1/30/08
Howdy All,
Sorry that it’s taken me a little over a week to send an e-mail out about my life here in Spain over the first week and a half, but I’ve been pretty successful so far in doing what most of you know I do best: keeping busy. To sum up everything in a nut shell at this point: I’m happy here in Spain and having a great time. I didn’t know all of what to expect, seeing as my relevant other-cultures-study-abroad knowledge comes from my experience in Japan, but Spain is shaping up to be a place where I definitely can feel at home.
Once I arrived in the airport in Alicante last Monday evening after leaving Austin the day before at 11 AM, I was met by two administrators of the program here. That was a nice surprise after all of the travel (and lugging baggage), because I’d thought I would have to find myself a cab and my way to the hotel all by my lonesome after getting here. Jennifer and Paco (Francisco) were there to pick me up, though, and things went smoothly upon arrival in Alicante (intra-EU flights are pretty easy, I’ve learned). After all that hassle of getting my passport and visa from the Spanish embassy, it really was laughable at how easily I ended up getting into the country- I got a quick passport stamp in Frankfurt, and a glance here in Alicante (the journey was: drive Austin-Houston, fly Houston-Frankfurt, fly Frankfurt-Madrid, fly Madrid-Alicante…fun!)…and that was it, haha. I am extremely grateful to the Spanish embassy for getting me my passport two days late, as it meant the program requested that I come for the second orientation (on January 21st, instead of January 7th), which meant that I spent my 21st birthday in DC (which most, if not all of you already know haha)…I think I can honestly say that over the three days of celebration (from home-cooked dinner at Robin’s and pregaming the Tombs to The Stamp to dinner with my family in Austin on Saturday night before I departed the next morning), I had the most fun that I ever have for a birthday. Well, there was that time when I turned 5 and got to go with my friends to see Joe Scruggs at the Paramount Theater in Austin…but seriously, I am so thankful to so many people for making my birthday/goodbye the most amazing that I’ve ever had. I am truly blessed with some of the most amazing friends in the world. Even people I didn’t have the chance to see in that quick visit (and in Austin around it), I heard from, and to know (or at least have the impression ;-) ) that people care about you is probably the most wonderful feeling I can think of. I can’t possibly name everyone here who made my birthday so amazing, but a quick list would definitely include my family (my parents and “baby” brother, obviously, and my Aunt and Grandpa D, and of course other Grandpa and Aunt and Uncle on my mom’s side), Robin for the dinner; DJ (and Lexi and Ken) for having me stay with them and basically hosting me the whole time in DC; Jacopo, etc. for the wonderful time and “present” (which I’m working on adding to); AD for organizing the best birthday dinner I’ve ever had (yes, actually beats out the Alamo Grill Extravaganza); and everyone else who I had the chance to see and hear from before I left. I love you all, and I’ve actually felt something close to homesick for the first time in my life just missing the wonderful people I’ve left behind (albeit temporarily). Haha ok, anyways…I was telling you about Spain-
So as I rode in the cab with Paco, Jennifer, and Tiana (another late arrival), Jennifer explained life in Alicante (and to a greater extent, Spain) to me in three words/phrases: “Tranquilo” “No pase nada” and “Manana”. This, pretty much, was music to my ears. As much as I enjoy living life in the fast (read: never-have-time-to-myself) lane, I love maintaining the general attitude that those three phrases represent: “calm” (or in this usage: “chill”), “it doesn’t matter,” and “tomorrow.” That kind of laid-back mentality is something that I felt someone from Austin (and generally, from Texas), can really appreciate it. Although whereas I think of Austin as a laid-back city, the Spanish have done the admirable thing of taking it to a national level. While Americans tend to find this attitude maddening when it comes to the Spanish bureaucracy (see in dictionary: Spanish Embassy), as a way of life I have to admit: it’s not a bad way to pasar el tiempo (pass the time). Obviously, any observations I make on life here at a society level are gross generalizations that I derive from my tiny experience with the culture, but hey, I report what I see.
Back to the story- we stayed in a hotel and went through a day-and-a-half long orientation. We had dinner that first evening at Spanish time (around 9ish), and the six of us students made sure the make the right decision after our long and arduous travel by going out for the evening afterwards. Though it was a Monday, we quickly found a nice place to chill and met some other people who are studying at the University, but not in our program. There were several Irish, a guy from Nepal, and a few other Americans that were all a lot of fun to hang out with and were eager to get to know us and let us know some of the great things about Alicante. My favorite part of the evening, besides meeting new people right away, was finding the bar. It’s called “Austin”. I’m not kidding you. The owner is Iranian-born and lived in Houston for over two decades and, being a good Texas resident- was infatuated with Austin. Talk about finding a home away from home, haha. Not saying that I’m taking up residence in a bar or that I now find myself spending every day there, but it was nice to find someone who knew of my small (ok, medium-sized) Texas city- and knew it well- in this medium-sized Spanish city that few in Austin (or DC) have ever heard of. It sure is interesting talking about Town Lake, 6th street, and Tex-Mex to someone just after I’ve stepped off the plane to have a Spanish experience. Instead of removing anything, however, it’s added an interesting little perk to being here. Oh, and they have guacamole and chips every Tuesday.
My host family, which I met my second day here, is amazing. They’ve had one foreign student live with them before (a guy named Dave last semester), and had a great experience with that, and so they’re very relaxed when it comes to having me around. I have a host father, a host mother, and two younger host sisters (one 17, one 12). Luis, the father, is an administrator for the state government and works here in Alicante. He is the self-described “chef” of the household, and he handles all of the cooking duties (though his older daughter cooks sometimes when he isn’t around). Alicia, the mother, is an administrator at a local university. She’s currently working hard on learning the local dialect, Valenciano (and taking a night class in it). Sandra, the older daughter, is in her last year (and I think semester) of high school, and has a boyfriend, Raiko, who is around for all the meals and everything else. He’s 21, and living away from home (the Canary Isles), which is pretty rare for the Spanish, who I think routinely stay with their parents until marriage. I know a friend said that she has two host brothers that live at home who are in their early 30’s. The youngest is Patricia, who is in her first year at the “Escuela Secundaria”, which I think is kind of like a 6-12 school. Patricia swims competitively, and owns two Spanish national records (in the 400 meters, 800 meters) using “la monoleta”- a single fin that’s attached to both feet. Their house is in a gated community, “un urbanizacion”, but it’s closer to a condo than a house because it’s in a row…and four stories high. It’s great, because I practically get my own floor. Though my bedroom isn’t that large (bed, desk, chair, closet), the entry-level floor is just my room, a small living room, a garage, and a bathroom. The second floor is the main common area, with the kitchen and a larger living room, the girls’ rooms are on the third floor, and the fourth is the master bedroom and a porch with a “barbacoa” (bbq) grill on it. My family watches a bit of TV, and the funniest I think to watch are the Simpsons and Family Guy dubbed in Spanish. There’s also a variety show called “Hormi Gueros” which is pretty entertaining. It’s kind of like the Daily Show plus science experiments (read: boys playing with chemicals and fire) and two puppet ants that offer color commentary throughout the show.
I went with my host father to the supermarket this evening, and it was pretty much what I expected from my experience in Japan- an entirely different set of brands and products, with the exception of a few important ones: namely Sunny D (made in the EU I saw), Frosted Flakes, Special K, and Smacks (the cereal I haven’t seen since I was 10). Food-wise, my family is very vegetable and seafood oriented, which is what I’ve come to expect from a typical Mediterranean diet. I like the food a lot, even given the elongated eating schedule here: 8:30 AM breakfast, 11:30 snack, 2:30 lunch, and dinner anytime between 8:45 and 10:30. So far we’ve eaten things like cream-of-zucchini soup, sardines straight out of the can, “tortilla”- (like a cold omelet with potatoes), crab, and rice with cod (paella bacalao)…all home-made from scratch. Usually I’ll take a snack to school for our break that we have in the middle of our 3-hour intensive Spanish class, and the favored snack among most of us Americans is a “bocadillo” (sandwich) with either sliced ham, cheese, tomatoes, or all of the above inside. Some unlucky ones get a kind of tuna spread inside. Granted, I haven’t tried it yet, but seeing the looks on their faces, I would prefer not to.
School is going well so far. There are about 100 Americans in 3 levels of the program that I’m in. The highest level takes classes with Spanish students in the University, while the two lower levels (basic and intermediate) take classes within the program. I’m in the intermediate level, and we take classes with other Americans but in Spanish. During the semester I’ll be taking four classes: two Spanish classes, one on Spain’s role in the EU, and one called “Politics and Terrorism”. Between the two subject classes, I think we’ll be covering a lot of what I study back at Gtown in being an International Politics major. At the moment I’m taking a 3-hour-a-day intensive Spanish class that I hopped into a/b a week and a half late…no worries though. They separate the Spanish classes into 3 levels (A,B, and C, with C as most advanced) in each of the larger levels (basic, int, advanced), and I’m in the C section of intermediate.
February 2nd
Haha sorry that this is being written in increments, but there’s so much TO write and so much going on constantly that it’s hard to keep up on it. I’m currently sitting on the second floor terrace at my host fam’s house…the weather is about 65 an there isn’t a cloud in the sky. Did I mention it’s February?
Anyways, I’m very excited because tonight is “Carnaval,” like the one in Rio, but a little smaller. Still, apparently the people will be flooding the streets and partying until the early hours tonight, and I can’t wait to see what it’s all about and take pictures. Apparently, Carnaval has been around in Spain for a couple of centuries, but it has been tempered at certain points in history in order to conform to the wishes of both the church and the Franco regime (it’s essentially a pagan festival celebrating the arrival of spring). The traditional great appeal of Carnaval is that it represents not only the arrival of spring but also a time when people can go out and let loose...an article I read yesterday said something about the norms and taboos being thrown out for the three day period. Though I saw a few people dressed up last night, the main party will be in the streets tonight. Everyone gets dressed up and goes out, wearing costumes that literally could be bought at a Halloween store in the States. It takes place 3 days before the beginning of the 40 days leading up to the Semana Santa (a holy week and holiday). For my “disfraz” (costume), I’ll be wearing a Lawrence of Arabia style “arabe” getup, so when I tried it on it prompted calls of “palestino!” from my host family…I’m still checking on the political correctness of that.
Speaking of pc-ness, the Spanish are remarkably UN-politically correct. This can be refreshing at times for an American, because most of the time we are made painfully aware of how a slip of the tongue can do massive amounts of damage (see: any politician, or really anyone around you). Other times, what can come out of their lips can be shocking. Example pending as my Spanish gets better, but the pc-ness goes hand-in-hand with a frankness that Spaniards seems to have that I hadn’t really seen before on a mass scale. Granted, most of the people I’ve met here in my first week have either been a.) American, or b.) used to dealing with Americans so I feel like I haven’t felt the full effect of either frankness or lack of PC-ness, and I could be totally exaggerating both, but it’s just the impression that I’ve gotten so far. As always, feel free to take any generalization I make with a grain of salt, because I’m a total amateur observer.
One interesting thing I learned about is a tradition here of re-enacting Spanish battles with the Muslims during the Reconquista (reconquest of Spain). Apparently at some point during the year it’s a type of festival which celebrates the retaking of Spain by ethnically native kingdoms from the Moors that had arrived 700 years earlier and taken over virtually the entirety of Spain. Another festival I’ve learned about is a local one in which the people of Alicante make the 5 km or so trek to the church of Santa Faz (Saint’s Face), and then walk to the beach and have a fiesta. It’s said that in this church there’s a surface on which Jesus’ face appears (kind of like the grilled cheese Mary Magdeleine, but older and institutionalized), which is brought out during the festival, and so it’s kind of like a very small pilgrimage for the people of this area. As with everything else, I’ll let y’all know more when I find out more, just thought it was worth mentioning.
If you haven’t seen my facebook pictures from my first weekend in Spain yet, I would definitely recommend it (there are three albums worth lol). I went on a trip with most of the people in my program to Granada and stayed there two nights. It was about a 5 hour bus trip (with one pit stop) from Alicante, and it was an amazing experience. I’m definitely going back to visit at some point now that Brianna got there this week to be there for the semester. We left after class Friday, got there that evening, and checked into the hotel. The hotel wasn’t bad, and had balconies overlooking a pool and a nice café that served continental breakfast. A great tradition in Granada is that of serving a plate of tapas every time you order any kind of drink, which is fantastic. Of course, you don’t have to order an alcoholic drink to get tapas, but most of my friends and I tended to get a beer with our plate of tapas…which basically consisted of finger foods, small sandwiches, and other things that we would generally think of as small appetizers in the US. Many other places in Spain have tapas (it’s not just in Granada), but as far as I know Granada is the only place that traditionally serves them for free (and the drinks weren’t any more expensive because of it). Depending on the place, you either chose the type of tapas they brought you or not, and even if you didn’t choose the complimentary ones, you could always pay for the kind you wanted. Anyways, I went out to an Italian restaurant with about 10 other people that first night after wandering around for a bit looking for it. I know this sounds like blasphemy, eating Italian food in Spain (sorry, Jacopo, Michael, and Jo), and Granada of all places, but it was a good experience in itself seeing what this type of Mediterranean cuisine is like here. I had a pizza, largely because a few of us got lost and showed up after everyone else had ordered so I just asked for what a friend of mine had. That night we wandered a bit looking for places to go out, and ended up in a couple of places before heading home. One was an Irish bar, where I met a few other Americans who offered to show us some of the better places to go in Granada the next night, and then a bit later about 5 of us walked into a bar celebrating the country of Argentina in a way that would make any good bar at the University of Texas decked out in orange proud. The walls were covered with flags, soccer jerseys, pictures of Maradona, and sayings involving the Argentines and the country of Argentina. Upon walking into the bar and stating the obvious, I got a few disdainful looks from the bar, but didn’t really mind. Haha I had a typically American moment in saying something to the effect of “sure looks like they like Argentina here.” More on being American in Spain (or abroad in general) a little later- probably next email lol.
Anyways, we walked back to the hotel, which took probably about 45 minutes, but Granada is a remarkably walkable city compared to Alicante, with its wide sidewalks and big avenues, so it was a pleasant walk back. The next day we went to Al Hambra. Nerdily enough, this is something that I’ve been waiting to do for a realllly long time. I remembered seeing pictures of it and learning about it as far back as 9th grade history…please don’t judge haha. Anyways, it was simply amazing. The palace gardens were beautiful, and the fountains and flowing water really created an effect that transfixed you and kept you in the moment. Everyone talked in pretty hushed voices because it really was a mesmerizing place. There were two tours: one in English, and one in Spanish. I went on the Spanish one because there were limited spots on the English tour and I figured some people might need it more than I did. As it was, I learned a ton about the history of the site and different interesting things about Granada at the same time. If you ever have a chance to visit there, please do, it really is an experience that everyone has to have in their lifetime. Because it’s situated on a hill, it overlooks the entirety of Granada, and especially the barrio/neighborhood of Albaicin, which is amazing to look at from above (and below). I took a ton of pictures of all these vistas, and Albaicin is the white neighborhood in them.
After walking through the gardens, we went and walked through three of the seven palaces that had been built on the site by the Moors. There was also a palace with a big open air rotunda that was apparently supposed to have a roof but building was halted upon the arrival of either Napoleon’s troops or the Reconquista, I forget which. The palaces were simply amazing. I took probably a hundred photos of the walls, gardens, fountains, columns, ceilings, and vistas contained within. Thanks to my new camera, I think some came out pretty well. You can check them out for yourself, though I restrained myself from putting up every architectural picture because I figured they might not be the most interesting thing for y’all to check out. Afterwards, we walked down the hill directly into the “Plaza Nueva,” a central area of Granada that sits between the busiest part of downtown, Albaicin, Al hambra, and the Cathedral. There is also a small network of mainly walking streets that branches off from it, so needless to say this place had a ton of activity going on. There were people sitting at different café’s enjoying the beautiful weather and having lunch, some performers playing music while a woman bellydanced, and a hundred other things going on all at once. We all separated to have lunch, then met back up to take a walking tour through Albaicin, which is the neighborhood that is almost entirely white (as you can see in the photos). I went out to dinner with a few friends, and then went back to the hotel for a siesta. Because it had been a long week and I hadn’t truly slept that much since traveling, that 10 pm siesta became a 10 hour-of-sleep night, something that I haven’t had in a while. I woke up the next morning totally refreshed, which is more than I can say for pretty much every other person on the trip, who’d found a discoteca to dance in the night before. We were then free to wander about the city.
Walking around the city that morning/early afternoon made me truly appreciate the walking culture of Spain. I’m not sure at all if this is something that’s more than Granada and Alicante, or if it’s a European thing, but we were walking around on a Sunday morning, and there were literally hundreds of people out strolling through the city. I’ve noticed in Alicante as well how older people will often walk their grandchildren around in strollers or by foot, and parents will do the same with their children. That, combined with the tradition of siestas and long meals (especially lunch) here, only serves to underline for me the whole “tranquilo” nature of life here. My life in America, as pretty much everyone else’s, seems to be one of constant motion. Definitely when compared to the lifestyle here, we are much more of culture on the go, which I never truly appreciated before coming here. In that respect, we are definitely much closer to Japan than we are to here. Of course, I’ve been working hard at busying myself, but the laid back nature of people here is definitely very appealing.
Anyways, that morning we strolled about and took pictures of the outside of some of the hundreds of amazing churches of Granada, and even peeked in on a couple of masses. It was a great experience.
I have so much more to write, but I think I’ll end my first e-mail here, judging by the fact that it’s 6 pages single-spaced on Word…haha anyways, to sum it all up: I’m having an amazing time here, learning lots, and meeting lots of new people. Oh, and did I mention that there’s a beach and it’s currently 65 and beautiful?
Hope everyone is doing well wherever in the world that you are, and I miss all of you!!!
Un abrazo,
John
Oh, and p.s., here’s my info here in Spain:
Mail can be sent to either my home address or the office of the program so:
John Dougherty
Padre Recaredo de Los Rios
#40 B-15 03005
Alicante, Spain
Or
John Dougherty
c/o Francisco Diez
Center Director
CIEE Alicante
Aulario II- Universidad de Alicante
Alicante, Spain 03690
I’ve also recently downloaded Skype. Although I haven’t quite figured out the sound yet (I talked to people the other day but I couldn’t hear them…it was an interesting convo- them typing and me talking). My Skype name is: john.i.dougherty And of course, my AIM sn: “Texan 34 2000,” and I’m usually on g-chat.
I guess a phone # would help too lol…my cell in spain: 34 (country code) 634 201 533
Anyways, hope to hear from you and I’ll be sending out another e-mail soon!
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