My host dad is a politician I forget this from time to time because he is always arrives home late and I never see him go to work in the morning. Yesterday I saw one of his body gaurds on the staircase, I was waiting for the elevator and he said hola, I watched him pass a potted plant and he bent down to touch it. I'm still not sure if he was feeling to see if it was real or searching for a bomb, you never know. However, this weekend my host dad is driving me to the bus station because I have a seven hour bus trip from San Sebastian to Madrid. His security meets us on the street, takes my bag, and we get into the car while they drive. My host dad asks the gaurds about how their families are and all that, they seem to be up to date on each other. He seems like one of the good politicians, like Harvey Dent before he was turned into Two-Face, a good guy who wants to do some good in the world. That only makes me more worried on the car ride, I mean a kind, uncorruptable politician probably makes enemies out of dangerous people, I fully expect a James Bond style car chase followed by a firefight with amazing special effects and a hand to hand combat scene with a least one stunt that involves a man fall off a building. I arrive at the bus station no problem. The most interesting part of my journey with him is choosing out a sandwhich for the long bus ride. I end up getting cheese because the others types would have taken too long. I thought the only person in the world to eat cheese sandwhiches was my sister, they are nasty things to smell and I hate arriving home when Alison has prepared one in the microwave. I hope mine is slightly different than the ones she makes and am plesantly surprised. The food turns out to be great and I'm content on the bus ride over, the only problem is that I don't know what to do once I arrive in Madrid.
The bus station is underground and when I get up to the surface I have no idea where I'm going. The biggest city in Spain and I don't even know whether to go left or right. I walk in a random direction in search of Rotary blazers. I get up to an intersection on Avienda America and decide I would rather not leave the street. Random search is not going to work, why not be practical, there is a lookout on top of the bus station so I head there to see if I recognize anything, but why would I in a place that I´ve never been and don't know what I'm looking for. Good idea, bad timing. On top of the building was one of the few places I would not be able to find the rotary youth exchange. I walk down the stairs on the other side and past a line of kids my age, speaking english, and wearing blue sports coats. It feels funny to speak English at a normal speed but I think that now I can sit back and wait for Rotary to take over. One of my thoughts was right, all of us spent hours of the weekend waiting, Rotary never took over.
After another three hour bus ride to a local college boys and girls are separated, they go to one door and we are sent to another door on the same building. They are both locked and we are permitted to stare awkwardly at one another until someone suggests that we check the front, it might be unlocked. What an inovator. In the front we are told we can not come in that way and must return to wait for Rotary. After a few hours we are found by some actual Rotarians and are ordered across the lawn where we are assigned rooms. All the instructions are in English because literally everyone speaks it. Once we know are room numbers we are allowed to continue to stand around with our suitcases and make friends for another few hours. The sun starts going down. We continue to wait and finally a person who appears to have some sort of authority demands we all shut up and organizes us into a mob. Once formed up she starts calling names and telling people to stand behind her, once about every three people she says "You don't have a room" then continues with the list. I am told that I, in fact, do have a room even though I have yet to see it. Once everyone's name is called the group splits, all the girls and half the guys go to one building, and I wait in the darkness with seven other guys for directions. No one knows where we are going so we wait some more. Us remaining men hang our heads and try to look pitiful in an attempt to get some attention and a place to sleep because the grass is beginning to look incredibly comfortable.
We do eventually get our rooms and get some food before heading off to bed at 11 o'clock, the designated curfew that is enforced rather quickly. We are told tomorrow we will see the city. This is a lie. I have not seen any of Madrid past the university and Avienda American, we are kept on campus all weekend. There is none of the traditional pin exchange, speech making, or talent shows that usually come with these Rotary meetings. And from the outside it would seem like the weekend was a huge disappointment, but really it was not half bad. Youth exchangers and Rotarians are some of the nicest people you will ever meet and deep friendships were formed in the space of a few hours. Rotarians give all the usual lectures with some added information like this one man who described why fish are served with the head on. Apparently it is much easier to tell a fish's freshness if it has a head. I'm still not sure how this works, I have never looked at a fish head and gleaned any valuable information from it except that, if anything, the eyes are always surprised and when they realize that the worm was a trap it's too late. And on a quick side note, why worms for fish? Think about it.
The only part of Madrid I see is a college, an airport, a bus station and buildings from the bus window. But I met some great people and shared more than I had in three weeks of living here, so would I go again if I had the chance to do the exact same thing? I could call everyone I met and we could meet... anywhere but the college campus. Find our own rooms and own meals, it might be expensive but we're in Madrid, we can do anything. Sorry Rotary, I do love you, but somehow I felt like that there were missed oppurtunities when we were staying ten miles from the largest city in Spain and all we could do was imagine what it would be like to let our feet carry us where they may around Madrid.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Weekend, Rotary meeting
Saturday night, out of the house with my host brother at 11:30, walk down the boardwalk, look for friends, no friends, return, go to sleep 11:55. So maybe the first weekend here was not the all night techno dance party I imagined happening all the time in Spain. But the view of the city at night was amazing. I was just happy to see the shore line and the island in the middle of the Concha Bay illuminated by street lamps which looked like they had to have been lit in a Harry Potter like fashion by Dumbledore (Spoiler Alert) R.I.P. I have upwards of 40 weekends here so I don´t consider it any loss that there was no clubbing during this particular weekend. There will be a story later of some crazy Spanish dance night I´m sure. I hear they don´t grind which is a huge relief because I could never really get the hang of it, here´s my impression of grinding: Girls are dancing by themselves, Guy asks girl to dance, Girl says okay and continues to dance as if alone, Guy locks on behind her like parasitic organism, two options at this point, 1 Guy looks around awkwardly, 2 Guy watches girl in an apparent effort to remove her clothes with his eyeballs.
The week of school was normal. I pretended I knew what was going on while kids took notes around me. I am understanding a few more words and tenses than I did at first but I´m not Rainman so it will take more than a few weeks for full understanding. Some teachers have noticed that my knowledgable visage is actually a blank stare and have asked me to bring things to do during class. I have been bringing ¡Pesadillas! how exciting does that sound, really really exciting, because it´s in Spanish. It is written by R. L. Stine. For those of you who haven´t figured it out I am, indeed, reading a Spanish translation of Goosebumps! I can understand most of the words and can make out what the overall story is saying. I used to read these books all the time but haven´t seen one in a while, I am remembering why I loved these books in the first place, and the reason why I loved these books is because I was about eight when I read them. The plot line is a little below my level at this point, but the reading level is a little high. I can´t think of a solution but to figure out if the kids end up being invisible forever and then move on and see how they deal with Monster Blood in the Spanish version, I´m hoping for an alternate ending.
My teachers say they will have special assignments for me next week that are more my level. This sounds like a gip, having to do something where once I could do nothing, but really I´m pumped. I don´t know how lazy people do it, sitting and vegetating is so boring I just don´t have the mental prowess to take on that task for hours a day. Unfortunatley that is what the Rotary meeting was for me. The district president introduced a woman who was going to talk about the history of Europe and Philosophers. To say it went over my head is an understatment, the only words I understood were Socrotes, Platon, and Aristotoles (Who knew they had different names in Spain). I tried to calculate how long it would take her to finish based on where she was in history and how fast she was going. That never works, the person always gets caught up on one subject and it drags on forever. For her it was the philosophers, going into the 22nd hour of her philosopher segment my host dad wrote a note and passed it to my host mom. That brougt up my spirits considerably, I wasn´t the only bored one! Three days later and it´s finally time for questions. The first man raises his hand and I recognize a few words. How could he?!? It was something to do with Socrotes, I see the glint in the woman´s eyes she is ready to answer this question in full. Several hours later the meeting finishes and I walk out with my host parents. When they start talking they discuss how interesting the woman´s speech was and how well written, oh oh and how clear, wasn´t that just amazing, she really set that straight didn´t she!!! Now I´m sad. That note must have been one of praise. Apparently I have just missed the most illuminating Spanish speech on history of this century, and I was in the room. I swear that I will be able to understand a speech like that by the end of the year, because I can´t sit through something that boring again.
A little end note; I don´t have spellcheck here except in Spanish and I have to many things to do to bother re-reading each entry so pay no attention to minor misspellings. I still have trouble because my pen doesn´t check what it spits out.
The week of school was normal. I pretended I knew what was going on while kids took notes around me. I am understanding a few more words and tenses than I did at first but I´m not Rainman so it will take more than a few weeks for full understanding. Some teachers have noticed that my knowledgable visage is actually a blank stare and have asked me to bring things to do during class. I have been bringing ¡Pesadillas! how exciting does that sound, really really exciting, because it´s in Spanish. It is written by R. L. Stine. For those of you who haven´t figured it out I am, indeed, reading a Spanish translation of Goosebumps! I can understand most of the words and can make out what the overall story is saying. I used to read these books all the time but haven´t seen one in a while, I am remembering why I loved these books in the first place, and the reason why I loved these books is because I was about eight when I read them. The plot line is a little below my level at this point, but the reading level is a little high. I can´t think of a solution but to figure out if the kids end up being invisible forever and then move on and see how they deal with Monster Blood in the Spanish version, I´m hoping for an alternate ending.
My teachers say they will have special assignments for me next week that are more my level. This sounds like a gip, having to do something where once I could do nothing, but really I´m pumped. I don´t know how lazy people do it, sitting and vegetating is so boring I just don´t have the mental prowess to take on that task for hours a day. Unfortunatley that is what the Rotary meeting was for me. The district president introduced a woman who was going to talk about the history of Europe and Philosophers. To say it went over my head is an understatment, the only words I understood were Socrotes, Platon, and Aristotoles (Who knew they had different names in Spain). I tried to calculate how long it would take her to finish based on where she was in history and how fast she was going. That never works, the person always gets caught up on one subject and it drags on forever. For her it was the philosophers, going into the 22nd hour of her philosopher segment my host dad wrote a note and passed it to my host mom. That brougt up my spirits considerably, I wasn´t the only bored one! Three days later and it´s finally time for questions. The first man raises his hand and I recognize a few words. How could he?!? It was something to do with Socrotes, I see the glint in the woman´s eyes she is ready to answer this question in full. Several hours later the meeting finishes and I walk out with my host parents. When they start talking they discuss how interesting the woman´s speech was and how well written, oh oh and how clear, wasn´t that just amazing, she really set that straight didn´t she!!! Now I´m sad. That note must have been one of praise. Apparently I have just missed the most illuminating Spanish speech on history of this century, and I was in the room. I swear that I will be able to understand a speech like that by the end of the year, because I can´t sit through something that boring again.
A little end note; I don´t have spellcheck here except in Spanish and I have to many things to do to bother re-reading each entry so pay no attention to minor misspellings. I still have trouble because my pen doesn´t check what it spits out.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Week of firsts
Two days after I arrive in Spain I'm in school. I was excited for school at first, meet new people learn new things, study a different culture. It was only after I sat in the auditorium for a start of year meeting I began to remember, in order to make friends I have to intereact with strangers, interacting usually involves some form of verbal communication. The meeting goes on for two hours, the person next to me tells me how the sweaty, bald, moustaciod man at the front loves to "hablar y hablar y hablar." I quickly come up with a response representing the extent of my Spanish knowledge, I want whoever this boy is next to me to be my friend, so cautionsly I respond, "si." Mission accomplished, the boy nods and returns to a semi sleeping state. The auditorium gathering has taken up the first two classes, I will start the day with English, something that I might understand. I find my friend from before and ask him, with broken Spanish, why we are in third period, he responds in broken English and motions for me to pull a desk up next to his. Maybe I can help this guy in English, he seems nice enough and he might need it. I continue discussing what happened in the morning and what will happen during the day, the teacher appears to be getting organized at the front of the class and I don´t realize that the rest of the students are silent. I thought the teacher would ask for us to be quiet when she was going to start. Wrong. "Would you mind shutting up?" I freeze and look at the teacher like a deer in headlights, I cannot believe what I have just heard. I face forward and shut up. "Would you like to come to the front?" First day, first class, and I get sent to the front of the room, not a great start. During english the teacher talks for the full hour about how the scores that the students have been getting have been unacceptably low. I think that maybe this teacher is just especially mean to focus on the test like that, in the U.S I resisted test specific classes as often as possible. After class students go to their backpacks at the side of the room and grab food. My friends explains that there is a 15 minute break everyday after third period so people have something to carry them through the day. Then my friend, Marcos, starts talking to me rapid fire in Spanish. I smile at him and try to pick up as much as I can, but as I am becoming increasingly aware of, I am just a dumb American. He ends with a question, something about a type of music I think. From what I´ve heard I think I like whatever he is talking about and say 'mucho, mucho.' I am confident in my answer for a half second until he looks at me in a way like 'where the hell did you come from?' It turns out that what I said wasn´t relavent to the conversation but the conversation was not even directed at me, he had been talking to a girl behind me. Ouch. My pride hurts.
The classes were all similar to English in the fact that they all focused on test results. This makes me both sad and happy, sad because so much pressure is put on these students to do well, and happy because since I would be a liability I probably won´t have to take any tests. After school my host brother, Cesar, asks me if I want to go body surfing. Why not? We get flippers, wet suits, and boards, within fifteen minutes we are off to the beach in our bare feet. I have body surfed before, and on some fairly large waves, but while he was explaining what to do I realized I had never done anything like this.
In the end I technically only surfed one wave, the rest crashed into me and rolled me around under water. But the wave I did catch I must have rode 40 or 50 feet, racing past swimmers, children, and people wading in the shallows. On top of the wave I felt weightless, it was amazing. When I landed on the beach I readjusted my flippers and stood up, I was on my feet for all of a half second before I crumpled to the ground clutching my cramped calf. I sat right back in the sand and began to massage my leg at which point another wave rolled on shore and knocked me on my back, while kids who were seven jumped straight into it with smilies on their faces, jerks. It took about fifteen minutes for me to get back out into the surf and when I was finally with my host brother again the waves began to fade away. We went home without catching anything else, but that one wave that lasted half a minute was worth the hour of waiting in the water.
This weeks seems like it has lasted a month. The city is beautiful but concentrated, I don't know any stores or restaurants, but I know my way around. I'm about to experience my first week end over seas, I have no idea what to expect, but somehow, hobbling around on my one crappy leg, I think I´ll be happy.
The classes were all similar to English in the fact that they all focused on test results. This makes me both sad and happy, sad because so much pressure is put on these students to do well, and happy because since I would be a liability I probably won´t have to take any tests. After school my host brother, Cesar, asks me if I want to go body surfing. Why not? We get flippers, wet suits, and boards, within fifteen minutes we are off to the beach in our bare feet. I have body surfed before, and on some fairly large waves, but while he was explaining what to do I realized I had never done anything like this.
In the end I technically only surfed one wave, the rest crashed into me and rolled me around under water. But the wave I did catch I must have rode 40 or 50 feet, racing past swimmers, children, and people wading in the shallows. On top of the wave I felt weightless, it was amazing. When I landed on the beach I readjusted my flippers and stood up, I was on my feet for all of a half second before I crumpled to the ground clutching my cramped calf. I sat right back in the sand and began to massage my leg at which point another wave rolled on shore and knocked me on my back, while kids who were seven jumped straight into it with smilies on their faces, jerks. It took about fifteen minutes for me to get back out into the surf and when I was finally with my host brother again the waves began to fade away. We went home without catching anything else, but that one wave that lasted half a minute was worth the hour of waiting in the water.
This weeks seems like it has lasted a month. The city is beautiful but concentrated, I don't know any stores or restaurants, but I know my way around. I'm about to experience my first week end over seas, I have no idea what to expect, but somehow, hobbling around on my one crappy leg, I think I´ll be happy.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
The arrival
I laugh in spite of myself. Of course it was the shampoo, what else would it be. There are streaks of light blue across my clothes and gifts. The culprit is dead, zipped underneath the lid of my suitcase, its conditioning and hydrating blood fill the clear body bag that was supposed to keep the bottle safe. My open suitcase looks like modern art, only better, I´m not knocking modern art (it doesn´t need my help just look at the piece entitled ¨Yellow Square¨ that sold for $35,000) but my creation has a backstory that is fun to those watching from a safe distance.
I had been packing for about a week to make sure I brought everything I needed on my trip. My clothing was laid out in a large suitcase. Al the electronics I was going to bring were arranged in my satchel (Indian Jones has one). The gifts were packed in my carry on, and all the extra necessities were on the dining room table. It turned out that I did in fact have everything I needed but the total weight of each bag was over the limit by several pounds. This is where the shampoo comes in. The bottle of head and shoulder weighs the most out of any individual item in my bags, coming in at a hefty three pounds. There are some who might question the idea to bring any shampoo on a trip such as mine much less, three pounds worth. My response to those questions is, "I know you are but what am I?" So it´s clear I have to take the shampoo for some reason, but my options are running thin because my family only believes in the "Family size" containers. At last my sister finds an abandoned smaller bottle, but it is almost empty. By now we have about fifteen minute before we leave for the airport. Just as all hope seemed lost my mom decided that we fill up the small bottle halfway with the bigger bottle, once again demonstrating her wisdom and cool headed leadership that got her democratically elected as Mommy for life.
Jump ahead several hours past some last minute gifts from my family along with some tears (not my tears, because I´m a man, a big strong man), and I´m in transit somewhere over the atlantic. My arms are wrapped around my stomach but in a discreet way, so no one else will know how sick I´m feeling. I don´t know if it is my emotions, or the microwaveable airplane dinner that contained beef flavored meat product. But somehow I think the idea of leaving all that I have grown up with for an unceratin year in a foreign country has upset my stomach (So maybe I´m not such a big strong man). The plane lands in San Sebastian and I´m just hoping that I don´t vomit on the family when I see them. The terminal is the smallest I have ever seen and I was on the only plane at the airport. I open the first door to the room the with baggage carousels and through some glass doors I see three people whom I recognize from the pictures I received through email. I studied the photos the night before so I did not make a bad impression, hug the wrong person, and have them thinking "Americans really are that strange." My host mom, brother, and sister have huge smiles to match mine, and as soon as I embrace my host mother my stomach calms, and I´m relaxed. I return the wrong way through a one way door to the baggage claim area beacause I had forgotten my checked luggage in my haste, however the bag doesn´t come around. I finally see mybag on a talbe next to a customes official. He asks me to open it up and I do so. That is when I see the 2 in1, shampoo/conditionerblood bath. And I laugh. I don´t care. Sure the underwear around the bottle now looks like whoever wears them has a terrible yet hilarious disease, but the the gifts are fine, and that´s all I care about.
My suitcase is now clean and I have given all my gifts to my host family,there was no significant damage besides washing suds off a frisbee. My host mother threw out the shampoo and told me I could use theirs. My first meal was at Mcdonalds, at which point my stomach again became angry with me, but we had to eat there because we were in a hurry for some reason, I still don´t know why. The meals I have had since then have been fantastic and the view from the balcony looks out on the sea. My fmaily is amazing, as all those that agree to host exchangee students are, but mine seems even better, which is great because this is the only one I´ll have for the next year (Not standard rotary practice, usually threee families are used). I can look out at a beach from several windows while listening to Spongebob (Bob Esponja) in my new home, and I couldn´t care less that my hair doesn´t smell like head and shoulders.
I had been packing for about a week to make sure I brought everything I needed on my trip. My clothing was laid out in a large suitcase. Al the electronics I was going to bring were arranged in my satchel (Indian Jones has one). The gifts were packed in my carry on, and all the extra necessities were on the dining room table. It turned out that I did in fact have everything I needed but the total weight of each bag was over the limit by several pounds. This is where the shampoo comes in. The bottle of head and shoulder weighs the most out of any individual item in my bags, coming in at a hefty three pounds. There are some who might question the idea to bring any shampoo on a trip such as mine much less, three pounds worth. My response to those questions is, "I know you are but what am I?" So it´s clear I have to take the shampoo for some reason, but my options are running thin because my family only believes in the "Family size" containers. At last my sister finds an abandoned smaller bottle, but it is almost empty. By now we have about fifteen minute before we leave for the airport. Just as all hope seemed lost my mom decided that we fill up the small bottle halfway with the bigger bottle, once again demonstrating her wisdom and cool headed leadership that got her democratically elected as Mommy for life.
Jump ahead several hours past some last minute gifts from my family along with some tears (not my tears, because I´m a man, a big strong man), and I´m in transit somewhere over the atlantic. My arms are wrapped around my stomach but in a discreet way, so no one else will know how sick I´m feeling. I don´t know if it is my emotions, or the microwaveable airplane dinner that contained beef flavored meat product. But somehow I think the idea of leaving all that I have grown up with for an unceratin year in a foreign country has upset my stomach (So maybe I´m not such a big strong man). The plane lands in San Sebastian and I´m just hoping that I don´t vomit on the family when I see them. The terminal is the smallest I have ever seen and I was on the only plane at the airport. I open the first door to the room the with baggage carousels and through some glass doors I see three people whom I recognize from the pictures I received through email. I studied the photos the night before so I did not make a bad impression, hug the wrong person, and have them thinking "Americans really are that strange." My host mom, brother, and sister have huge smiles to match mine, and as soon as I embrace my host mother my stomach calms, and I´m relaxed. I return the wrong way through a one way door to the baggage claim area beacause I had forgotten my checked luggage in my haste, however the bag doesn´t come around. I finally see mybag on a talbe next to a customes official. He asks me to open it up and I do so. That is when I see the 2 in1, shampoo/conditionerblood bath. And I laugh. I don´t care. Sure the underwear around the bottle now looks like whoever wears them has a terrible yet hilarious disease, but the the gifts are fine, and that´s all I care about.
My suitcase is now clean and I have given all my gifts to my host family,there was no significant damage besides washing suds off a frisbee. My host mother threw out the shampoo and told me I could use theirs. My first meal was at Mcdonalds, at which point my stomach again became angry with me, but we had to eat there because we were in a hurry for some reason, I still don´t know why. The meals I have had since then have been fantastic and the view from the balcony looks out on the sea. My fmaily is amazing, as all those that agree to host exchangee students are, but mine seems even better, which is great because this is the only one I´ll have for the next year (Not standard rotary practice, usually threee families are used). I can look out at a beach from several windows while listening to Spongebob (Bob Esponja) in my new home, and I couldn´t care less that my hair doesn´t smell like head and shoulders.
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