Thursday, January 21, 2010

Day One: "Lo Siento, Mi Espanol es Malo"

I spent the last week in Harmons, Jamaica and had an incredible week. There were highs and lows but I made a lot of new friends and our team truly created a community together down there. I was very sad to have to say goodbye to them knowing I won't see any of them this semester and many will be graduated and long gone by the time I return to the states, and the goodbyes were made more difficult by the fact that after missing their original flight to Atlanta, most of the goodbyes were yelled at people with crazed looks in their eyes, running to their gate to avoid missing a second flight.

As I boarded my plane to New York, I had quite low morale and spent much of the plane ride journaling about Jamaica and trying to make sense of the trip. I still can't believe how a life can be so affected in a week but after a 4 hour plane ride, we started our descent, and I was finally changing spirits. My short (lack of) layover at JFK necessitated me to run through the busy and vast airport and when I got on the airbus to take me to my terminal, I finally realized that I was embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, and I was filled with excitement. My jaunt through JFK was made possible by a few suspiciously helpful people including a dread-locked businessman to a security guard that winked at me after giving me directions. It was as if I was being given personal signs pointing me forward.

The song “Setting Forth” from the Into the Wild soundtrack came on in my ipod and I knew that’s exactly what I was doing. For a guy who has lived in Columbia, MO his entire 20 years of life, Sevilla, Spain is about as unknown as civilization can get. I called my parents for the last time from America and boarded my flight. It’s difficult to describe all the emotions I’ve experienced traveling but that flight to Madrid encompassed excitement, thrill, apprehension, confusion, hope, joy, regret all rolled into a general feeling too strong to be stifled by groggy sleep and questionable airplane food.

My flight from Madrid to Sevilla was delayed 2 hours, allowing me to explore The Barajas-Madrid airport, where I made some important discoveries. 1) European airports have faucets on each water fountain to avoid the frustrating maneuver of angling your nalgene diagonally and trying to act nonchalant as everyone in line behind you begins to scowl. 2) The Madrid airport is big. Much big enough to get lost and waste a lot of time. 3) Europeans wear a lot of cologne. 4) Although you can easily find 40 shoe stores at the airport, it is difficult to find a newspaper, and possibly even more difficult to buy it. My euros were still wrapped in small bags and it took me 2 minutes to get at a measly 10 euros in coins. 5) Although I can formulate a perfect Spanish question in the five minutes I wait in line at an information desk, the response I will receive will be in Spanish…probably fast Spanish, and will only leave me with the sad option of repeating my question in English.

I finally arrived in Sevilla around 3pm and had a nice shower and nap before heading out into the city. My first impression was shock and awe. I wanted to go in every building and eat at every restaurant and pray in every church. My roommate Riley (from Oregon) and I were looking for some food and after being totally baffled at two restaurants where we failed to find the menu and then failed to find real food, we found a nice little place to settle down. We ate tapas and sampled the main beer, Cruzcampo, and somewhere in the middle made friends with a local who can only be described as insane at best. He talked our ears off about Pink Floyd and the Pretenders and although his English was worse than my Spanish, I think he passionately questioned the sexual preference of the Rolling Stones and Englishmen in general. Back at the hotel we attended an orientation presentation and dinner. The conversation at dinner proved once and for all that my Spanish is atrocious and my listening skills even worse, which may be due to the jet lag. Nonetheless, it was quite a relief to be able to get to my computer and try and get in touch with my parents. Sadly, the internet at my hotel was spotty at best and I couldn’t find a payphone to accept my visa card…a few obstacles that cloudy decision making easily turned into incredibly frustrating struggles. I finally got some change and called my mom. It was so relieving to talk to her even though I could barely hear her. Talking to her made me miss my family so much, and regret that I couldn’t see them before I came to Spain and that I was leaving them for 5 months. I walked around the river (I’m too overwhelmed to remember the name), and honestly felt like I wanted to be home.

I walked for about 2 hours and was very much comforted by the end of the walk because I knew that this trip would not be easy, but it was the biggest chance for me to grow as a person and become a man. I saw the old Sevillian neighborhoods and the old fortress and once again was brimming with the sense of adventure. It was a crazy 48 hours but morale is high and I will surely sleep soundly tonight, knowing that I’m not and will never be alone.

1 comment:

  1. Hello Jack, pretty cool adventure you are having in Spain.

    If you are having problems catching up with the local spanish slang you can check a new site I am working on (with the help of a very large community of spanish speakers), its http://LocalSpanish.com

    We are currently on beta, would like your feedback and if you have friends that are also learning spanish (classmates probably) please invite them as well.

    ReplyDelete