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Culture Shock

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Culture.  Everyone knows what it means, right?  A way of living of a group of people – their traditions, their music, their food, their way of life.  I never thought it would be this different though.  And the thing is, I can try to explain it, but it’s not something you can learn by reading.

By the way, Ramon (my host mom’s nephew’s son, 2 years old) is sitting on a little training toilet in the living room (a little room connecting my room with the rest of the apartment) doing his business, and his dad and cousin Laura are singing songs with him as he does it.  And The Simpsons is on in the background, in Spanish.  Oh, now he finished, and his dad is telling him how great he did, while Ramon follows him out of the room, shuffling with his pants around his ankles.  And there is nothing unnatural about this.  It’s just the way things are.

Culture… people here are less polite, but it’s not that they’re impolite.  It’s just the culture.  For example, no one says excuse me when trying to get through a crowd, you just kind of shove your way.  You also don’t excuse yourself when you bump into each other on the street.  No one worries about what other people think in the streets, or even really looks at each other.  No little head nods, smiles, nada.  Part of the reason for this, our crazy(awesome) professor Manolo says, is that people were told what to do for years under the rule of Franco.  So now, people don’t like to be told what to do.  Also, people live in the streets, and their apartments are typically small, so personal space is not as much of a concept.  The typical Spaniard will stand very close to you while talking.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of life is the same here as it is anywhere else.  I can hear Conchi from the other room telling Ramon to get his feet off the couch, and if he doesn’t, “You’re going to make me angry, Ramon.”  It’s just that at the same time, so very much is different, and sometimes in the smallest ways.  It’s this constant current, an underflow of this thing called culture.  And it’s not good or bad… it doesn’t make Spain any worse or better than the USA.  To me, people seem to be happier here in general, and less stressed.  No one is in a hurry to get where their going, and if they are, it’s not extremely urgent.

How about the whole "siesta" thing?  Everything closes from about 2-4, every day.  Everyone gets food, takes a nap, and then returns to their day.  It's wonderful, in my opinion. =)

Oh, and the greetings!  Between a girl and guy or between two girls, you give kisses on the cheek.  First on the left, second on the right.  Be careful that you both don’t go the same way! (A surprise kiss might ensue… no I have not encountered this)  It’s a small thing, but it’s quite interesting because it’s so… personal!  Men do the handshake-embrace thing usually, especially if they’re buddies.  If it’s a dear friend, it’s more of a hug, with a kiss on the cheek usually too.  You should see the way some of us Americans balked at the kissing thing at first.  It’s so awkward for us!  My Spanish friend Isma made fun of Kelsey (OSU) for turning her head so far that she kissed way out in the air.  “You don’t kiss the air, Kelsey, you kiss on the cheeks!” he told her.  Conchi’s nieces, Laura (11) and Marta (17), eat lunch here at Conchi’s house every day, and when Laura goes to leave, she goes around and gives everyone kisses on the cheek, and it’s so cute, because she gives a big generous kiss on each cheek, like being kissed by a little chubby cherub. =)

Yesterday, there was a huelga (strike) in all of Spain.  There was no sign of it here in Santander, besides the fact that there were significantly less busses running.  Santander is an extremely tranquil town, but on the news, it was like a war broke out in Barcelona.  Police cars filled the streets, and officers were chasing people down and beating them with their beating sticks.  (I’m sure there’s a better word for that)  It was quite a sight to see.

It also seems like there’s a lot of sex on TV… like daytime television that children watch.  Incredible.

Now, pictures.

Culture.  Everyone knows what it means, right?  A way of living of a group of people – their traditions, their music, their food, their way of life.  I never thought it would be this different though.  And the thing is, I can try to explain it, but it’s not something you can learn by reading.

By the way, Ramon (my host mom’s nephew’s son, 2 years old) is sitting on a little training toilet in the living room (a little room connecting my room with the rest of the apartment) doing his business, and his dad and cousin Laura are singing songs with him as he does it.  And The Simpsons is on in the background, in Spanish.  Oh, now he finished, and his dad is telling him how great he did, while Ramon follows him out of the room, shuffling with his pants around his ankles.  And there is nothing unnatural about this.  It’s just the way things are.

Culture… people here are less polite, but it’s not that they’re impolite.  It’s just the culture.  For example, no one says excuse me when trying to get through a crowd, you just kind of shove your way.  You also don’t excuse yourself when you bump into each other on the street.  No one worries about what other people think in the streets, or even really looks at each other.  No little head nods, smiles, nada.  Part of the reason for this, our crazy(awesome) professor Manolo says, is that people were told what to do for years under the rule of Franco.  So now, people don’t like to be told what to do.  Also, people live in the streets, and their apartments are typically small, so personal space is not as much of a concept.  The typical Spaniard will stand very close to you while talking.

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of life is the same here as it is anywhere else.  I can hear Conchi from the other room telling Ramon to get his feet off the couch, and if he doesn’t, “You’re going to make me angry, Ramon.”  It’s just that at the same time, so very much is different, and sometimes in the smallest ways.  It’s this constant current, an underflow of this thing called culture.  And it’s not good or bad… it doesn’t make Spain any worse or better than the USA.  To me, people seem to be happier here in general, and less stressed.  No one is in a hurry to get where their going, and if they are, it’s not extremely urgent.

Oh, and the greetings!  Between a girl and guy or between two girls, you give kisses on the cheek.  First on the left, second on the right.  Be careful that you both don’t go the same way! (A surprise kiss might ensue… no I have not encountered this)  It’s a small thing, but it’s quite interesting because it’s so… personal!  Men do the handshake-embrace thing usually, especially if they’re buddies.  If it’s a dear friend, it’s more of a hug, with a kiss on the cheek usually too.  You should see the way some of us Americans balked at the kissing thing at first.  It’s so awkward for us!  My Spanish friend Isma made fun of Kelsey (OSU) for turning her head so far that she kissed way out in the air.  “You don’t kiss the air, Kelsey, you kiss on the cheeks!” he told her.  Conchi’s nieces, Laura (11) and Marta (17), eat lunch here at Conchi’s house every day, and when Laura goes to leave, she goes around and gives everyone kisses on the cheek, and it’s so cute, because she gives a big generous kiss on each cheek, like being kissed by a little chubby cherub. =)

Yesterday, there was a huelga (strike) in all of Spain.  There was no sign of it here in Santander, besides the fact that there were significantly less busses running.  Santander is an extremely tranquil town, but on the news, it was like a war broke out in Barcelona.  Police cars filled the streets, and officers were chasing people down and beating them with their beating sticks.  (I’m sure there’s a better word for that)  It was quite a sight to see.

It also seems like there’s a lot of sex on TV… like daytime television that children watch.  Incredible.

Now, pictures.

See the octopus tentacles?

I went into a store yesterday on my way home from the beach... just to look around.

Tons of fur coat stores like this in the shopping area downtown.

There's this strange trend here with the

Kelsey and I.  We just had to try on these pants... Are they not the wackiest things you've ever seen?

If you can see the price tag, this My Little Pony costs 25 euro... which is probably around 30 bucks!  The children's toys here are incredibly expensive!

The stairs I climb every day to the top floor (4th) where I live with Conchi and her mom.

A church in Santander... I walk by it all the time, but decided to take a picture today.

I thought this was interesting... "English breakfast" with eggs and bacon.  The concept here is unimaginable!

Looking up the stairs on the "stairway to hell" aka the path I take to walk to school every day.  Did I mention that I have to walk about three blocks up stairs every morning?  And then back downhill a ways, albeit less steep.  I feel like an overheated car with steam rolling out by the time I make it to class.  Haha.

Notice how steep the decline is?

A pretty view on my walk home.

Lunch - spaghetti, croquetas (croquettes in English, although I still don't know what that means) and bread

Dinner last night - a hamburger and french fries!  Ketchup and mustard both taste different here as well.

Lunch yesterday.  Veeeerrrryyyy tasty.  A tower of rice (probably about the size of two fists), a fried egg, and fried banana.  Eaten mixed together.  Yummy.  Or, if I wanted to use the tomato paste stuff in the bowl above, I left out the banana, as advised by Conchi.  Also, there's a bowl of tomatoes with oil and vinegar and salt, and bread.  Extra bread dipped in the oil and vinegar.  One of the best meals I've had yet!

Can you see the extra buttons?  Including the "enye" (N with a squiggly over it).  I want a keyboard with one!

At La Playa de Los Peligros.  The best part of this picture is Isma in the background, doing the hand-goggle thing.  Haha.  The day after this, it was about 70 degrees out, and a few of us sucked it up to go swimming!  It was freezing, but when else would we have had the chance to say we'd gone swimming in the ocean in Spain?! =)

A view from the beach.

Isma drew a huge map of Spain in the sand and showed us where he's been for his discus competitions (he's a big competitor), and then Kelsey and I drew a map of the USA and showed him where we've been!

A typical magazine stand on the main street.  I bought a Spanish magazine today that I'm going to try and read on the drive during our field trip tomorrow!

A huge flag of Spain

Also a picture from the store I went to.  It's strange to see all the labels in Spanish... plus I was impressed at how perfectly they were situated!

Hams in the store.  Typical sight.

My Day in Photos

The pictures are all out of order, and for that I apologize.  I have very limited time (because I've been procrastinating on my homework, whoops) so I'm just going to make this one a series of photos!

This is a picture of the area out in front of El Ayuntamiento at about 9:30 at night. Notice how there's still tons of people out on the streets!  As one person said (and a way to put it that I like), the people live in the street.  Everyone, from young to old (lots of old people, you wouldn't believe; especially the little old men that take steps only an inch or two at a time but then gain momentum with the help of their canes) all are in the streets all day long.  With their dogs.  And their children.  And everyone is just being out there to be out there - buying ice cream for their children, going for a mid-afternoon snack and a beer, with their baby in a stroller while their dog runs in and out of the bar.  It's just incredible.

Dinner yesterday.  Vegetable puree (don't let it fool you, it's good), fried ham and cheese... things, and a cup of yogurt.  I miss my mom's cooking a little, but i'm certainly not going hungry. =)

Three boats that signify an expedition from Ecuador to Australia... I read over the info thing a little bit, I think all of them sunk or something like this... But they were pretty nonetheless. ;)

Pinguinos!

After our tour of the beaches, Kelsey and I decided to go for una cana (a glass of beer) and a tortilla! (Spanish tortilla= omlette with potatoes)

My first day of school!  I had Conchi take this picture - she was laughing at me!

Marissa climbing through a tunnel at the Primera Playa de El Sardinero

Lunch Monday (eaten when I got home from school at 2:30): white beans with a piece of sausage (red), and morcilla (blackish).  I later learned that "morcilla" means blood sausage, which is cooked pork blood and rice in a sausage casing.  I ate it all though... it wasn't that bad!

Kelsey, me, Marissa, and Jesika in front of the Playa de Magdalena.

Focas! (that's how you say "seals")

El Palacio de la Magdalena... Our friends Isma and Joel told us that the flags on top are the flag of Santander, the flag of Spain, the flag of Cantabria (the region, similar to the state), and the flag of Europe.  Isma and Joel had no idea why we thought it was so cool that there was a palace practically in their backyard!

Lilia, Jesika, and Genesis walking down the Playa de El Sardinero.

Isn't it a pretty palace?  Joel, Isma, me, Marissa, Jesika, and Kelsey.  Directly behind the photographer is the ocean.

Mas focas!

A little canyon right next to the palace.  So pretty.

That's all for today... More to come!

I’m not sure if this is jet lag or what, but it’s 6 o’clock in the morning and I cannot sleep!  So I figured I’d finish my blog entry… my internet pooped out on me last night, and I wasn’t able to finish it.

The thing about my internet here at the apartment is that I have to borrow it from neighbors.  It’s never a great connection, sometimes I can get it to connect in my room, sometimes I have to sit by the window in the living room; it’s never fully reliable.  But I’m not too worried about it. =)

Oh the adventures I have already had!

Last night, my friend Kelsey and I decided to hit up the town.  It was our first Saturday night, and although we were both tired from traveling, we didn’t want to waste it. (Besides, we can sleep when we get back to the United States, right?)  We headed out at 11 PM, and the bars were still pretty empty.  The first bar we went to was called “The Blues,” and it was kind of a more mature scene, probably 25+.  The music was a mixture of Spanish and American tunes, which we loved.  We realized when we got there that we weren’t sure how to ask for a drink, so we just pointed at the bottles of Bacardi wine coolers that we wanted.  Drinks were about 3.5 euros, which is probably somewhere around $5.  We then decided to find a different bar, maybe one with dancing, etc.  We walked around the block a few times, which were loaded with tiny hole-in-the-wall bars, several per block, and we finally went into one called “Zanzibar.”  We fumbled through asking the bartender for drinks, and one of them struck up a conversation with us about the university.  Then this guy standing next to me at the bar started chatting with me too… After a few minutes of conversation, he invited us to go to another bar with him and his buddies.  So we did.  It was a great time, lots of conversation (which is difficult in a foreign language when there's loud music playing) and a little bit of dancing.  I feel like we just laughed the whole night.  Isma is quite the character – he is full of jokes, but to our dismay, all of his jokes are jokes on words, which tends to be difficult to pick up in the second language.  He even had some English jokes to tell, such as about his name.  Ismael, Isma for short, and as he explained it “Ismael, like in English, ‘a smile,’ “ he says in his thick Spanish accent.  Or “Isma, like ‘It’s my life!’ “ which he sings in Bon Jovi style. (AT, this reference made me think of you.  Also, It’s My Life came on at the bar later that night, and everyone started singing.  Awesome.)  At the end of the night, Joel walked Kelsey home, and Isma walked me home.  At about 6 AM.  Yep, I think I’m gonna like it here.

Yesterday, some of the girls and I met up to cruise the town.  For being four chatty English-speaking girls, we don’t get as many funny looks as I’d thought.  It really is incredible how nice everyone is in this town.  I tend to be pretty obvious, walking around with my map fully unfolded, blatantly looking for street signs, and there is always some sweet-looking older man or lady looking to offer me advice. (Don’t worry, Mom, my purse is always zipped closed tightly and close to my body.  I’m on guard.)  So the four of us – Jesika, Marissa, Kelsey and I – started cruising down the main street near the waterfront, the Bay of Santander.  We were in the hunt of some good helado (gelato), and I suggested that we stop by a place I’d gone the day before.  The guy selling the helado had spotted me as an English speaker, and had used the opportunity to speak English with me.  So we moseyed in to the shop… he took one look at me and said “Hello, how are you today?”  It was great, he was able to tell us what all the flavors meant in English, and then we started chatting in Spanish.  We found out that his name is Cesar, and that he’s going to the academy in the winter to become a firefighter.  He asked us all what we were studying in Santander and what our majors were.  We talked about how people are overweight in the United States, and why almost no one in Spain is (although we seem to be eating a ton).  He also told us about Racing (pronounced “rath-ing”) the local soccer team.  We exchanged Facebook info, and then were forced to leave when some new customers came in.

We walked back along the waterfront.  When we attempted to take a self-shot picture of the four of us, two elderly couples stopped and insisted on taking them for us.  Although we were afraid of someone running off with our cameras, we thought they looked pretty harmless, which they were.  They were all hollering at one of the men, “Hey, get their feet inside the picture,” “Why are you so far away, get closer,” “Are you going to take it at that angle or should you center it for them?” and he just chucked amiably.

From left to right: Marissa, Jesika, me, and Kelsey

A picture of the bay

El Ayuntamiento.  To be honest, I'm not sure what this building is for, the map says it's a place of interest... I just thought it was pretty.

Everyone has dogs in this town!  This one was running around while we waited for all the girls to show up outside El Ayuntamiento.

Me in La Plaza Porticada.  There are LOTS of plazas around town - some are small, some are big like this one, and they're used for weddings or as social gathering spots or sometimes it's just the center of a roundabout!

This is right in front of the previous picture.  This guy is Pedro Velarde, a military man who is known for leading Spain to victory May 2, 1808 in the war for independence.  Yes, I just looked that up on Spanish Wikipedia.

El Banco de Santander (Bank of Santander)

Another cool statue in town.  Notice the palm trees in the background?

As we were strolling down the waterfront, we saw a few nuns walking out of this large building next to us, and Kelsey excited said, "Hey, it's a nunnery!"  Indeed, it was a huge cathedral, complete with a viewing area to see ancient Roman ruins protected by glass plates in the downstairs church.  The air inside the churches was thick and heavy with incense.  Although the cathedral was open to tourists, people were in the pews praying, and no video or photography was allowed.  The cathedral was beautiful, not because it was flashy or overly ornate, but just because it was so steeped in religion and history.  As we stated among ourselves, the building itself was probably older than our country altogether.  It was a very religious experience, being in that environment, and for 20 cents (in euros, obviously) I lit a candle for Grandpa Ed.

The cathedral (on the left) from across the plaza

Yesterday was pretty sunny, probably around 70 degrees with the sun out.  I wore sandals, jeans, a t-shirt and a scarf, but put on my jacket a couple times when the clouds covered the sun.  It seems to always look like a rain cloud could come through, but so far we've only had one rainshower (which I got stuck in, and several people pointed me in the direction to buy an umbrella).

Just a note about the Spanish men - they are attractive!  Not like you see an attractive man every now and then, more like they are all consistently very good-looking men.  It's eye candy for us!

There are nine girls here in Santander from Oregon - Me, Kelsey, Marissa, Jesika, Mollie, Christine, and Ashley from OSU, and Lilia and Genesis from EOU.  I learned at our orientation that we will be having classes together, with just the nine of us, to which one of the girls said, "Well, we'll either be great friends or great enemies by the end of the term."  Lol.  By the way it's looking, I think we'll be great friends.

I believe in my previous blog I wrote about how I had bought some body wash... funny story on that.  It's the Dove body-hydrating kind, and in the store it was on this little form near the end of an aisle, surrounded by other body washes and hair-coloring kits and the like.  So I was in the shower yesterday, and with my hands (since I have no washcloth or sponge... I think they use sponges here) started applying it to my arm... It was certainly not bodywash, it was lotion.  It had an oily texture that instantly made my arm water-repellent.  Whoops.

This is lunch yesterday.  A bowl of beans in a meaty-tasting broth with a tiny piece of sausage inside, what tasted to be fried chicken, and a nectarine.  Quite tasty.  I ate at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  Conchi's water tastes a little like chlorine, but it's not too bad.  And last night at about 8:45, she fed me dinner, which was three pieces of fish cooked similarly to the chicken above, and a bowl of tomato chunks prepped with vinegar, oil and salt.  Delicioso!

And what would be a horticulturalists blog without some pictures of plants?

These trees are everywhere!  Beautiful bark

I saw this plant from across the street and had to get a closer look.  It had HUGE leaves.  Once I got closer, I realized it was a rubber tree! (For some reason, this plant made me think of you, Amanda)

 This picture above is a common sight on the streets.  They're huge recycling bins.  Some are for plastic, some for cardboard, some for composting, and some for trash.  Go Santander for keeping the city clean and green.

Gerardo, my boss at Van Essen, told me that Spaniards last names almost always end in "Z"... how right he was!  These papers were posted up in the doorway at the university.  I think they were grading sheets.

Today is my first day of school.  We're meeting one of our professors at 9:15, so I'm going to leave the house at 8:45, which should give me plenty of time.  I'll eat breakfast before school, then eat lunch when I get home, at around 2:30, which is when I'll meet Conchi's niece, Marta, who eats here every day.  After that, I'm going to go buy a phone, and then possibly go on some more adventures.  My new friend Isma wants to show me around El Sardinero, which is the touristy beachfront area on the eastern side of the city.

More updates on the way.  It's time to get ready for school!