Gotta love 18-month-olds…luckily babies are exactly the same in Spain…or at least Tiago is. Tiago is the son of my señora and is—like all boys that age—a handful. But he’s overall quite good natured and only gets cranky when he needs changed, food or sleep. But he likes to push the limits as well. When he gets home, or when I get home, without fail I hear his little bare feet padding down the tile hallway to my door. Then he climbs up on my bed (which is very low, which I find interesting) and steals my teddy bear. Without fail. Then he will pretend my travel alarm clock is a phone and say “Hola!” loudly. After some of that, he plays with a robot toy that was here when I arrived. And finally he will hand me my things or his toys. Just hand them to me. He never seems to tire of this. But I wouldn’t know since I always quit way before he does. I enjoy having him around and he makes me laugh. Also, it’s nice to have better Spanish than someone around here….lol.
To be honest it has actually been a couple of rough days. I spent the weekend at the beach, or wandering. Monday was the first class of Spanish from 10-1. The first two days were very boring. I couldn’t help but think that there was no way I was going to make it in this class. I’ve already studied all of the content and had no idea what to do. So I talked to my teacher (who’s also the coordinator) and decided to try the next level up. Well the level ended up being too difficult and I really don’t feel up to the challenge for the semester. So today I switched back down. I had a couple of days that were difficult…to the point that I broke down in front of Dionisio (the Spanish coordinator and now my teacher again)…As in an all out break down—to the point that I had trouble breathing from crying. It’s supposedly fairly normal, actually. And it makes sense. I haven’t felt like I really belonged with the group up until this point. Actually later that day I was talking to one of the other group members, Alec, explaining what was going on. He felt the same way as me and it was comforting to know I wasn’t just imagining these feelings. We decided that it’s like high school all over again. Joy.
Knowing someone else was in on this culture shock thing made a big difference. I also got more in touch with my friends from home. It’s nice to know I have people like my mom who know me and care about me even if I’m still half way around the world. Actually, you could say that this week I actually realized I’m half a world away from home. And it’s pretty lonely….
But last night was the first intercambio night. This basically meant that we had to find this obscure location to meet Spaniards/Catalonians. Once we finally found it (smallest sign ever!) it was awesome! I talked with three design students who have just graduated. I spoke in Spanish more or less the whole time to the point that mouth hurt. Lol. But there were super cool!!! It was the first time I felt very connected to the city too. But I am trying to meet up with one of them now for this weekend. But we’re facebook friends so I hope this becomes something like a real friendship too. The funniest thing that I was asked all night was if there were cowboys in Colorado. Which, yes, technically there are. It’s a small number and a stereotype, but it is still true. Then her friends made fun of her for watching too many movies which cracked me up.
Today I went to class…bought my book…changed Spanish classes…bought lunch…explored the gothic area of the city…went to my other class. Magda teaches our class on the city and visual culture. It is fascinating. For instance, today we met at the Cathedral and began to explore the original confines of the Roman era of Barcelona. So we saw what very little is left of the wall from roman times. Barcelona is unique in that it builds in capas (layers). This means that we could see at least four layers of different eras built on top of this original roman aqueduct. We also saw the three columns left from forum, or the roman plaza. Fascinating. The class will take us through all of Barcelona’s history, specifically in terms of planning, art, history and architecture. (Side note—I just misspelled architecture to the Spanish arquitectura so the immersion is definitely kicking in.)
Miss you all at home…but definitely starting to settle in some more.
The overall view of the city, from the top of the mountain by the sea. This is also where they built all of their buildings for the olympics, most recently in 1992.
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