Culture 101

            So here you go… I know you’ve all been waiting. How is Spain really different from the United States? This is what I have so far....

This is a meal just for ME. A TON of food as you can see.
It consists of meatballs and mashed potatos, chips and
cheese, bread, cheesecake, fruit, and a plate of dessert.
NO, I did not eat all of it. =) 

* Meal times are drastically different. Breakfast is similar.. at around 8ish, but then lunch is at 2:30 and dinner at 9:30. Breakfast consists of a piece of bread and jam. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Usually, there will be a main course, which could be chicken and fries… Paella…Garbanzo beans and then there is a secondary dish with fish or cheese and meat and crackers. Basically, it’s a big meal. I don’t think I’ve ever finished the entire thing. (And our host mom gets offended when we don't eat all our food and thinks that we don't like it..)

* Food is different. Almost everything is cooked in olive oil, whereas.. we bake a lot of our stuff in the oven.

* Everything, except restaurants and bars close down during the afternoon from about 2-5 for nap time. Nothing is open on Sundays either.

* The temperature is strange. It starts out very cold in the mornings.. get's really warm in the afternoons, and then by the evening is very cold again. The houses aren't really equipped for cold weather either, so many times.. it will be colder inside than outside.

* Everyone smokes. In houses.. outside. You can't go into a restaurant and find a non-smoking area. It just doesn't exist.

Dos Besitos (See description)

* Showers have to be limited. Water is expensive and they don't have a ton of hot water...so we have a 5 minute-ish limit in the shower.

* When you first meet someone...or see a friend you know on the street, you must give them "dos besitos".. or two kisses. You put your cheek against their cheek, first right cheek and then left check. While doing it...you make two kissing sounds. It sounds really awkward and strange...and it is at first, but eventually it becomes normal.

* You never see people on the street dressed casually. Everyone wears cute clothes all the time. Girls always wear fashionable boots with peacoats and lots of jewelry. So it's very easy to pick out an American...because they are usually wearing jeans, a T-shirt and tennis shoes.

* Piropos (Compliments) - It's super, super common for you to be walking down the street and for strangers to say 'hello beautiful' to you. It's not a creepy thing here, but just a compliment.

* People do not smile at strangers.

* Talking loud, is NOT yelling. You will know when a Spaniard is mad.

* Interrupting is not considered rude. If you want to get your voice into a conversation, you have to be willing to interrupt!

* Being 'on time' is relative. If you want your Spanish friends to be on time... tell them to be there 10-15 minutes before you actually want them there...or be prepared to wait.

* There is no such thing as 'tipping' when you go to a restaurant.

* People don't invite friends to their houses. Instead.. they go out for coffee or to get a drink.

As you can see, Spaniards leave no room in
between cars, so that no space is wasted.
(Again, read the description)

* Driving here is crazy.. most everyone has really small cars and try to park in the tightest parking spot ever. In fact, I've also heard that because cars are parked so close together, many people will leave their car in neutral, so that other people can push their car out of the way.

Well, that's a lot for you to read. Hope it wasn't too overwhelming. =) Most everything I've been able to get accustomed to. It has been hard not being able to go to other people's houses to study.. or just hang out. The school isn't open super often, so in order to use the internet or to study...we have to go somewhere and pay for a coffee. Back in the states, I LOVE hosting people...for dinner, for game nights, for movie nights..for basically anything, so this has been hard to get accustomed to. Fortunately, I have made friends with a missionary and gone to her house a couple of times and also gone to the student ministry coordinator's house.

The other thing that has been hard.. has been not having independence. Being married, puts me in a whole new ball game than the other students. It has been nice to not have to cook or do all my laundry, but I also get treated like a kid...since I get yelled at for not wearing a coat in the house (when I'm not cold) or when I don't eat all my lunch. I miss driving too! I look forward to driving again and turning up my music and singing really loud. I walk at least 2 miles everyday and that's just going back and forth from the school once. =)

Hope thanksgiving was great! 

     Only 26 days until I come home. How crazy is that?! Time has flown by faster than I imagined…but that is what everyone told me would happen.

    I feel like I’ve been pretty busy lately, which is good and bad. All semester long, I’ve been taking a Flamenco dance class…which has been really fun, but hard! The dance instructor is so sweet and she’s 4 months pregnant and super cute and she makes it fun! We have one more class and then have our final performance next Monday night. I got my flamenco dress and it’s ridiculously amazing!

My Flamenco Dress!

My friend, Angline and I in our dresses

   I’ve also recently started taking a free salsa dance class. Let me tell you.. I love salsa! Its really good exercise and I leave feeling so refreshed! I’ve already informed Matt that we must take a salsa class when I return. =)

   I´ve been hearing lately via family and facebook that most of you have a lot of snow. I am so jealous! It makes me wish that I were home...playing in the snow and gearing up for Christmas with Black Friday on the way. It´s so strange to think that in Sevilla.. the weather is still fairly nice being in the 60s or 70s during the day. My body is going to be in shock when I come back! I am praying that I will be able to make it back home for Christmas. I fly into Chicago and then to Portland and I´m worried that snow or bad weather will prohibit me from coming. Please be praying! Spending Christmas in Chicago doesn´t sound super appealing.

Making snowflakes with Haya (the girl I work with at the convent)
It was her first time!

Thanks to those of you who reply to my blogs. It’s super great to hear from you and it lets me know that there really are people out there reading about my adventures!

Do you guys have any questions.. or things you would like to hear about in one of my next blogs?

Oh and happy thanksgiving and black friday shopping! Eat lots of turkey for me. :-)

Oh to be an old lady

Halloween. It's an excuse to be crazy... and to dress funky and have no one wonder what is wrong with you. In the past I've dressed up as a facebook page, a Rubik's cube, and even a rockstar. This year, I wasn't quite sure what to be. Plus, Halloween isn't as big of an event in Spain as it is in the United States. Needless to say, I still chose to participate. So on deciding what to be, I thought I'd add a few years to my life... 

The Full Ensemble

Our school actually had a little Halloween party...upon which there was a costume contest. So that morning, bright and early, I awoke to start the preparations of my costume. My roommate put hair curlers in my hair, did my make-up pretty crazy, and ended with some baby powder, to give the effect of grey hair. It was a hoot! I walked to school and back that morning looking like an old woman. I got some pretty crazy looks that day. One woman even almost fell off of her bike. =) At the costume party, not a ton of students dressed up, which was sad...but I suppose an advantage on my part, because I won first prize, which was a free drink to Starbucks. =) 

Helping a senior citizen

Later on the the evening, I went to another halloween party that was hosted by a missionary friend, named Nadine. She also had a costume contest. A lot more people dressed up for her party, which it made it fun...and I remained a granny. :D To my delight, I also won first prize for that contest...which was a $15 dollar iTunes card (now I can buy $15 dollars worth of music online!). Nadine had also bought some pumpkins to carve. There were some Spaniards there, so we taught them the art of carving pumpkins. They thought the whole thing was pretty hilarious. There were even some Americans who had never cut pumpkins before and one of them had her own pumpkin farm. How can someone grow pumpkins and never have cut one???

Me and Shrek

I ended up carving two pumpkins. I made one into a sun...and the other into a bird-like creature. Although, the Spaniards thought it looked like Shrek...so I won first prize for the pumpkin carving contest too (I won a box of chocolates). I have never won so many prizes in one day! I felt pretty accomplished. =) 

The Sun!

It was fun to teach the Spaniards some American traditions. I find it very enjoyable to learn about different cultures and to compare how 

different it is with American. So very soon, I am going to write a

 'Cultures 101' blog on things that I've noticed are different. =) 

What did you guys dress up for Halloween?? 

I wrote this blog a few weeks ago, but was unable to upload pictures until today.
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So far, I’ve been here 54 days. It doesn’t seem like that long, but I feel like I’ve been here a while. Things that were once exciting are starting to become ‘normal’. It’s weird to think that I will be coming home in about 8 weeks.

Rock formations everywhere!

Well, since I’m a bit behind, I will update you on latest travels. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit Lagos, Portugal and WOW is it pretty! If any of you ever get a chance to come to Europe, you must visit Lagos. It’s on the coast, so we were right on the beach. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I can imagine that the beaches of Lagos are just as beautiful as the ones in Hawaii.  I went with two other girls from our program and it took a six-hour bus ride to get there. Once we arrived, we went to find our hotel, but to our dismay…discovered it was out in the country somewhere. The description online had said that it was close to everything, but I guess they meant by car. So you can say.. we weren’t exactly happy. The hotel however was very nice and only one other couple was actually staying there, so we had the whole joint to ourselves. It was super small, but it had a pool AND a hot tub, which we really loved.

Our hotel

                                                                                I could go on forever about Lagos, but basically it took us about 45 minutes to walk to the beach and a little longer to walk downtown. We visited many different little beaches…all of which had gorgeous rock formations around them. We even took a boat ride on the ocean and through the rock formations and the tour guides pointed out different rock formations that looked like elephants, King Kong, Michael Jackson and other random things. Then at the very end, we were able to jump off the boat and go swimming in the middle of the Atlantic. I’ve never swam in the ocean, so that was a neat experience. The boat driver even let me steer the boat on the way back. =)

What does this rock look like to you??

 

The sunset on the walk back to the hotel

             A few weeks later, we went to Huelva, a small little town about an hour from Sevilla. It’s where Christopher Columbus began his journey of discovering the new world. So we visited a museum commemorated for Columbus and then got to see exact replicas of the Niña, Pinta and the Santa Maria.

The Niña

Climbing up the rope (I wasn't supposed to)

Last weekend, we visit La Mancha, which is from the story Don Quixote. Not sure if you guys know the story, but basically there is a guy who thinks he is fighting giants, but was really fighting giant windmills. 

Afterwards, we visited Toledo for a few days (which I have already blogged about) and then two girls and I split off from the group to visit Madrid, the capital of Spain. It was a really fun weekend—we got to visit the famous Prado art museum, the Palacio Real, which is the king’s old palace and a bunch of other pretty places. It was a good weekend overall, except that a random guy tried to kiss me and we didn’t sleep super well in our hostel. Great experiences nonetheless!

The Palace!

            Now this week is over, and yes I am glad. Full of 3 tests, three papers, and one presentation—you can say that I’m happy to do nothing right now. I am hoping this upcoming week will fly by fast, since Matt will be here on Saturday! Our plans may have to change. We were planning on visiting Paris, but France is in the midst of a strike right now and there is an enormous shortage on gas. I am hoping that the strike will be finished by the time we are ready to visit France, but we will see. Either way, Matt will be with me.. and for that I am soo soo excited!