Cotton headed ninny muggins...

I love a pop-culture comparison just as much as the next person. So, in an effort to explain to you all what this experience has been, I will put it in terms I hope you can all appreciate.

I hope you’ve seen the Christmas blockbuster Elf.

I borrowed the synopsis of Elf from rottentomatoes.com and have inserted the changes I deem appropriate.

One Christmas Eve , On May 22, a long time ago, a small baby at a orphanage hospital was accidentally carried back to Santa’s workshop The Jennings’ home in the North Pole (East Central Minnesota, close enough). Though she was quickly taken under the wing of a surrogate father and mother and raised to be an elf American, it becomes clear that Buddy Chantel will never truly fit into the elf American world. What she needs is to find his real family explore Europe, specifically Andalucia. This holiday season winter semester, Buddy Chantel decides to find her true place in the world and sets off for New York City Seville, Spain to track down her roots hone her Spanish speaking skills, immerse herself in another culture and woo a Spanish boyfriend (only slightly kidding about that last one.) Although Buddy Chantel experiences a world she’s never knew existed only read about, she quickly learns that life in the big city is not all ice skating flamenco dancing and sugarplums sangria. Chantel seeks out her his real father , host mother, Chencha, a workaholic publisher of children’s an eccentric 65-year old woman that loves to wear purple and make dirty jokes at the dinner table.

Okay, so from there things change a bit, considering I don’t save Christmas, or at least, I haven’t done so yet.

But I really did kind of feel like Buddy the Elf when I got here. I was just sort of thrown into this environment where everything was completely new and different. And while I’m not wearing green spandex and a pointy hat, I still stick out.

But what has been even scarier than how strange and out of place I felt nearly two and a half months ago, is how comfortable I feel today.

Life here is finally normal. I’m used to my new bedroom and the garlic toast in the mornings. Listening to lecture and taking notes in Spanish is nothing new. And finally, I can handle when people stare at me and I even have a few PG-13 comebacks for when I’m feeling really courageous.

In fact, some of my American habits are starting to wear off. For example, I really have to think about the difference between they’re, their and there. And the other day I spent ten minutes trying to spell the word across, because I was too stubborn to consult a dictionary.

They say it takes six weeks for something to become a habit. Well, life here is both habitual and amazing. Because no matter how normal life here is for me, I still have those, “Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore” moments.

And in those moments I think how crazy it is that I really do live here. But I’ve taken everything in stride and even in those rare moments when I’ve wanted to pack my bags and head to the airport or find a row boat and take matters into my own hands, I smile because this is a tremendous experience and it’s all for the better that life isn’t always ice skating and sugar plums.

As Buddy would say, in those moments I smile and carry on because, “I just like to smile. Smiling is my favorite.”

My Fair Lady, not so fair....

I love musicals.

So when packing for my six month long trip to Spain, I took some advice from My Fair Lady.

“The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

So then the deductive reasoning kicked in: Seville, where I live, is not a plain, therefore the rain probably won’t fall there.

Wrong.

It has been raining here like you wouldn’t believe. It’s the kind of rain that kills umbrellas and soaks you through until your bones beg for mercy. It’s the kind of rain that made me wish I had a triple layer, steel toed boot, rain suit onesie just to walk to class.

It the kind of rain that makes me miss the snow. Yes, it’s that bad.

You see, there were two things that I overlooked in this phrase made popular by Audrey Hepburn.

1.) Key word: MAINLY. Mainly can mean a lot of things. According to Webster’s Dictionary it means: for the most part. Okay, so it’s not exclusive. It stays mainly in the plain, but it falls elsewhere as well. Elsewhere, meaning Seville. As well, meaning constantly.

2.) And I may have slightly overlooked the necessity for rhyming and musical resonance. Perhaps the only reason this saying exists is because Spain, main and plain all rhyme. In fact, I will go as far to say that there is no scientific backing of this saying and that it’s sole purpose was to be written as a musical line for the sonorous quality.

So, perhaps I should not have taken life advice from a musical. I mean, how seriously can I take people that break out in song and dance in unison while using jazz hands and the box step?

But for argument’s sake, I have a new line to add to My Fair Lady.

The rain in Spain is insane, it will make you complain, your socks and shoes will retain, the contents of the city’s water main.

The STUDY part of study abroad

Just west of the diag at the University of Michigan sits one of the most complicated buildings on campus. It houses all the English classes and discussions in addition to a few other smaller lectures.

The building is confusing because it’s actually four. One side is Angell Hall, one side is Mason, one side is Haven and the last side is Tisch. But a few of the classrooms on the 2nd and 3rd floors of Mason are actually Haven Hall and some of the offices that appear to be in Angell Hall are actually Tisch offices.

You can see how it could be a little disconcerting.

But this building doesn’t even hold a candle to “La Fabrica” on the University of Seville’s campus, where two of my classes are held.

La Fabrica is a transformed Tobacco Factory, where the drama for the opera Carmen unfolded.

The building is beautiful with high ceilings and courtyards strewn throughout where students hang out between classes.

But today I really just wanted to set fire to the thing and start from ground zero with it.

For me to say the building is completely unorganized is an understatement. In fact, this is how I believe the builders decided to rework a completely lovely building into a labyrinth of disarray.

“We simply can’t put Room 7 between 6 and 8. Six and 8 look so good next to each other, 7 looks more like a 1.” — “Yes, that’s what I was thinking. Seven should go by classrooms 1 and 11.” — “Good plan, and while we’re at it, let’s create a secret stairwell that has half a floor on it where we can stash two more classrooms.” — “Right and which rooms haven’t we used yet? Alright those will be 2 and 8. And I've never liked the number 3, let's not make a classroom #3”

With a map in hand I still had to ask multiple professors and a secretary for directions to my classes. And even though I can only describe La Fabrica as pandamonium, I have enjoyed my classes.

I settled into two art lectures, two writing classes and a journalism lecture.

My journalism lecture is at a building that’s a twenty-minute bus ride from campus to a building where foreigners normally don’t venture. And after a haphazard journey there the first day (think multiple busses, an angry taxi driver and an inundation that makes me think Noah should be coming around any time soon) I considered never returning.

The classes at the Journalism building have been interesting just because University courses here function completely differently than they do in the US.

There is no grad school here. At age 17, with high school diploma in hand, you decide what you want to be, and from day one of University, you study only that. Grad school doesn’t exist here. If you want to be a doctor, you study medicine for seven years and upon graduation you are qualified to cut people open or prescribe medicines.

But because of this specialization, you get to know your classmates very well considering you study with only these students for years.

So walking into my first journalism class was more like walking into my first day of high school. The cliques have already been established, and not matter how hard I try, I stick out like a sore thumb. But the lecture is pleasant and I already spoke to a few students without having to retreat back to my doe eyed, “Lo siento. No entiendo mucho” (I’m sorry, I don’t understand a lot).

But even when I try to camouflage myself, others always seem to point me out.

Today, one of my professors, in the middle of an art lecture stopped and looked at me and a friend. I quickly looked down at my paper, hoping that by averting eye contact, the seemingly inevitable would actually not happen. I quickly grabbed my pen and began writing gibberish and hoping that this professor would take my hint and not bother my feverish writing spasm.

“¿Sois extranjeros?” (Are you foreigners?) he asked, interrupting his gripping debate over design versus art. Everyone’s eyes were upon us. My heart sank and the increase of blood rushing to my face increased my temperature by at least ten degrees.

“Si.” Busted.

But even with feeling out of place at times and in over my head fairly often, I really have enjoyed my first week of classes.

The best part of this experience is that even when I walk out of my classroom and have finished learning about the differences between art and design or finished being embarrassed by my professor in front of all of my peers, I get to walk out into an environment that is providing me with more of an education than a classroom ever could.

The good, the bad and the blend

(One of Lindsey's photos she took during her visit)

There is nothing I love more in life than good food, fine conversation and great friends. And there is nothing I hate more than guided walking tours, fish and mixed foods.

And I have to say that Spain, thus far, has been a blend of both categories.

The prevalence of the guided walking tours on our various city excursions sometimes makes me feel like an Asian tourist group, but at the end of the day, I can’t deny the benefit. It is helpful to have someone inform me of the various histories of the ancient structures and from time to time something really resonates with me.

When I’m at Michigan I always feel like something big is going on around me. But when I’m here, it’s hard to forget that something big was happening here way before America, as we know it, existed.

It’s hard for my brain to grasp the fact that my shoes walk across the floor that was walked upon by Diego Velazquez or that I skip/dance/walk/trip down a cobblestone street that Christopher Columbus once hiked down.

But it has been my quiet explorations down these same cobblestone streets that have led me to some great conversations with food and friends.

My friend Lindsey Etterbeek, who is studying in Barcelona this semester, visited me this past week in Seville. Both luckily and unluckily, it rained a lot while she was here.

It was unlucky because she is a great photographer and we really only had a day and a half to walk around the city. But in that day and a half we were able to venture to parts of the city I have yet to see; we found a beautiful fresh foods market, walked through several of the city’s parks and found our way to the Plaza de Espana, where part of Star Wars was filmed.

It was lucky, because it meant that we spent a lot of time inside coffee shops and restaurants and just enjoyed the company and conversation. She is one of the few people I know that loves ice cream as much as I do and with said ice cream we shared hours upon hours of stories and laughter.

But it was a lovely few days of dining out, which I haven’t done much of here just because our house mom provides us with three meals a day.

Which brings me to my two other hates: fish and mixed foods.

I can’t tell you why I don’t like mixing my foods. I can’t eat a burrito — it’s too many food items in a single place. And I really don’t like mixing four separate types of meat and putting them on a piece of bread, and then eating it.

My philosophy is: if the food looks on your plate, as it does in your stomach … you shouldn’t eat it.

But Chencha loves mixing foods. So I’m trying to learn. Everything she has put in front of me, I’ve tried. Sometimes with a grimace on my face (and a strong sense in my stomach that what I’m doing is both repulsive and wrong) but I’ve tried it.

And if being able to explore this city means eating whole fish, I would say it’s worth it.

I suppose it’s something my father would call a life lesson and learning moment.

“You have to take the good with the bad.”

But really dad, you haven’t tried the raw squid here.

Spain, the land of fashionable toddlers and tourists

I was walking to a coffee shop with friends the other day when a large tourist group came around the corner of a fountain. We laughed as we tried to guess where they were from before they got close enough to where we could hear what language they were speaking. “British,” I said. “No, I’d say French,” another friend said. “Definitely German,” came a third voice. And finally we heard the tour guide speak Italian.

It’s one conclusion I’ve come to this semester: all old people, that have enough money to take guided tours through Europe, look the EXACT same. They dress the same, use the same bags and accessories, interact the same with their spouses the same and have this air about them that just says, “I’m a old person with enough money to travel Europe.”

It’s just funny because this is not true of any other age group in Europe.

My goal here, this semester is for someone to think I’m NOT American. The best compliment I’ve gotten this far is: oh, I thought you were from Germany. There is this status of UGG-boot wearing, BBM-ing (Blackberry messaging, like texting), Northface black fleece that just screams American, and I’ve tried as hard as I can to steer clear of this.

So, sometimes I am mistaken for a Brit or German. My roommate Lyndsay, is commonly taken for an Italian. And the joy this brings us is both is incredibly dumb, but at the same time, very gratifying.

Most times this is just based on dress, and possibly our lack of Spanish accents. For the most part young adults act the same here as they do in the US.

But my favorite American/European difference is the baby to toddler age group. Often times I feel like the children here are just an extension of a rich mother’s fashion accessory. The babies ride in vintage, bassinet strollers that can run up to $1000 while pushed by their stiletto heal wearing mother down cobblestone streets.

Once the children are able to walk, they too inherit an Upper East Side-like style. My favorite child thus far has been a very beautiful (every child here is beautiful) little girl walking down the street in shiny black boots, dark grey tights, a pink tank top and a black high waist-ed skirt.

Toddlers in the US don’t even have waists, let alone skirts that accentuate the waist.

It’s bad enough when I look at all the teenagers here and think, “Oh, I wish I could pull that off, but it’d never look good on me.” But that day I realized, yes, the toddlers here even have more fashion sense than I do.

Sometimes I feel underdressed in our apartment when I’m wearing basketball shorts and a sweatshirt. My house mom here has made remarks as to staying skinny and keeping my skin clear, over dinner.

It’s just common for people here to take appearance very seriously, and that’s taken a little bit of getting used to.

But until I get fully used to it I’m sure I’ll get a few more appearance tips from Chencha.

And some toddlers.

Spandex, Spandex, Spandex

Classes at the University don’t start until February 15th and I was a little disappointed in how few Spaniards I knew (Official count = 2. Chencha and her 45 year old son, Juan).

I started to think about how I could get out and about in a place that won’t be jam packed with Americans.

So I joined a gym.

There happens to be a gym right across the street from our apartment complex and despite it’s pretty bad rankings on the google search website, the first comment said, “Run by two Sevillans…,” so I was sold.

My first day was Wednesday.

Well, wait. Back up. What I forgot to tell you is that ever since our first day here, Lyndsay and I have been seeing runners (all men) in spandex. Every runner from the 12-year old to the grandpa run in tight spandex. And I honestly can’t tell you which is more disturbing and awkward.

So flashback to Wednesday and Rafa, gym owner, clad in black spandex with red racing stripes down the sides, takes my money and lets me into the gym.

I walk in and begin to run on the treadmill and with the looks I got you would have thought I sprouted a third eye or was running without legs.

I was one of four women in the complex, the only woman under sixty. To add to that, all the women wore spandex as well. In fact, the only person I could see wearing running shorts similar to mine was the Cheech Marin-looking grandpa in the corner.

I guess women just don’t workout here. And not only am I a woman, I am a woman whose skin (in a country of tanned Mediterranean folk) is as dark as Casper’s was (Read: transparent).

Needless to say, my time at the gym has proved interesting in the least. Two people have introduced themselves to me, so I guess that’s progress. And every day I come home having an interesting story to tell. I attended a cardio class, understood nothing and managed not to laugh at the woman screaming Spanish phrases in the front of the room.

But our cultural class and grammar intensive end in a week and then we begin our classes at the center, where I’ll be taking a creative writing class with a few other American students at the program center. And once the 15th rolls around I’ll be taking my Spanish skills to the University to learn about journalism (who’d have thought? Michigan doesn’t offer any journalism classes, but U of Sevilla does!) and education.

On top of that I’ll be starting my intercambio, which is an language exchange program where I’ll be set up with a Spanish student and we’ll be speaking Spanish and English for an hour each week together.

So with a gym membership in my pocket and classes at the University on the horizon, I’m hoping my Spanish friends count will grow.

Limbo-ing the Atlantic

(View of Sevilla from the top of the Giralda)

I don’t know at what point a new place becomes home. But I do know that as I was on the train coming back to Sevilla from Madrid this past weekend I did feel as though I was coming back to something.

I just haven’t figured out if that’s home or not.

There are plenty of aspects of this culture that I don’t understand yet and there are moments when I desperately crave American culture in all it’s bizarre glory; I have to read the New York Times, Boston Globe, Michigan Daily (some days all three) to feel connected again to a culture that seems so distant.

But I’ve only been here two weeks. I have to keep reminding myself that.

Two weeks ago I was sleeping in Dexter, eating comfort foods and complaining about the snow to my parents.

Today, I live in a 3-bedroom apartment that looks out onto the Guadalquivir River. Most days, I eat something I’ve never eaten in my life (normally of the fish variety). Some days I take photos, other days I choose to take in the scenery without a lens between my eye and the world.

But every night I’ve sat at the dinner table with Lyndsay and Chencha. We tell Chencha about our day after we compliment her food and once we’ve finished eating our weight in pasta or soup we continue to talk. Some nights we sit at the table for an hour after the food has gone cold and the dishes have been put in the sink.

It’s just different.

But I still sort of feel in limbo at this point. I’ve left America and with this exit, I feel a disconnect. Because this culture that I’m a part of now seems more unintentional than anything. As if I threw a dart to a map and decided to come to this little city in Southern Spain where the mix of Arabic and Catholic culture creates something incredibly unique.

But each day seems brings more ease to this life. I’ve found a coffee shop I like and I know where the cheapest ice cream is. I figured out which doors in the house stick and how to get warm water in the shower. I know a few short cuts in the city, but have enjoyed the long walks (read: getting lost only to get un-lost) that have led to these discoveries.

But I have enjoyed living in the midst of a city so full of history and beauty.

Today we visited the Cathedral of Sevilla and I climbed the Giralda and looked out past Sevilla’s city limits. An old Asian man climbed onto the platform with me and said something that I couldn’t understand. I looked at him and he repeated himself. I smiled and he knew that I didn’t understand what he was saying, so we just stood there together for a moment and finally he said: Boo-Tea-Full, while pointing to the city.

I nodded. This, I could understand. The disconnect wasn’t there and for a moment the old man and I enjoyed the city view before I jumped down to allow someone else up.

I guess that has been my favorite part of this trip so far, when I see how similar these two parts of my life really are and how for just a second it all seems like one.