For this blog I’ve decided to do small stories from my daily experiences in Spain. Almost like a chapter book if you will. These random occurrences have no real stories behind them, but they are experiences none the less that I will not forget. Too short for a blog all by themselves, a combo blog of my life will be compiled here. :)
Chicken…meat?
So our host mom makes us breakfast, lunch, and dinner every single day of every single week. Nice right? She’s a pretty good cook and I always eat everything on my plate, usually. Lettuce and other greens sometimes get pushed to the side, but who eats their veggies anyways? Wednesday my afternoon class got canceled so I was able to go home for lunch instead of eating my bocadillo (sandwich) at school. I get called to come to the table for food and sit down to a rice plate with some dark meat mixed within. I ask what it is and my host mom says that it’s chicken. Huh..I’ve always been a personal fan of the white meat chicken, but I wasn’t sure if maybe this was some kind of dark meat. I’ll tell you right now it didn’t LOOK like chicken, but then again I trusted her word. I place a piece of the “chicken” on my spoon accommodated by a large helping of rice just in case. It doesn’t really have much of a taste, but its texture is something different. It was super soft and pretty much melted in my mouth. Confused by the way chicken usually tastes and feels in my mouth I decided to ask again…the conversation is as follows…
Me: “Amparo, you said this was chicken right?”
Amparo: “Yes, it’s chicken.”
Me: “Huh.”
Amparo: “Why do you not like it?”
Me: “Not really.”
Amparo: “Well it’s chicken heart and liver meat in there.”
Me: …………..…………………(Up-chuck) (Swallow quickly) (Chug glass of water)
Needless to say, I didn’t eat the “chicken” on my plate. My rice would serve me well enough. Amparo wasn’t upset at my dislike of heart and liver, but she was very surprised that I didn’t like it. She continued to tell me that the people here love it. Especially the kids. And that it’s very healthy for you. Healthy as it may be, I’m not eating a thump thump. There’s blood that runs through those organs when the boc boc is alive. I know it’s prolly the same as the muscle of the chicken that we eat, but no…no it’s different. I don’t care what people say.
*Note to self…if it doesn’t look like chicken, it’s not chicken.*
You know you’ve been in Europe too long when…
As we all know the longer you do something, the more you hear a sound, or the more you see an object the more accustomed to that “something” you become. The sound of a city, the sound of an air conditioner turning on at night, the bright sun of AZ, all these daily activities sometimes go unnoticed the more we live in a place. They become part of our surroundings and we don’t even acknowledge them anymore.
Here in Sevilla, a much bigger city than that of Phoenix and Tempe combined, it took me a while to get used to the lay of the land, all the cars, all the people, animals, and movement of this city. Now a days, however, I feel very accustomed to all those things. Too accustomed sometimes.
As Jesse and I were walking to one of our classes one day, we came to one of the many usual intersections where we must cross to get to the university. Although the light for pedestrians was green, at least I think…I don’t even remember..no one pays attention to those things out here. Anyways, I began to cross the street talking away as Jess and I usually do on our way to school. I cross the street only to realize some feet later that Jess is not with me. She’s close, but a bit behind.
Me: “What happened? Why didn’t you cross with me?”
Jess: “You didn’t see that huge horse coming towards us in the middle of the road?!”
Me: “……………….There was a horse?”
Jess: “Ay, Chica! Yes! And a carriage! It was like right in front of us!”
Me: “Oh…ya I definitely didn’t see that.”
And I honestly did not see any horse what so ever! Even after she told me I tried to look for the horse in the street, but couldn’t find it. She probably made it up…Either way I’ve come to the conclusion that when you start to ignore giant animals in your immediate pathway, you know you’ve been living in Europe for too long.
Rain!!! Ish…
We had the first real rain day today here in Sevilla!!! For like 5 minutes. Yes, it appears that Sevilla and Phoenix have more in common than I thought. They both have amazing weather, hot all the time, never many clouds, lots of tan people, lots of cars, college kids, and the same concept of rain.
Today it’s been pretty overcast and cloudy, only like 77 today..buuurr! But since it hasn’t rained here yet since I’ve been here, I wasn’t gonna let a cloudy day ruin my plans. I was walking around the city finding new little shops and new ice cream places (yum) and saving their locations in my handy dandy GPS. No more paper and pencil for me! I’m all about the new technology. :) Just as I was about to cross one of the bridges over the river into the city of Sevilla tiny rain drops started to fall. A slight sprinkle at first, so I decided to keep walking. 10 seconds later, a bit faster…10 more seconds brought bigger drops, and then within that 30 second time period it was raining really hard! Of course I would happen to be in the middle of the street heading towards the bridge with no building next to me and no tree either. Perfect. I along with 20 other people in the street begin to run towards any building or form of shelter that we can find. I manage to find a doorway no one has claimed yet and decide to stay there til it stops. It stops. Really? 40 seconds? That’s all you got? Fine by me. The rain ceases people return to the streets and life resumes as normal.
Since a little rain will not stop my plans, I continue like all the others with my walking…in sandals with almost no grip left to them. I was just asking for a death wish right there. The sidewalks here aren’t just concrete or asphalt, they are very lovely, decorated, SMOOTH tiles. Awwweeeeesommmee…I saw my life flash before my eyes at least 10 times. Too big of a step would send me flying, so I had to take tiny baby steps to keep from falling. I must have looked like someone who hasn’t walked in a while or a very very drunk person. And as my luck would have it I am out walking around 4:30. Right after lunch so all the outside cafés are filled with people. Cool. And as we all know people in Europe LOOOOVE to people watch. Well they definitely got a show out of me…walk, walk, walk, walk, sliiiiip, walk, walk, walk, stumble, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, sliiiide, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, trip on uneven part, walk, walk, walk..Repeat.
I didn’t fall though!! Some pretty close calls, but I held my own. :) Luckily it hasn’t rained since. The sun is brightly shining now and the weather is perfect. Sevilla could definitely work for me as my new AZ.
What the heck was that?
Since I have been here in Spain I can honestly and truly say that I have been speaking more Spanish than ever. More Spanish than English perhaps. Every now and then when a situation gets too hard to explain or we don’t want our host parents to hear what we say, Jess and I will slip back into our English. But only for a moment. :) This switching of the languages can sometimes mess with one’s mind without warning.
I was talking to Jesse about some poetry book I was supposed to read and how I hate poetry in general. It’s not that I can’t understand the words, vocab is not my issue, my issue is the meaning of all the words. (How they hell is a bird supposed to represent the child this poet never had? What if he just wanted to write about a bird? Anyone ever think of that possibility? Maybe we are making this guy out to be something way more than he really was. But according to my teacher, my theory is incorrect. I don’t know about that. Maybe we should ask the poet himself. Oh he’s not alive anymore? Well that’s just peachy.)
Anyways…this one poet uses some French words as well as Spanish ones. And worst of all, he combines them, kinda like Spanglish but more like Frenish. Well that’s not cool because I don’t have a French dictionary lyin around! Annoying. But again this story occurs within a conversation so I must place the conversation in this story. Mind you the convo was in Spanish and therefore makes it even funnier, and you should try and read it. Trust me you’ll find the weird part, but I’ll put the English version below it so everyone can understand. :)
Me: “No me gusta la poesía. No es que no entiendo las palabras pero algunas son palabras franceses. ¡Y claro no entiendo estas palabras! ¡No hablo francés! Necesito un diccionario de español y francés…o esshomting like dat.”
I don’t like poetry. It’s not that I don’t get the words, but some of them are French words! And duh I don’t understand those ones! I don’t speak French! I need a French-Spanish dictionary…(very poorly pronounced English words) or something like that.”
The worst part was I didn’t even realize I had switched into English for that last part of my sentence. My language changed, but not my pronunciation! I straight up sounded like some of our study abroad directors.
The same thing happened a few days later with another convo I was having in Spanish when my brain decided to switch to English without the pronunciation piece. Unfortunately I don’t remember the conversation well enough to write it down like the other one, but I will say I was talking with Jess again and the word I wanted to say was “whatever.” “Lo que sea” in Spanish yet I said something close to this.. “o whaaeverrrr.” Yep. That’s definitely not Spanish or English for that matter.
Looks like I’m destined to have a Spanish accent for the rest of my life. FREAKIN AWESOME!
And so ends these chapter stories. I know many more have happened and many more will come. I just have to write them down after they happen so I can elaborate on them later. :) Oh October, it’s only the 7th and already you’ve given me some awesome stories/unforgettable memories.
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