Spain is awesome, but I definitely miss a few things from the good ol' USA. Here are some things I miss, in the order I miss them:
Andy: being 4270 miles apart isn't fun.
Friends and Family: same. 4270 miles sucks.
Music: my host family has a piano, but it's so out of tune that playing it is actually painful. I miss being in band a lot, probably because I've never gone this long without playing. The other day I saw a trumpet in a shop window and I seriously stood there staring at it for about 5 minutes before I snapped out of it. The university doesn't really have a concert band; they have an orchestra, but it conflicts with a lot of my classes. Man, I miss music.
Milk: the milk here is so weird. It's called UHT, which means Ultra-high-temperature processing. It also means that you don't have to refrigerate the milk before you open it. It always tastes really sweet and creamy, sort of like I'm drinking a creamer, but not. I miss my American pasteurized skim milk!
Buffalo Wild Wings: they don't exist in Spain and ohmygodIwishtheydid.
Pizza Hut: they don't really exist here either. They have pizza, but it's weird.
Pancakes: ohhh God, pancakes. They don't eat pancakes for breakfast, or in fact at all here. However, I have heard of a few restaurants in other parts of Madrid that sell pancakes...I'm gonna have to stop by.
Pets: oh yeah, plenty of people around here have pets. The thing is, I just can't touch them. It's the worst. If you see the fluffiest, cutest group of 3 Pomeranians on a walk, you just can't coo at them and pet them and hug and kiss them, because that's not what normal people do, ever.
Walmart: I just miss the convenience of it. You go in, you get everything you need, you leave. Here, everything is separated. The medicine is only sold in the pharmacies, the hair supplies are only sold in specialty stores or el Corte Ingles (too expensive,) and snacks are pretty much only sold in liquor shops.
That may actually be everything I miss, in a nutshell, at least. At the same time, though, there is so much of Spain that I love and will miss when I leave! Here's what I will miss from Spain, not necessarily in any order:
Lunch meat: I hate ham, but the ham here is delicious. The turkey is really good too.
Bread: people have bread with every meal here. I never have too much, but it's really good, and it's so charming to see people walking down the street with a long baguette tucked under an arm! :o)
Architecture: oh man, do I love the way things look here. Balconies, lofty windows, pretty facades...I wish buildings looked like this in the US!
The Metro: the subway here is really clean, fast, convenient, and affordable. What I will NOT miss is the pickpockets in the metro.
People: the people are so nice here. The other day, I ran into an elderly lady in the elevator who just struck up a friendly conversation with me! Even if my Spanish is terribly awkward, people are still so nice to me.
European friends: of course!
Sangria: enough said. Actually, I'm going to miss the drinking age here as well...it's going to be weird heading back to the USA and not being able to drink for like 6 months til I turn 21.
There's more of that too, but I'm not heading back yet! I've got about 4 months left here, and I intend to make the best of them!! :)
Luego!
Showing posts with label El Corte Ingles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El Corte Ingles. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Class, Culture, and Fashion!
Woo, I have a little time to write!!
The last few days have been absolutely crazy! Carrie, the other girl living with my host family, got here on Monday at 2 and I've pretty much been busy since then! The first night she was here, we explored the neighborhood a little more and got to see Parque del Oeste. Nieves emphasizes that you can jog there (she pretends to jog and be out of breath whenever she reminds me of this hahah.) Anyway, Carrie and I are 99% alike, and it's super cool :D
My orientation was crazy too, but at least that went by really fast. Everyone was stressed when we started talking about changing your schedule!! I get stressed from other people being stressed, so by the end of the day, I was stressed too, and I don’t even have to change my schedule.
My first class started yesterday, my Spanish class for exchange students. It’s great because we’re mostly all the same level of Spanish, so if we struggle, it’s okay, because most of the time we know what the other person means. And the professor is so nice! This is really weird to say but she reminds me a lot of Miss Grotke from the TV show Recess. Ahahah, nerd alert! Anyway, the class is easy so far, but we have to go through a week of “intensive” Spanish, which means class is every day for 3 hours straight. It can be a little boring, but I’m actually doing well.
Fashion! Oh the fashion. All the boys reading this can just skip over this paragraph since it’s girly stuff. Here’s what’s in: purple, black, scarves, tall boots, and tights. Seriously, there is so much black and purple here, it’s almost bizarre. Scarves and black tights are almost a necessity with outfits. Everyone and their mother have a pair of tall boots. And black is what outfits are based upon. This is the winter season clothing though; now that we’re coming into spring/summer season, the stores are putting up a lot of khaki, white, and lighter colors. So far I’ve bought a Spanish designer purse from Salvador Bachiller, a leather jacket from Stradivarius, a skirt from Zara, and short boots from El Corte Ingles. It’s stuff I wouldn’t normally wear in the United States, but I love it 8)
Culture! Wow, things are different here! I can’t even begin to explain all the differences. Things are similar to the United States here, but not, at the same time. The toilets flush weird. Everybody owns a washing machine in their kitchen, but nobody owns a drier: they just hang clothes to dry in the courtyard. They iron EVERYTHING because it all dries funny from hanging on a clothesline. They have blinds outside the windows in the bedrooms, which makes it really dark in the rooms, if the blinds are shut. I can’t even tell if the sun is up yet when I get up in the morning, even if it’s already 10:00.
Oh, and sometimes, the water shuts off. (I’ve only seen it once, but it was really bizarre. I went to turn on a faucet and all that came out was an airy, creepy sound.) The city is supplied from aquifers in all of the parks, and there’s a monitor of the water there. Sometimes, if people are too wasteful with water, the city shuts the water off for a little while to scare the crap out of everyone. Generally this works, but it creates some other odd customs. Nieves always keeps two giant bottles of water in the refrigerator, because if the water turns off and you’re thirsty…well…
Man, I’m tired! I went to Carnaval today (that’s the Spanish way of spelling it,) and it was so awesome. But I’ll write about that later since I’m about to pass out. Hasta luego!
The last few days have been absolutely crazy! Carrie, the other girl living with my host family, got here on Monday at 2 and I've pretty much been busy since then! The first night she was here, we explored the neighborhood a little more and got to see Parque del Oeste. Nieves emphasizes that you can jog there (she pretends to jog and be out of breath whenever she reminds me of this hahah.) Anyway, Carrie and I are 99% alike, and it's super cool :D
My orientation was crazy too, but at least that went by really fast. Everyone was stressed when we started talking about changing your schedule!! I get stressed from other people being stressed, so by the end of the day, I was stressed too, and I don’t even have to change my schedule.
My first class started yesterday, my Spanish class for exchange students. It’s great because we’re mostly all the same level of Spanish, so if we struggle, it’s okay, because most of the time we know what the other person means. And the professor is so nice! This is really weird to say but she reminds me a lot of Miss Grotke from the TV show Recess. Ahahah, nerd alert! Anyway, the class is easy so far, but we have to go through a week of “intensive” Spanish, which means class is every day for 3 hours straight. It can be a little boring, but I’m actually doing well.
Fashion! Oh the fashion. All the boys reading this can just skip over this paragraph since it’s girly stuff. Here’s what’s in: purple, black, scarves, tall boots, and tights. Seriously, there is so much black and purple here, it’s almost bizarre. Scarves and black tights are almost a necessity with outfits. Everyone and their mother have a pair of tall boots. And black is what outfits are based upon. This is the winter season clothing though; now that we’re coming into spring/summer season, the stores are putting up a lot of khaki, white, and lighter colors. So far I’ve bought a Spanish designer purse from Salvador Bachiller, a leather jacket from Stradivarius, a skirt from Zara, and short boots from El Corte Ingles. It’s stuff I wouldn’t normally wear in the United States, but I love it 8)
Culture! Wow, things are different here! I can’t even begin to explain all the differences. Things are similar to the United States here, but not, at the same time. The toilets flush weird. Everybody owns a washing machine in their kitchen, but nobody owns a drier: they just hang clothes to dry in the courtyard. They iron EVERYTHING because it all dries funny from hanging on a clothesline. They have blinds outside the windows in the bedrooms, which makes it really dark in the rooms, if the blinds are shut. I can’t even tell if the sun is up yet when I get up in the morning, even if it’s already 10:00.
Oh, and sometimes, the water shuts off. (I’ve only seen it once, but it was really bizarre. I went to turn on a faucet and all that came out was an airy, creepy sound.) The city is supplied from aquifers in all of the parks, and there’s a monitor of the water there. Sometimes, if people are too wasteful with water, the city shuts the water off for a little while to scare the crap out of everyone. Generally this works, but it creates some other odd customs. Nieves always keeps two giant bottles of water in the refrigerator, because if the water turns off and you’re thirsty…well…
Man, I’m tired! I went to Carnaval today (that’s the Spanish way of spelling it,) and it was so awesome. But I’ll write about that later since I’m about to pass out. Hasta luego!
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