oh hey culture shock

WARNING:INTROSPECTIVE QUASI/PSEUDO-RANT TO FOLLOW

So I guess today was my exit from the infamous honeymoon stage. Count: 6 days. Sounds about right, I suppose. It all started with a simple question from one of my fellow students "Are you thinking of any activities to do outside of classes?" And, of course, my answer was no. This answer to this question has been repeated many times. Because I have convinced myself that I do not have a passion for something. I don't have one of those talents that can be performed on a stage to win the mundane prize of a gift certificate for dinner at a local steak house. Or something that drives me to keep going, like a sport season to look forward to. I'm not a writer, a poet, an artist, a musician, a singer, an athlete. If anything, right now I'm into photography, but even that just a little bit more than the point and shoot variety.

And how did all this catapult me out of Culture Shock Part 1 (the aforementioned-now-thought-of-as-nefarious "honeymoon")?
Because, this is a feeling that has followed me around, sometimes more closely than others, for a good portion of my life after high school. Because in high school, I had something. True-that something was Mock Trial, an activity that was good while it lasted and I'm very glad to be done with now. Nevertheless, it was something that gave me structure, something that beneath all my complaints I enjoyed doing.

So, here I am in Spain, my first time in Europe altogether, and I am feeling this. This way that I have felt off and on for the past year and a half. This is not different. This is not new. This throws me back to my nights at Wesleyan that were spent in bed considering my failure to become involved. It reminds me of slightly chilly fall nights walking around with some of my best friends in the world, explaining this exact feeling. And this, if any of you are still reading, is where the connection to be suddenly missing people is. Those people that helped me through all this over the past years are not here. Most of them are an ocean away from me, helping out one another. And I'm not writing this so you guys, you know who you are, can read it and feel bad. I'm writing it because I promised myself I'd be honest. And I also promised myself that I would only write in English if it was email or this journal. And I need to write in English now. I need to say what I need to say without awkward pauses to think of verb tenses, without having to think 3 sentences ahead, and with only the self consciousness of complete self-evaluation, not of language barriers.

A couple days ago Pan, my roommate, told me that I seem to be dealing with being in a new country for basically the first time very well. And I mumbled something about how it's all about appearing to have confidence. And talking with whomever happens to be around. Which is what I have been doing. And up until today, I hadn't consciously missed people at Wes. It really felt like winter break was just a week longer, and in my head maybe I thought that I would be seeing them all again within a few days. I thought that my first tears would be shed in Madrid, once I got away from anything that was familiar. But, turns out tonight was the night. I am okay with this. I realize that this is normal. And I realize that it happens to most anyone and to be of those few that get away with not experiencing it would be rare, and probably not as beneficial. But deep down, I wanted to be one of those people. Obviously, I knew I wouldn't be. Anyone who knows me proably recognized that this stage of culture shock would smack me in the face. I miss people immensely when I leave for fall break, and that is 5 months and 2200 miles less than the challenge in front of me now.

Even though admitting that a negative feeling exists is the first step to dealing with it, it still kinda smarts. I miss people that I can laugh with until I can no longer breathe. People that understand what I mean solely by the position of my eyebrows, how I feel just by looking at my eyes. People that I feel comfortable enough with to snuggle up next to them in almost any situation. And it comes right back to the need for comfort. There's no one here that I want a hug from, or whose hugs would come close to you guys. Well, there probably are quality huggers among the group, but it takes more than pure talent, ya know?

Okay, I think that's all my feelings right now. Oh, except for my sad, ironic in the misused sense, frustration that my iPod has picked this night to flake out. The night when I need to walk around a city listening to familiar music. But: que será,será I suppose. I know it will get better and by the end I won't want to leave. Okay, hasta luego.

j

hot chocolate like no other

Yes, this is my second post of the day but I don't think the first one counts. And today was just too good to not write about it. Finally finally there was good weather. Sun, not freezing, ya know how it is.

And I have fulfilled one of my goals for Spain. Well, maybe not a goal but I did something I wanted to do ever since forming any coherent thoughts about me actually being in Spain. And that is: The Spanish sun warming my back while I sit in a plaza with my pocket journal writing in Spanish and absorbing my surroundings. It was gorgeous, with sounds of birds, fountains, and spanish in the air. First I read some poetry by Bécquer and afterwards got into a small conversation with an elderly woman. It was simple (although I used the "you informal" form instead of the Ud). She asked me where I was from, what I was doing in Spain. The important thing is that I understood her. And I answered her. In Spanish. Which is what I came here to do. Well, not this specifically--talking to elderly women in plazas--but talking with spanairds in general. And when she got up, she squeezed my arm and gave me a kiss on both cheeks. My first experience of this part of the culture. I think I like it. It acknowledges that there was just an interaction. To me it signifies that that interaction actually existed. And that maybe she was sincerely interested in knowing something about me. That said, I don't think that I'm going to go around kissing everyone I meet, as I don't know the guidelines for this practice.

Talking to my mom today, my interest in the mystery of TIME was reinforced. I woke up at around 8 this morning, and realized I could call her, and still catch her awake on her birthday, the day before. She was in yesterday. I was already a day ahead of her. She had a whole night of dreaming to do, I had a morning of classes to experience. Time is not something that I really have a grasp of. It just seems so weird that 7 hours can hold so much. And that it does not really depend on anything else. It just is. But we do change it, we use Daylight Savings Time to create a day with the sunlight hours that we want. And if everyone was on different time, would the world still function? I don't quite know. It boggles my mind.

Another mind opening experience: I was in El Corte Inglés, the large department store here wandering around the book section. And I saw guide books for the United States. And a little bit more of me realized that I was in a different country.

And the final observation of the day: a note about food. I would rather wait until I finish the draft of the post that is dedicated to food to write about this, but seeing as it is part of the day today, I'll include it here. Hot Chocolate "chocolate caliente" is different here. Not just in flavor, but in esscence. Yes, there is the hot chocolate of the powder variety, the kind that I have looked forward to many a time when coming off the slopes in Vermont. This is the kind I get most mornings out of the machine in the restaurante in the hotel. But when I ordered one today, at a café, I forgot that there exists another kind. The kind they serve for dipping churros in. This kind is thick, like a pudding. There is a skin on the top, and it most definitely could be comfortably eaten with a spoon. This is what I got. And it was delicous, if not a little nauseating after the half way mark. Not exactly "sip-able".

Todo por ahora,

j

this thing they call "classes"

I've decided that spanish history is fun. and I like it. that is my impression of the first full day of classes at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. And literature is good also, I suppose. But I actually enjoy the History class more.

(right now we're doing intensive history/language classes for 2 weeks in Granada)

j