Confessions of a Study Abroad Student...

Contrary to popular belief and to my own blissful expectations, studying abroad isn't always a walk in the park; it's quite the emotional roller coaster. This month has been a very interesting month to learn about myself and to see the side of studying abroad that everyone wants to avoid: pangs of homesickness. It's a typical part of being away, but what an undesirable thing to dwell on. I mean, I know what day I'm going home and that I only have a certain amount of time here to enjoy everything to the fullest, aprovechar as the Spanish love to say, but sometimes my brain is just going a million miles a minute and there's nothing I can do about it. When I think about it, I have experienced a lot in the last few years, and a lot of the time I haven't been home. All of my homesickness compiled and decided to overflow all at once. Not cool. I suppose there have been some triggers for it as I started to realize that time is going quickly...

It is very important to me to better my Spanish while I'm here, but I honestly haven't made enough of an effort to get it to the level it needs to be at. Sometimes I am wishing for some school work to help me out or one of my teachers to be a little more stern with us, but I know that they are just hoping we get the best experience possible of being in Spain without a lot of work to stress over. I'm beginning to take matters into my own hands at this point (yes, I realize this should have been done long ago :)) and have set up a regular intercambio with a Spanish student, make an effort to hang out with my Spanish friends more, and converse with my house mom a lot more.

I think my confusion this month is stemming from traveling to London, which was very much like America, and then coming back to Spain when it was almost time for Las Fallas. In London, I would always start to say things in Spanish or I would finish them with a "Gracias" or "Hasta luego". What a weird experience to understand everything completely and to finally put a real life experience to the things you hear about in London. It was an incredibly international city, and a lot of my friends' university friends were not Americans or Brits; however, they still spoke English perfectly. Learning another language haunts me constantly and throws me on a massive guilt trip that my language skills are not what they should be. I was ecstatic to be back in Spain and to see my house mom with a renewed vigor to speak Spanish and the anticipation of Fallas just around the corner.

The first Friday of Fallas finally arrived in a giant wave of overwhelming noise, people, and styrofoam. What an excellent, yet disturbing week! I saw children in the park playing with Class III (illegal!) fireworks and throwing them at each other near babies and their strangely approving and indifferent parents. Well, I thought, I will just avoid walking through the park this week. I couldn't have been more wrong. Every single person sets off fireworks for a week straight and it's even worse in the streets, especially around the Fallas (the actual giant displays of styrofoam that barrios spend tons of money and tons of time creating). I was also soon told that firework laws are suspended for the week of Las Fallas and maybe even the whole month of March. Valencia sounded like it was under seige for a whole week. I did, however, find myself wandering into a store asking the cashier if he happened to have some borrachos. Let me explain to you what these are...

Borrachos is the word for "drunks" in Spanish. These fireworks, once lit, spew and inferno of fire and sparks and spin around in the air and on the ground for about 30 long and terrifying seconds. It is a favorite custom of teenage Spaniards to throw these into crowds of people and off of bridges into the park. Not my kind of thing, but I had to get my hands on some of these normally illegal Class III fireworks. When I asked for them, the guy reached into this drawer under the counter and pulled out a heavy bag of about 10. He said, "15 Euro", and I was like "Well, I really only want one. I'm too clumsy for that whole bag." No go. Maybe it's for the better because the next day I saw people on the news that had had their clothes and body parts (ears and arms, etc.) burned by these borrachos. I did end up buying a lot of fireworks this week to set off in the park :)



Las Fallas, while beautiful, traditional, and constantly exciting, was exhausting and a little bit (really I meant A LOT bit) environmentally unfriendly. The coolest part is watching the Fallas burn, but think about what 350+ styrofoam towers burning will do to the ozone layer. I definitely thought my lungs were exploding, but it was a fantastic sight! It was strange to wake up on Friday and not have to watch the ground for explosions. We were basically dragged onto the bus on Friday morning for our trip to Granada. I wish so badly that I could have been half awake for Granada. This city is beautiful and has so much history, which we thankfully we explored a lot of. The Arab baths were my favorite! A few of us went, and there was Arab tea and then 3 different temperature pools: hot, lukewarm, and cold (sometimes there is exfoliation, but not at this one). There was also a steam room to top it all off and for 2 hours we just bathed away the noise of Las Fallas. On our return to the city, there was no sign of the past week of debauchery and we just wanted to be in our beds.

It was so strange to me how I could be completely swept up in the emotion of Las Fallas, and then the next moment be praying for the end. After experiencing the festival once, It was easy for me to understand that Valencians typically leave the city for the week because the noise, litter, etc. is too much to handle. Our house mom's poor dog could finally leave the house for a walk without fear of petardos (the fireworks here) and noises. I felt guilty for feeling such high expectation for the week long event, and then being so unbelievably happy when it was over. Every one seems almost recovered now, and the city is getting a good bath from the rain that has been going on for 5 days. Thank goodness it's almost a new month and I will be able to aprovechar! :)

As you can see, Fallas are really clever! This is Obama beating G.W. Bush in a boxing ring. Castro and a few other world leaders are behind them!

Marzo, Marzo, Marzo...

Today is the first day of March, and it has ended a fantastic first half of the semester and is going to begin the a really exciting second half! In January and February, I saw Franz Ferdinand in concert for FREE, I have been to the beach numerous times, have gotten sunburn, and have attended a Valencian futbol game. I traveled through Madrid, Toledo, Valencia, Barcelona, Albufera, and the Sierra de Enguerra. I trekked through these mountains of Sierra de Enguerra for 9 miles with about 100+ Erasmus students, my professor from school, and a donkey (he apparently belonged to the hostel we stayed at :))

Erasmus is the European exchange program, and apparently Valencia is the second most popular Erasmus location with more than 5000 students! To make things more interesting, most of the people I met spoke more than 4 languages. It interesting to me how far behind Americans are with language skills. Some people in my program, including myself, have been studying Spanish for more than 5 years, but we still aren't fluent! There were people on this trip who spoke Dutch, English, Spanish, Italian, and German. Americans are the most far behind in languages, and it's going to become a problem very soon. Out of every student that has stayed with my house mom, she says Americans are the slowest to catch on to Spanish. Europeans rank first, Brits second, and us last. How depressing. A lot of people have said that Americans come to Spain and speak English and never Spanish. Plus, we are constantly told our geography is lacking quite a bit. I had a French guy tell me I had bad geography because I didn't know the small town in France he was from! But, who knows if a Spaniard, German, Italian, or anyone not from France would either?!


The new half of the semester includes London, Granada, FALLAS, Italy, Switzerland, France, and Basque Country. This Wednesday I will be heading to London. I feel really guilty to be excited to speak and hear English everywhere, but I'm certainly not going to take it for granted. I will be able to understand everything going on at once! I cannot wait :)
When I get back, FALLAS WILL BE ALMOST HERE! Fallas is the third largest festival in the world, placing behind Rio de Janeiro and Mardis Gras. The entire city has already started preparing for it by setting off mascletas (HUGE displays of bomb-like fireworks in the center of the city or in the park by my house which now happen every day at 2pm), hanging Valencian flags everywhere, wearing Fallas panuelos (scarf/handkerchief things) and dressing like Falleros/Falleras. Falleras are really interesting and wear costumes that cost around 3,000 euro. It's like any festival in that it chooses a representative; they choose one "Fallera Mayor" and one "Fallera Menor". There are parades of floats and ninots, but only one can win! What happens to the rest? They burn them at the end of the week! Way cool. Right after Fallas when we are all tired and dragging from the awesome festival, we are headed to Granada with the program!

When April arrives, I have around 8 actual days of class. Spain RULES. In the beginning of April, I'm meeting my friends to travel around Europe for Semana Santa and for our descanso (basically Spring Break in Spain). My host mom was saying how Spanish students have too many days of vacation and I agreed, but I certainly don't mind.

Is Spain just a country where students slack off? Maybe Americans have more of an opportunity for that in Spain than Spaniards! Students here have exams for a month in January and in June. These basically determine their grades, and, from what I hear, are impossible. However, it may be the same throughout Europe because Polish students were having exams when I arrived there last June. A student's life ceases to exist during this month, but afterwards it seemed that the population of Valencia doubled! I can't imagine having so much pressure put on me at the end of my semesters, and I thought midterms and finals were bad!

In one of my classes the other day we stumbled onto the topic of health care and education. A Spanish student only pays around 700 EURO for school per year! Right now, that's around $900. We pay more than that for our MEAL PLAN! Our educational system in America would not function with this method, mainly because we are capitalists. Spain's government is still a little confusing to me, but, according to the news (the little of it that I can grasp) and my house mom, Spain has two presidents: one from the Socialist Party and one from the Popular Party. Spain's educational system functions this way because they are a pretty socialist society. EVERYONE has the right to health care. 60% or more is paid by the government and your contribution starts at 40%. Along with this, emergencies are free. My professor says that the only doctors that are wealthy are dentists because that's really the only privatized practice. What a foreign idea to me, as well as most Americans. However, America has some fantastic medical care, and honestly, I dig it.