Instruction here in Spain

I've been taking classes here at Alcalingua, a division of the Univerity of Alcala, for a month and a half and have said close to nothing about it.  Well, the classes here are pretty amazing.  There you have it folks.

For one, the instruction in class in completely in Spanish.  No English at all.  Maybe once a class a professor might use an english word to look smart, but aside from that nothing.  This works well for a couple of different reasons.  There are students of many different nationalities in class and not all of them speak English.  In my class alone there are people from Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, and America.  The Koreans and the Saudi Arabean speak hardly any English.  You could see how using English to explain the material would be problematic.  More than just the language problem, a Spanish only classroom means that everyone is immersed in Spanish.  You cannot escape it.  It is like being sucked into a black hole.  Of Spanish.

This black hole is fairly representative of the
immersion experience at Alcalingua.

By the way, the multicultural classroom makes everything a whole lot more fun.  I have learned a lot about different cultures just through talking to people around class.  Very awesome.  Did you know that Alchohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia?  I didn't before my classes.  Needless to say the Saudi Arabian students are very glad to be in Spain.  I also didn't know that many people moved from China to Spain either.  I thought I was just being random when I took Chinese and Spanish as foreign languages at MSU.  I never thought that there would be such a huge Chinese immigrant population in China.  Thanks Alcalingua!

Saudi Arabians enjoying being able to
buy alcohol legally in Spain

We take two classes a day five days a week.  The first is from 9-11 and the second is from 11:30-1:30.  The first class is strictly grammar while the second is conversation.  The grammar class is generally boring. I think that just goes without saying.  We mainly do worksheets during grammar class.  Conversational class is fairly exciting.  We discuss whatever.  By whatever, I mean anything is up for discussion.  We have discussed everything from our family lives to past drug experiences.  I was once asked how I flirted.  I was quite at a loss with how to proceed on that one.  The craziest class discussion happened the other day when we were talking about the word enrollarse.  This word means to bore someone by talking too much.  In typical conversational class fashion, we got side trekked onto something else.  Today's something was the word rollito, which means make out with someone for a night and then never acknowledge the person ever again.  In America, we would probably not discuss this word at all.  In Alcalingua we had one hour of class devoted to this very singular word.  After explaining what this word meant, the teacher went around to every student in class and asked how many times they have enrollado in their lives and in Spain.  This wasn't just a walk quickly around the room asking people to say you did it kind of thing.  It was a bit more like the inquisition: the teacher took a lot of time with each student and inquired until the person confessed to the correct amount.  There was one girl in class who very guiltily said that she had never had a rollito before.  The teacher was not convinced.  Another girl in class, out of nowhere, said that girl 1 had had two rollitos in Spain.  Girl 1 was ridiculously embarrassed to have the whole class find that out.  Later, when it was girl 2's turn to confess, girl 1 brought out fotos of girl 2's rollito.  Girl 2 was as mad as I have seen anybody in my life.  To ease the tension in the room, the teacher showed the picture to the whole class and had us judge how hot the girl's rollito was.  He was a 7.5, in case you were wondering.  It was the best class in my life.

Sonia: the face of the inquisition

Spain is a whole lot more open to discussing taboo topics than America.  Two seperate teachers on two seperate occasions have went around the class and asked each of us individually what our religions are.  This would never, ever happen in America.  In Spain, it happens quite frequently.  It is just something you discuss here, nothing more.  I really like that.  One day, I shared about my faith in Christ to the class.  To the teacher, this was just conversation class.  Nothing out of the ordinary.

One amazing fact about Spanish class is that it never starts on time.  If the teacher says that the break is 10 minutes long, you can be sure that class will start 15 minutes later. Everyday our 9am class starts at 9:10 and our breaks are always 5 to 10 minutes too long.  And the teachers don't mind it at all.  It is just a part of life here in Spain.  I wish my 9am teachers had the same easy going classroom philosophy.

For the past 2 weeks, I have also been learning Hebrew as well.  I met my teacher, Alonso, in Church 3 weeks ago.  We were just talking about the Bible, and it came up that Alonso knew Hebrew.  He then told me that he would like to teach me a bit of it.

Alonso, my Hebrew teacher

Did you know that Hebrew is ridiculously hard?  Ancient Israelites had a knack for creating super-difficult alfabets.  Although it is nothing as difficult as Chinese, it is still pretty rough.  I am grateful for his help in understanding this difficult but beautiful language.

By the way, it has been really cool to have real relationships with Spanish speaking people.  I took Spanish classes for the purpose of being able to communicate with and build relationships with people who speak Spanish but not English.  It has been so cool to be able to sit down on the bus with a complete stranger who only speaks Spanish and build a relationship with them.  I came here to Alcala to be able to do that better, and now I am beginning to see it happen.  Don't be afraid to take risks and talk to people you don't know.  All your best friends were once strangers. I would never have gotten to meet Alonso and many, many others if I had not gone up and started talking to them.  There, I'm through preaching.

Until next time,
Ottpocket

Madrid and Segovia

This happened June 28 and 29.  Sorry for the ridiculous lateness.  


The school had a long weekend due to this national holdiay.  Wasn't quite sure what to do, so I decided to go to Madrid.  The only time I had been there was the wild night of partying that happened last weekend (sarcasm about the wild partying bit).    Madrid wasn't too bad.  I had a really good time enjoying myself with Emily over in Madrid.  We visited the Reina Sophia museum and the Prado.   Absolutely gorgeous.

Although the Prado did not allow pictures, I did manage
to find this picture.  It almost makes up for the lack of art pictures.  

They had a whole exhibit dedicated to Polka dotted
bouncy balls in he Reina Sophia museam.  I'm
not even being sarcastic here.

The next day we went to Segovia.  The Roman aquaducts were pretty gorgeous over there.  Mostly just walked around.  It was good to walk around with no definite plans.  Good times were had by all.

Me and Emily by the Aqueducts 

It was quite unfortunate that Democracy died in Segovia.
Oh well.  I guess it just happens sometimes.

Pokemon Cards

Time moves a bit slower here in Spain.  If you tell people to meet you at 5, they will show up at 5:20.  Stores are closed everyday from 2 to 4 because of siestas.  Clubs still play Gettin' Jiggy Wit It.  You get the point. 

Although I was well aware of this fact, I was still pretty surprised when I saw people playing Pokemon cards the other day.  Yes, you heard me right: Pokemon cards.  I saw them when Margrett, Malcolm, and I were in Pollo de Alcala (Alcala chicken) looking around.  I don't know who saw it first, but we definitely spotted people playing Pokemon cards in the restaurant.  And not just in the corner.  They were in plain sight proudly showing their cards to the world.  I was pretty taken aback, as I hadn't seen Pokemon cards in over 10 years.  The only explanation I could come up for seeing this was that Spain had been taking a 12 year siesta in coolness.  

Pollo de Alcala: Nerd capital of Alcala

Then the next day I went to the gas station and saw that they were selling Pokemon cards.  At this point it finally clicked that Pokemon was a big thing over here.  If not big, then at least it was a thing over here.  I was so delighted that I ended up buying a pack.  

And for all you wondering, I got a star Machamp and a holographic Pidgiotto.  Yeah, be jealous.

Although I was pretty excited to get the cards, the experience was a bit sobering to me.  I didn't know three of the Pokemon in the deck I bought.  Sharpedo?  Mamoswine?  Bronzong?  If I don't step up my nerdiness, pretty soon I will be wearing polos and shaving regularly.      

Ok, so I told Daniel to pose for the picture.  But I'm
sure that some Spaniards would react like
this to a pack of unopened Pokemon cards.

My host home brothers talked a lot of trash to me because of the cards.  Daniel asked me if I was 7 years old.  I think he just jealous that he didn't get a holographic Pidgiotto.    

Hasta Banana

Cuenca

So this happened June 18-20.  It's a bit late.  Sorry foks.

Two weekends ago, my group and I had decided to go to Granada to spend the weekend.  Everybody had been talking about how amazing Granada is, so why not?  We packed our bags and headed out for the train station in Madrid to catch our 2am train.  Everything was going well up until we found out that they had sold out of train tickets to Granada.  Yep you heard right, we forgot to get the tickets beforehand and couldn't find any the day of.  Even worse, it was after 12am, and the trains stopped going out to Alcala.  We were stuck in Madrid for the night.

It started out pretty fun though.  I mean, instead of an all night 7 hour train ride, we got an all night party in the biggest city in Spain.  What's not to like about that?

Madrid, 1am.  Still good times. (L to R)
Me, Sarkaut, Mimi (behind), Laci, Dani, Margret, Malcom

It was still pretty fun until we hit the first club.  Have you ever tried dancing with luggage before?  It's rather difficult.  It was the saddest clubbing experience in my whole life.  We just hung around the corner and wished that we had somewhere to put our luggage.  Looking back on it, it was absolutely hilarious, although it was very painful at the time.  After deciding that hanging around in  the corning of a club was pretty lame, we headed out to an Irish pub to hang out.

Me and the crew hanging out in the corner
of this club.  Observe the hand in the pocket for a clear indication of how good a time
I was having.

At around 3:30 the pub closed and kicked us out.  We went to this tiny park and through a frisbee around until around 4:30.  There is just something about playing frisbee while lost in a foreign country at 4:30am that is fairly magical.  We were so tired at this point, that everything was fairly hilarious.  I fell asleep on a park bench for about an hour while the others talked.

Us at 4:30.  A bit more dead than alive at this point.

There were a lot of firsts that night.  It was my first time to stay in a bar until closing time.  It was my first time to be in Madrid.  It was also my first time to be homeless in Madrid or anywhere.  Needless to say, it was a fairly eventful night.  We all went to the station at 6am and tried again to purchase tickets to Granada.  We just wanted to get out of Madrid, and fast.  More bad news: the earliest train to Madrid leaves at 12pm.  More hours in Madrid.  We were too fed up to stay any longer.  We decided to try somewhere else.  How about Sevilla?  No tickets.  Barcelona? same thing.  In an act of frustration, asked the teller for any train tickets leaving for anywhere at 8am.  He said that one left for Cuenca.  Sarkaut said he had heard of Cuenca before, so we just decided to go.

I was fairly apprehensive on the bus ride down there.  Here I was leaving for a city after getting 1 hour of sleep the previous night.  The only reason we went was because we were too mad to admit defeat and go back to Alcala.  Only Sarkaut had heard of this place, and aside from that he didn't even know anything more.  When we went to the tourist bureau of Cuenca, we asked why Cuenca was famous.  The cashier had to pause to think what was great about it before saying that it was 'a medieval city.'  Wonderful.  We were going to spend the weekend in a crappier version of Toledo.  Just what I wanted.

Except I was dead wrong.  Cuenca was absolutely gorgeous.  Not only could one see the beautiful medieval aspects of the city, the surrounding countryside was gorgeous.

The city was built on a hill so that it would be harder to attack.  By the bridge in Cuenca, you can see many houses built into the face of a cliff.  Very pretty.

Houses built into the cliff

We were taking pictures when these guys just came up to try to
panhandle. Everyone but Mimi thought it was hilarious.
Mimi was pretty freaked out by them, as you might be able to see.

The first day we walked around the city and enjoyed the views.  We got to see part of a heavy metal band that came to town.  They were called 'Total Death.'  Best band name ever.  English was their second language, in case you were wondering.

The second day we set out to traverse the wilderness around Cuenca.  We each went and bought bags of fruit before heading out.  Pretty much all the fruit sold in Spain is raised in Spain.  This makes it 1) really cheap and 2) really fresh.  The first stop was a mountain close by that had a giant Jesus statue on top.  We then visited a spring nearby and wandered around in the wilderness for a while.  Absolutely gorgeous.

Me in the wilderness outside of Cuenca.  You can see
Cuenca in the distance.

All of us were sad to leave Cuenca on Sunday.   We came to the city knowing nothing and left wishing we could spend more time there.  By the end of the trip, Cuenca became a byword for unexpected surprises.  Like if you got an 'A' on a test you thought you failed, we would say that it was a Cuenca.  Not ever making that up.  One of the most awesome weekends I've had ever.

Me and Spanish

"You are so proud, you think you don't need a dictionary.  

It is like, 'Shut up.  You're killing the Espanish language.'"

-Daniel, my host home brother

Daniel

I get some variation of this quote at least once a day.  Oh, how I wish it weren't so.  How I wish I could speak without betraying that I am not from around these parts.  Alas.

In language learning, if you are really learning a language, you will often make a fool out of yourself.  It's just part of the process.  If you aren't making mistakes, it's only because you aren't trying.  Instead of lamenting my fate of looking like a fool, I will give you a compilation of some of my favorite mistakes that I have made in Language here in Spain.  For all of you aspiring fools-to-be who want to study abroad, here are ** general ways to make yourself look silly speaking a different language.

1.  Invent meaningless words based on existing grammar patterns.  You know the grammar patterns.  You know that if you add -ador to the end of the verb, you get someone who is a doing of the verb.  Unfortunately, the word you spoke is gibberish.  I have come up with several gems through this process.  Among them are 'mentirador,' 'cantador,' and 'cancionar.'  I thought that they respectively meant 'liar,' 'singer', and 'to sing.'  As it turns out, they really don't mean anything.  Curiously, my family understood what I was getting at because I used pretty good inferencing into the Spanish language in order to derived the words.  Unfortunately, this just made the mistake funnier.  Good times.

2.  Use an English word and hope they have a Spanish equivalent.  Spanish and English are mildly close.  There exist lots of words like 'carro' and 'gasolina.'  Unfortunately, it doesn't work all the time.  I tried this with my new word 'expensivo.'  Unfortunately, there is no such a word in Spanish as 'expensivo.'  My host family died laughing.  I tried it with 'terrifico' later on.  Although 'terrifico' doesn't exist, 'terrorifico' does.  Unfortunately it means horrifying. This was not exactly the sentiment I was trying to convey.

3.  Forget Basic Grammar Rules.  Just because you learned a rule in Spanish I, doesn't mean that you can just forget about it.  The teacher walked into class one day and asked how we were doing.  I told her I was 'Buenisimo,' the Spanish word for very good.  Nothing big there.  Learned that word freshman year of high school.  Yet the teacher started to look at me pretty strangely after I said this.  If you say that you are 'buenisimo,' you've just said that you are extremely good looking.  Should've listened a bit closer to the teacher in high school.

4.  Fail to pay attention to the conversation and say something egregiously stupid.  Okay, so this could happen to you in your native language.  But it can definitely happen to you in your second language as well.  I was coming out of a day dream in class when I heard the Spanish teacher asking about boyfriends and girlfriends.  I responded boyfriend because the character in the narrative did have a boyfriend.  She was not asking about the story, but was asking about our personal lives.  Ouch.  I just told the class that I had a boyfriend.  The teacher was very supportive though.  She told me that gay marriage was legal here in Spain.  The best part about this was that it occurred on the same day I told my teacher I was super good looking.  

5.  Mispronounce the bits that sound the same to you.  I wanted a pear.  I asked my host mom for a 'perra.'  This word is Spanish for a prostitute and a female dog.  My host mom was quick to tell me that I wanted a 'pera' instead of a 'perra.'

I could go on all day here with my numerous Spanish errors.  I think one of the things I'm getting out of all of these mistakes is not to fear looking silly.  Life happens, and sometimes you say ridiculous things by accident.  When I get back to the United States, I look forward to not using as an excuse the fact that I don't want to look silly speaking Spanish.

Hasta banana

My new favorite Spanish word

I was reading through some of Daniel's books today when I came across a copy of the Silmarillion in Spanish.  I was reading the jacket of the book when I came across this gem: El Señor Oscuro.  Spanish for the Dark Lord.

 

El Señor Oscuro

Needless to say, I was absolutely delighted to find this.  I started celebrating by loudly proclaiming my dark Lordship over the household.  I laughed maliciously at the pathetic fate of all who crossed my path.  When Daniel and Carlos started looking at me funny, I shot fire from my fingertips at them.  For all of you unaware of the technical aspects of shooting fire from your fingertips, all you need to do is point your fingers at the object you are about to obliterate and make a loud hissing noise.  The hissing is to signify the said objects immanent doom, of course.  

Me shooting fire from my fingertips

As it was just my first day on the job as Dark Lord, the fire from the fingertips didn't quite work out.  Daniel and Carlos really started looking at me funny at this point.  Maybe I need to go to a Dark Lord workshop in Utumno or Mordor somewhere. 

Location of the next Dark Lord convention

 As the fire didn't work, I summoned all the minions from the shadows to come and get them.  I got 'shadows' (tinieblas) from Psalms about a week ago.  My minions seemed to like the deep shadows just fine and didn't come out.  The maid started laughing at me so I tried extra hard to obliterate her via fire from my fingertips.  At this point, Daniel told me to quit murdering the Spanish language and started laughing at me.  Though I guess I have a bit of work today before I rule the world with the powers of a Dark Lord, I think today was a good start.  My family definitely seemed to get a kick out of me trying to be a Dark Lord.  Maybe next time.

Hasta Banana!

An American in Toledo

For the longest time, I thought that the relationship between Spain and its American tourists was like a lichen.  A lichen is a composite organism that consists of both plant and fungus.  Using the analogy, it could be said that Spain is the plant, the part the gives color to the organism and produces food from the raw ingredients, and American tourists are the part that gives the ingredients to the organism for photosynthesis.  Although the Americans are necessary for the life of the organism, they are still a fungus and heavily resented by the Spanish.  (It came out in my head better than on paper).

figure 1: Lichen.
I hope you are taking notes.  The test is
 at the end of this post and will cover all
material in this blog from this post back.

Turns out that I was pretty wrong about the lichen thing.  And not just stylistically!  Spain does abhor tourists for the most part.  If you could listen in on a conversation amongst Spaniards, they would bad mouth tourists in general given the chance.  But though they don't really like tourists in general, they sure do love to help out tourists who come up to them and ask them questions in Spanish.  Case in point: Toledo yesterday.  I woke up at 7am with pretty much no clue of how I was going to get to Toledo from Alcala.  My host mom woke up at the same time to help me.  I didn't even ask for her to wake up, but she did.  She even gave me a banana for the road.  Malcolm and I got on the first bus that my Mom told us about, and I got to talking in Spanish to the guy sitting next to me.  He turned out to be Brazil and had only started living in Spain 5 months.  He needed to find work so he moved to Spain.  A little aside, Spain has a 20% unemployment rate.  It is 40% among the youth.  If you have to move to Spain to find work, you are in bad shape.  We got off at Madrid together, and I asked him what Malcolm and I needed to do.  He patiently showed us how to buy train tickets to the next stop.  He could have been late for work because he showed us how to find the ticket office.

Our friend from the bus who helped us out

Once we got to the new station Malcolm and I were completely lost.  Once again, we asked a Spanish lady for help, and she painstakingly navigated us through the train system to the equally confusing bus station.  While she could have just given us directions and left, instead she took the time to baby us through the ridiculously complex train system.  Without her, we would have been stuck a lot longer.

On the way back, it was the same problem.  American tourists lost in the train station.  Turns out they don't sell tickets in the return station.  We would have been walking home to Alcala had not a security guard came and showed us how to get out.  She was from Bulgaria and spoke 4 different languages.  She took us to the right stop, waited 10 minutes for the bus we got on, and told the bus driver to let us on even though we didn't have tickets.  Malcolm and I were pretty dumbfounded at how nice Spaniards are to helpless American tourists who can speak adequate Spanish.  I could keep going on and on about how kind Spaniards have been to me once they found out that I can speak pretty good Spanish.  The last two people who helped us out were also students going to Alcala.  They showed us the right bus station and walked us there.  I am exeedingly grateful for the largess of the Spanish people towards the helpless tourist.  Without them, Malcolm and I would still be in Spain looking for how to get back to Alcala.  I would say that the relationship between Spain and Spanish speaking tourists is like algae and really cool fungi.  That is probably a better comparison.

Oh, and Toledo was gorgeous.  Toledo was greatly influenced by Jewish, Arabic, and Christian culture.  As a result, the architecture is fantastic.

Not only were the people friendly in Toledo, but the
streets are made of pure silver and shine like the sun.

The second largest cathedral in Spain is locate in Toledo.  It was kind of hard to miss given that it is the second largest cathedral in Spain.  It took 260 years for the church to be completed, not including the artwork inside after the completion of the building.  The stain glass windows took 100 years.  So much time was put into the church.  It wasn't just the fancy stuff that took a while either.  The church had these steel bars separating one room from another.  It took 7 years for the master steel smiths to complete it.  Given all the massive delays, I think it was worth the wait.  The church stands today as a masterpiece of Gothic artwork.  Needless to say, the church looked pretty groovy.

The Cathedral of Toledo.  Very gorgeous.

If I had a dollar for every massive cathedral
in Toledo, I would have one dollar.
-Patrick Starfish

We also got to see some ridiculously big doors in Toledo too.  I'm pretty sure they are Muslim inspired.  The Synagogue in Toledo was beautiful.  I absolutely love Hebrew writing.  It is more like art to me than language. Most likely this is because I cannot read Hebrew.  The staff at the synagogue also let us in for free.  Definite props for that.

Considering that people back in the middle ages
were all 20 feet tall, this was actually a
medium sized door.  

Though the buildings were all so gorgeous, I think that my favorite part of the architecture was the city streets.  The streets were narrow and crooked.  When you walked through them, It was like going back in time to the medieval era.  Like giant works of art, the streets gracefully canvassed the city.  I have never seen anything like it in my entire life.

I could live here the rest of my life.

Malcolm chilling in the ridiculously
beautiful alleys of Toledo. 

Unfortunately for the people who there, the exquisite narrow street of Toledo are the same streets that they have to drive their cars in.  Whenever cars would go down the lanes, Malcolm and I would have to press up against the walls to avoid being flattened.  It was almost laughable seeing cars driving through the city.

Ouch.

One of the most memorable events in Toledo was the siesta.  Malcolm and I were dying by about 4 in the afternoon.  It just so happens that if you have to wake up early to catch a bus and walk around all day, you get tired.  We decided that instead of suffering for the rest of the day, we could just get a siesta and be reenergized.  We thought of this idea while sitting on a museum bench.  Malcolm and I were sorely tempted to just go to sleep in the museum, but instead decided to go to a park.  We took a trip to the park in Toledo and napped for about 2 hours on the bench.  Not too many people came by and gawked at us.  I just hope I wasn't snoring.

Figure 2: Malcolm and I dying one the museum bench.
I hope you have been paying attention.

Looking back on Toledo, I am pretty spellbound by the beauty of the ancient city.  I could come back again for years and not know all their is to know about the gorgeous city.  It was one of my most interesting days here in Spain.

After I get my first million teaching English as a
second language in Korea, I'm definitely buying
that house.

Did I mention that I liked the streets in Toledo?

Test
Write your answers below and turn them in to me tomorrow.

1.  How many times has the phrase 'Turns out' or any functional equivalent been used to start a sentence in this blog?
2.  In a gentle yet firm letter to the author, describe how bad the lichen simile was.
3.  What is the difference between a simile and a metaphor?
4.  If you are canoeing down the street and all the wheels fall off, how many pancakes does it take to roof a doghouse?
5.  Did I mention that I liked the streets in Toledo?

It is 3 in the morning and I have class tomorrow.  Why do I always finish writing my blogs at ridiculously late hours in the night?  No clue.  Thanks for stopping by and reading this!

Hasta Banana!
Ottpocket