Carolina in my mind (or, Everything That Sucks about Being Here)

I know I’ve been MIA in blog world for the past while—¡lo siento, y’all! I’ve been traveling roughly every other weekend, which has been a phenomenal experience (AND the reason I haven’t been keeping up the blog. I’m going to stop procrastinating and write posts about those trips after I finish this one.) So far, I’ve been to Córdoba, Itálica and Granada (with the program) as well as to Ronda, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona (with friends). I’ve got two more trips left, aside from one or two possible day-trips to nearby beaches: This weekend, during the first part of Semana Santa, I’m off to London to visit my friend Kathryn; and I’ll spend the greater part of Feria viajando por Italia with my friend Cat, who knows Italian and will probably end up speaking for both of us as we stop in Bologna, Venice, Florence, Rome and Bari. I didn’t plan on seeing so many places while I was over here, but I knew I at least wanted to visit Paris, London and Rome during my semester abroad. I’m amazed that I’ll have been to all three before I return to the States!

The nice thing about being in Europe already is that flights and buses to other places are pretty affordable. Each round-trip flight has cost me about 100 €, and bus rides are usually about 30 €. The not-so-nice thing for me is that I got into a travel frenzy early in the semester and booked a handful of flights before I realized each trip comes with a lot of other costs aside from getting there. It’s not like I’ve bought souvenirs, other than a couple small gifts for my family, or dined at five-star restaurants. Travel is just expensive. I should have accounted for hostel stays, metro cards, food, taxi fares, attractions, food, developing my film, and food when I typed up my budget. I’ve enjoyed having this opportunity to travel and I’m making the most of each of my trips, but I wince every time I check my account balance. I guess it’s better to learn how to travel economically late than never, even if I had to learn the caro way.

It’s been disorienting to yo-yo between embarking on intra-European viajes and sitting around in Sevilla on the weekends I don’t travel. The lows of homework and boredom feel even lower after I’ve come down from the high of go-go-going to and around new places, places that have only been real to me on postcards and in guidebooks. Don’t get me wrong—me encanta Sevilla, my Spanish home away from home. I know I’m fortunate to be here for the semester. I love living at a new pace in a new place, immersing myself in another language and culture. I’ve met so many wonderful people and tasted some of the best food, most of which I didn’t know existed. But after three months of being here the novelty has worn off, and I feel myself sinking into homesickness. I go back to Virginia (and Carolina, my real home away from home) all the time.

One thing that’s made it harder here is how little space—physical, mental and emotional—I have to myself. As part of the program agreement, Ana is required to cook our meals and wash our clothes for us. The laundry thing weirds me out. I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was tall enough to reach the knobs on the machine, and I’ve gotten used to having a say in what detergent and wash cycle my clothes take. I also hate giving someone else my stained, dirty garments to llavar when they disgust me after a while. My roommate, Callan, and I share a small bedroom with frilly pink bedspreads. Sharing a bedroom isn’t normally an issue for me (I’ve shared a room for pretty much my whole life), but since you have to buy something to spend time away from home and we're all broke, Callan and I spend most of our not-in-class time together in our room. Callan and I are good roommates—we’re respectful of each others’ schedules and needs, and we’ve got a similar taste in music—but even the best of roomies need time and space to themselves.

I feel claustrophobic in this open, beautiful house. My asthmatic lungs aren’t made to process air thick with tension and Pepe’s cigarillo smoke. It doesn’t help that everything Callan and I do is under scrutiny. Ana comes in and reorganizes our room when we’re in class or otherwise out of the way, usually before I have a minute to put away my clothes or books. I can’t ever find my things, and she’s convinced I’m a slob if I leave my outfit for the next day on the bed. If I make myself a mug of instant coffee or tea every three or four days, she’s mad at me ‘cause I’m “always” in the kitchen, eating. If I can’t understand something she tells me, Ana gets frustrated and says it exactly the same, mumbled way again; if I give up trying and just say sí, entiendo (“yes, I understand”), she gets even madder and tells me not to say entiendo when I clearly don’t! I know Ana probably means well and that this is her house, after all, but I don’t know how many more lectures on closing the door gently but firmly, speaking clearly (uh, no comment) or where to put my multivitamins (on the side table, dammit!) I can bear.

Space issues aside, I miss my people. Sure, I’ve made a lot of good friends in the program. We’ve had so much fun traveling, studying and partying together, and I know I’ll definitely hang out with some of my compas after we get back to the US. But there’s nothing like spending time with my family and with the friends I made outside of this stranded-on-a-desert-island social situation. It’s been hardest to be away from my “besties” (my sisters), my Winston 4 buds and my friends from FSU, especially since a lot of them are graduating this year. I’m so grateful for modern technology—I don’t know how I’d have made it without Skype and Google Phone!—but a video chat once every two weeks or so doesn’t quite scratch the itch for face-to-face time with the people I love, in the places I love most.

Ay, I need to stop writing and get out of this house for a couple hours before I go loca, loca, loca. I'll post about Granada, Ronda, Paris, Madrid and Barcelona soon, promise!

Os extraño muchísimo.

“¡Sólo cinco grapas! ¡Sólo cinco!”

I’ve had my share of medical disasters in the past—sprained ankles, stitches, scoliosis, back spasms, et cetera. But my five-month stint in Spain promised to be a time of rest and good health. I’d be walking like crazy, eating the famous Mediterranean diet and getting plenty o’ sleep. Sure, I read over the Center for Disease Control’s travel tips about mosquitoes and vaccinations, and I memorized Spain’s 911 equivalent, 112, just in case. But I never expected to make a 112 call, especially not in my third week in the country.

Sorpresa, sorpresa. I did.

I’d settled into a comfortable routine—wake up, do errands/homework, eat comida, nap, do more homework/errands, go to class, eat dinner, mess around on Facebook, go to bed. I was in the final week of the mini-course and had just one last composición to write for Ángeles’ class. No problema, ¿eh? That Tuesday morning at 11ish, after doing some serious Facebook work, I went upstairs and fixed a cup of tea to help get me motivated to write. I carefully walked down the marble stairs with the teacup, as I’d done a hundred times before, but this time was different: My slippered foot slipped out from under me, my teacup went flying and I fell down the stairs, hitting my head on four or five stairs along the way.

I lay at the bottom of the staircase in shock for about five minutes before I could call out for Ana. I wasn’t too freaked out until I reached back to feel my head and my hand came back bloody. Ay. I lost it. Sobbing and on the brink of hyperventilating, I called and called for the señora who wasn’t home. Ana and Pepe had stepped out to do errands, and Callan had gone running. I was alone. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to get up, grab some TP from the bathroom and start applying pressure to my head wound, and grab my phone from the room. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called 112.

A couple of reminders: I don’t speak Spanish too well yet, I was really disoriented and scared, and my house has zero cell reception. Bad combination. The 112 operator could not hear me, except when I twisted into one of those awful good-God-my-limbs-are-not-supposed-to-go-like-this-but-it’s-the-only-way-I-can-get-a-signal positions. When she finally could hear me, she couldn’t understand my broken attempts at Spanish. It took her ten minutes to transfer me to the “English-speaking” operator. I’m not one to criticize people who are learning to speak a second, third or fourth language, but his English was not good. If it takes a 112 operator twenty minutes to understand that someone is bleeding profusely from the head, on Ximénez de Enciso (which I spelled for him 8 times, using both Spanish and English letter names), in Sevilla (no, NOT in one of the surrounding areas!), we have a problem. I was freaked out before, but now I was freaked out and very, very angry. I was about to implode by the time the man finally sent for an ambulance. Luckily, Pepe, Callan and Ana all got home soon after I got off the phone, and they helped me tranquilitarme until the ambulance people arrived.

Y’all, never take our health care system for granted. I understand that our current system needs major fixing in that it only provides care to people who can afford it (disproportionately, White upper- or middle-class men), but I appreciate how immediately one can receive emergency care services. This was especially clear to me when I compare my American emergency-room experiences with what went down a week ago. I arrived at the hospital at 11:45, but I didn’t end up leaving until 16:30 (4:30pm). Here’s how it works in Spanish hospitals: I got out of the ambulance and went into a little consultation room. A doctor asked what happened and I explained that I fell on the stairs, hitting my head and landing on my hip. They wheeled me over to a line of hospital beds and wheel chairs, where I waited for an hour. I explained my situation to a second doctor in a consultation room and waited in line for another hour. I got x-rays; sat in line, then reviewed my (clean) x-rays in the second consultation room; and waited in yet another line until they were ready to close my head up.

When I got into the treatment room, seven or eight doctors swarmed around me and pointed toward a stiff cot, their mumbled Spanish instructions buzzing in my ears. They had me lie face down so they could sting my gash with four or five strong disinfectants. You know how in the States the doctor will give you a local anesthetic before any kind of stitches, staples or local surgery? That doesn’t happen here. With very little warning (“Okay, here come the staples!”), the medicos closed my wound with what felt like an office stapler. One of the doctors brusquely tapped my calf as I whimpered in pain, but that’s about all the comfort I got. They seemed kind of annoyed at how uncomfortable I was. One doctor kept saying, “¡Sólo cinco grapas! ¡Sólo cinco!” (like, “Come on! It’s only five staples. Only five!”) From the way they were acting, I might guess that Spanish patients have a higher pain tolerance than Americans do, but after taking Spanish meds I really don’t think so. The drugs here are way stronger—each tablet of ibuprofeno is 600mg, three times stronger than American ibuprofen! Maybe I was just at a stingy hospital.

After waiting in one more line, the consultation doctor gave me the okay to go home. By that point, I was all kinds of out of it. Wayne and Cheryl, two of our program directors, had met Callan and me at the hospital shortly after we arrived, and they made sure I got back to the house safe and sound por taxi  (Callan left at 3ish to finish her composition for Ángeles). I got home, ate my comida at 16:45 and pulled a Rip Van Winkle until dinner time. I don’t think I’ve ever loved my bed so much!

Almost two weeks later, I’m just fine; I got my staples out Wednesday, no problem, and my bruised hip healed up nicely. It’s kind of hard for me to believe that the whole thing actually happened ‘cause it was so surreal, but every once in a while people in my program will ask me how my head’s doing or whatever. I’m just relieved that my study-abroad insurance covered the whole thing and that when someone in the program had to go to the hospital it was for something relatively minor. Plus, now I’ve got an insider’s perspective on how Spanish health care works….

España actual: Curso breve y visitas en el sur

¡Dios mío! I've been pretty busy since I got here three weeks ago--apologies for keeping y'all in the dark, but you'll understand why in a minute. This Friday, we finished up our three-week-long, intensive course on Contemporary Spanish Society with a lovely two-part examen. After weeks of relaxing and getting to know the city and each other, (almost all of) my program-mates and I were not prepared for the inevitable cram session that took place Thursday night/Friday morning. At this point, I'm crossing my fingers that my frantic scrawls are at least of passing-grade quality. A ver, but until then I'm trying not to think about it!

SEVI 410 was split into two 75-minute halves: Each "afternoon" from 5:30 to 8:15pm, Grupo A and Grupo B took turns attending Ángeles' half, which focused on language and culture, and Rafael Cid's half, which was pretty heavily historical and fact-based. The course was, indeed, intensive in that for each class we were expected to write one or two composiciones, read about 8-10 pages of Spanish lecturas, and discuss topics about Spanish culture with our señoras so we could report back to the class on what they said. Fortunately, since class took place en la tarde we had all morning to complete our assignments. The class was pretty interesting most of the time, especially Ángeles' cultural lessons (El Cid's part could get a little dry, but he's too personable for me to hold it against him), but I am relieved it's over. The constant reading and writing was pretty monotonous. Plus, it kind of interfered with my social time....

One nice part of the curso breve was the series of visitas we took. Over the past three weeks, our class went to see the Reales Alcázares in Sevilla (about five minutes from my house), the mezquita-turned-catedral in Córdoba, the ruins of Itálica, the famous Catedral de Sevilla and the Giralda. We have one last visit later this month, to Granada, so I'll update y'all after that goes down.

The Reales Alcázares is the romantic getaway a former king built for himself and his mistress, as well as the last-stop preparation zone for voyages to the New World. This was the one visit where I forgot to bring my camera, so I only have my memories to share with you! The actual house/palace/whatever was pretty, built by Christians in the style of Muslim mosques and palaces, but it was freezing in there. Like other buildings in Sevilla, the RA was built to retain coolness. El Cid explained that people would just wear a ton of clothes and layer on the curtains and blankets (kind of like I do in my house...), but I'm not sure how effective that'd be at keeping people warm in the long-term. The exploration/imperialism area of the palace was interesting to look at, but I feel like I've seen a good number of replicas of la Niña, la Pinta and  la Santa María in my lifetime, so it was kind of old news. The gardens were probably my favorite part of the visita--there was such a huge variety of flowers and other plants, a ton of ducks (and their gifts to visitors) and some fountains that quietly gurgled to themselves. It was a little warmer outside, which I'm sure swayed my opinion, but overall the first visita was pleasant.

After our visit to Córdoba, some people in my program are calling it "COLDoba." We were a little chilly in the RA, but we were certified icicles after our second visita. It was cool (haha, pun unintended) to see the mix of architectural styles in the mosque-turned-cathedral-turned-mosque-turned cathedral--each time the building was transformed, the conquerors added a new addition. After the mezquita/catedral/whatever it ended up being, we walked por the famous Calle de Flores and stopped in at the town's temple. It was a very historical, cultural trip, but I was so ready to get out of the cold by the time 15:00 rolled around.

I can sum up our visita to Itálica in four words: rocks and cypress trees. We walked around the ruins of the Roman-esque city for about two hours, admiring the second-century floor mosaics and crumbling columns as the morning sun tickled the treetops. I got some pretty nice fotos of headless statues and faded tile, but I took so many that I ran out of film just as we reached the coliseum, the coolest part of the visit. According to el Cid, Itálica’s citizens would punish their prisoners of war by forcing them to battle lions and bulls after a scant half-hour lesson on how to use a sword (some historians believe modern bullfights could have evolved from this custom). If the men died, they died, but if they survived they entered into a five-year gladiator training program, after which they could go free. It was pretty neat to see the underbelly of the coliseum, complete with lion’s den, and walk around the floor of the arena. I had a nerd moment when I stepped into the ring: I could hear the roar of thousands of spectators, jeering giddily at the chance to watch a lion tear me to pieces. There was an area in the middle of the arena where the floor gave way to a stone pit, I guess where the animal-versus-human battles would take place. (The only battle waged there now is the one between the nubby stone and the rich green moss slowly overwhelming it.) I’m glad so many of my program-mates were able to capture the coliseum on (digital?) film—it really was the best part of the city’s skeleton.

Our last visita during the curso breve was to the Catedral de Sevilla and then to the adjacent Giralda. The cathedral was beautiful inside and out but, as always, my favorite part of the visita was the last, a.k.a. the part where I have very few exposures left. (I really need to budget my photo-taking more carefully!) As was their custom, when 14^th-century católicos stole Sevilla from the ruling musulmanes, they tore down the 8^th-century mezquita so they could build la Catedral on the same site. However, the catholic conquerors were so impressed with la Giralda, the Muslim tower that has come to be the symbol of Sevilla, that they couldn’t bring themselves to raze it. Instead, they stuck some bells on top and pretended it was a bell tower. I totally get why they were so amazed—the lighthouse-sized tower provides visitors with incredible views of the whole city, the Guadalquivir (“big river”; Arabic for “rio grande”) glistening along the southern horizon. One can get to the top of la Giralda by climbing thirty-five steep ramps, which were built in place of stairs so that a man could make the ascent on horseback (?). The only downside to the no-stairs thing was that it made it easier for a class of obnoxious schoolchildren to play tag and sprint through the tower’s narrow corridor as their chaperones ignored them.

It's been cool to see all these old cultural and historical landmarks in Southern Spain, but I kind of wish the visits had been more spread out. I feel like I've developed visita apathy--as beautiful and intricate as the architecture and grounds of these places have been, I've seen so many in such a short time that it's getting hard to appreciate each in its own right as I should be. I'm glad we have a break before the two-day visita a Granada!

¡Encantada! Cerrad la puerta con llave.

Before arriving in Sevilla, I'd assumed I would have a couple days to recover from jet lag, walk around the city, and get more accustomed to speaking and listening to Spanish before meeting my host family. I'd forgotten to bring a gift for my señora from the EE.UU, so I planned to pick up a small somethin'-somethin' for her when I was getting to know my new hometown. I envisioned myself strolling down a sunny avenida, snapping fotos with my gargantuan camera (without looking touristy) and expertly haggling with street vendors for the best deal. It was going to be a smooth, painless, graceful transition into life in southern Spain, and I, of course, was ready.

In my twenty-one years of lived experience, I've had plenty of time to watch my card-castle plans collapse at the gentlest whisper of changed circumstances. I really should not have expected my first homestay to be an exception to the rule. But, I did. So I was characteristically unprepared when reality breezed on in.

At the welcome meeting on the first night, one of the program leaders, Cheryl, informed us that we'd be moving in with our señoras the next day. Not in a couple days; not in twenty-four hours, even. The next morning. Qué sorpresa bonita, ¿eh? That only gave my brain a couple hours to recover from imploding before I'd need it to do some Spanish for me. As for the gift, I could only hope my sharp wit and undying charm would be gifts enough.

Nuestra calle, Ximénez de Enciso,
en el Barrio Santa Cruz

Nuestra casa--the first door

My roommate, Callan, and I were the last ones in the program to move into our new home and meet our señora, Ana. Our house is right in the middle of the historic district of the city, en el Barrio Santa Cruz, and since the hotel is only a couple blocks from the hotel we went on foot, dragging our bags through puddles and knocking into irritable peatones and their dogs. Side note: There are many dogs in this city. There is also  very little grass--everything is cobblestone, brick, tile or concrete--so people just let their animals do their thing wherever they darn well please. It's kind of a problem if you aren't paying attention to where you're going (or, you know, if you're dragging three airline-size bags behind you). I've learned the hard way to be careful where I step.

The second (and third) door(s)

Ana was a gracious host from the beginning, welcoming the sweaty, flustered americanas into her home with a firm but understanding kiss-kiss. Ana wasted no time in explaining the rules: Nice to meet you. (1) Lock the door. Theft is supposed to be a big thing here, as in any city, so our front door lock is pretty heavy duty. Whenever we leave the house, we have to swing the wrought-iron bar door shut until it clicks, then wedge the heavy wooden door so it doesn't give when we throw ourselves against it. This sounds a lot easier than it actually is. I'm going to put pictures of the door on here as soon as I figure out how to upload them--y'all really need to see it to understand what I mean. Kidzu's doors have nothing on these ones.

(2) Unplug the table. This house, like most houses in the area, is not heated. The walls and floor are ceramic tile. It is cold--on the coldest days, you can see the steam rise from your breath. The Sevillians, always thinking ahead, build their houses to retain coolness when it becomes desperately hot in the summer. During the winter, they sit at electric tables with heaters underneath, tucking their legs under the blanket-tablecloth so they can defrost while they watch TV (or write composiciones, in my case). The only thing is, these things are highly flammable. If you forget to unplug them, you could wake up to an inferno in the middle of the night. Rule 2.

Room and roomie :)

We learned some other basic household rules, but those were the most important ones. We smiled and mumbled a quick gracias before going downstairs to unpack our bags. (Callan and I have a nice-sized bedroom, a bathroom and a small reading room with a plug-in table on the ground floor; everyone else is upstairs.) Ana called us up for comida at around 2, and it was pretty awkward. Ana, her husband, Pepe, and either his mom or his sister (I don't know?) ate with us, and we were all having trouble understanding each other. Comida is the big meal of the day, so we had lots of food: espagueti and salad, fried fish, bread, and fresh fruit for desert. It was all delicious, but I was relieved when it was time to escape to my bed for a post-lunch nap. I passed out for a good hour or two until Callan and I had to meet our program-mates at EUSA, our school building, for the first orientation meeting.

It feels like it's been a lot longer than two weeks since I moved in; I already feel pretty comfortable here. Ana and Pepe still have trouble understanding me sometimes, and vice versa, but it's definitely gotten easier to communicate. The streets that used to confuse me are becoming familiar shortcuts, and the baristas in Santa Cruz know I'm going to want café con leche, pa' llevar, before I walk in. And the front door? I can open and shut it left-handed. Now I just have to work on my Spanish....

Staircase leading to the 1a y 2a plantas

Looking up toward the 2a planta from my room

¡Bienvenidos a España! Gracias por su paciencia...

I never thought I'd hate the sight of an advertisement so much. It wasn't sexist; it didn't exoticize people of color; it was, admittedly, a touch paternalistic toward people who can't afford health care, but eh? The dentistry ad in the Madrid airport, featuring a little boy's painfully white smile, was not itself the problem. The issue was that I'd been staring at it for about seven hours on end.

A word of advice: If you're ever flying out of the Madrid airport in January, expect massive delays and flight cancellations. My program-mates and I arrived in Spain on January 13 at about 7:30 in the morning, but a blanket of dense fog hovering over la Meseta (the central plateau in Spain) kept Iberia from boarding flights, including my 3:50 to Sevilla, until hours later. Half of us were able to squeeze onto the first flight; the other half were stuck in the airport until 7:50pm. ¡Qué lio! The important thing, though, is that we all made it to Seville on the first night of the program.

Culture shock? Maybe. But I'm pretty sure I was in medical shock by the time we arrived in Sevilla. Even before I stepped off the plane, I felt como pez fuera del agua, like my American-English gills were choking on the Spanish-heavy air. I confused at least a handful of Spaniards with my garbled questions before I shuffled my bags out the airport doors and into the trunk of a waiting taxi. Thank goodness I shared a cab with my friend Kat--she just spent fall semester in Madrid, so she was able to make conversation with the driver while I quietly suffocated in the next seat.

After we taxi'd ourselves to the Hotel Alcanzar, the UNC in Sevilla SAS people had a quick meeting with the program directors, almost exclusively in Spanish. (After over 24 hours of plane travel and 2 sleepless nights, I was definitely struggling to keep up!) We finally got some food at a nearby restaurant after that, returned to the hotel and promptly fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Y'all, please understand: I love my fellow program participants already, but the hours we spent in the airport, our first dinner together, the first couple of days were hard. Nothing could make me long for a return flight to the States like small talk among strangers who know they're gonna spend the next five months together in another country. I think it helped that we were forced to break the ice as we waited for the fog to lift in Madrid, but, of course, it takes time for people to get to know each other, and the interim can be painful. Until I got settled in here, I couldn't help but feel like my international flight was just an irrational flight from the faces and places I love. I didn't realize how close I was to falling in love with a new place, to finding community in a group of new faces.

(To be continued...)