is a few miles away, there is trash everywhere, the streets are smaller, the license plates are different, they don´t shower with the water running, it´s hot, school starts at 9:30, and ends at 3:30, they eat a light breakfast, the main meal is around 2, and dinner is light and around 10:30. All the soccer fields here are either turf or concrete, the milk is powdered, there is practically no rules of the road, all the trees are different, the beaches are clothing optional (oh and I have not seen one speedo), In the U.S. we think that all the kids here (in Europe) drink some sort of alcohol with their meals, but in this part of Spain they don´t, I asked my host family why and they said we don´t in Spain (but some of the other exchange students here said they do in their families) they then said we thought that since your American you would drink a lot of soda but all you want is water. So that was interesting. Well thats all i can think of to say, oh and I have my first soccer practice or game or something tonight, and everyone here is way better than I am. Bring it on.

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