The First Week

Guadalquivir River

The Plaza

My Street- Calle Felix Rodriguez

Week One- Class at the Giralda Center

I walk past a Cathedral on the way and dodge gypsies coming back.

I wish I could pick you all up, from wherever you are wasting your time reading my blog, and plop you into my current lifestyle. Given that this is the first blog, I will need to introduce you to a lot of people along the way. This entry is more lengthy than I planned, but more happens in a week here than in a month at home.

Sleep does not exist here. Between jetlag and leaving my homestay at 2:00 am to “go out” and waking up at 7:30 for classes, I don’t sleep. Siestas do exist and they are both amazing and strange, but without them I seriously think that every Spaniard would drop dead in the middle of the day due to lack of sleep. I got to Sevilla at 9:45 on the 16^th after leaving LAX at 9:45 on the 15^th, flying first to Chicago, then Madrid, and finally Sevilla. I had less than an hour in between my flight from Madrid to Sevilla and my plane left out of a terminal that was a 15 minute subway ride away. I ran, but when I got to customs and security I hit my first snag. A lady in front of me was going to be flying with her cat. And not only was she holding a cat in an airport, but it was in a duffle bag with a hole cut out of the front covered by a mesh material that she put on herself. She almost puts the cat through the x-ray machine, because she didn’t understand what they were telling her to do. She was on the brink of tears as she pulled her cat out, which had to be 10 yrs old, out of this sagging duffle bag and was about to place it on the belt. Everyone started to yell at her and I finally told her not to put her cat there and to hand it to one of them. I don’t know why I waited so long to say something to her, maybe because my insides were laughing too hard. Nonetheless, the cat made a passing grade and to his dismay was put back in the carry-on and allowed to sit next to her on the plane. At this point I only had 18 minutes until my plane left. It was a chaotic scene, but I made it, looking like a mix between a tourist and a homeless bag lady. I also discovered that I had made that sprint with my fly down the whole time- Thanks old man with giant black mustache and x-ray eyes for telling me.

I gave my cabbie a tip when it came to paying him- mistake number one. He was offended. Lesson learned…no tips. He still took my money though. Five hours after I got to the hotel I met my first love in Spain. His name is café con leche. Within three days of meeting him, I was already cheating on him at a bar with Tinto Verano. Both dependable and inexpensive. I started classes the Monday after I arrived, and immediately new I made the right decision to come out early. My class was small and the professor had high expectations, but there was little pressure (exactly what school should be like in my opinion). I learned more in one week there, than I have in all the years of Spanish I have taken in the States. Not a word of English is spoken and the students are from all over the country- Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Korea, and Scotland. The girl from Korea, Sumi, is more animated than anyone I’ve ever met and she’s my favorite. She loves Spanish boys, but loves Portuguese men more, and tells our female Spanish teacher that she doesn’t want her to be offended by that. Sumi’s accent and is the funniest thing and it takes her 5 minutes to say anything, because she is laughing so hard and being corrected 20 times for each word. For example, when she says “todos” is sounds like “doughdoughs” and “pero” is “peahdough” and every word is drawn out and made way longer than it really is. By the time she finishes her sentence she’s catching her breath nodding her head up and down like she just won something. When the professor and all 7 of the students are laughing, Sumi waits anxiously for her accent to be corrected. I finished the class on Friday and was given a certificate (that means absolutely nothing) and she said “Oooooo ahhhhh, poughd keh aydyas rayceebeh-” (In Spanish: “¿Por que ellas recibe-“) Before it took her twenty minutes to finish, my professor told her she would get one when she finished too, which only temporarily satisfied her.

People who are not from the U.S. are so much better at learning a language. Hands down. They learn with style and ease, and it’s both frustrating and fascinating. They best thing about being part of this program was that everyone wanted to learn and the only commonality between all of us was Spanish. Learning a language with other people is funny. Everyone is so nice because no one knows how to be mean in another language.

After my first class on Monday I finally got to meet my “Señora”, Manoli and her husband Antonio. First off, she is everything and more I hoped she would be. I was told she had a rotten tooth, but she has two! I was told she could cook, but no one told me she made homemade chicken nuggets! She is hilarious and knows no English. I think she is in her seventies, but she won’t tell me and I think if I asked, she would lie to me. Her favorite phrase is, “¡Mi Madre Dios!” At the end of every new blog post I am going to put Manoli-isms because I’ve never heard anyone use words to explain the ways of life like she does. She is so generous with her distribution of the word “guapo” or “guapas”, but not towards me. It takes a lot to get a compliment from her. Yesterday she finally said “Hola guapa”, when I was within earshot, but she was also watching her TV shows. I showed her a family photo from Chris and Erin’s wedding and she went through everyone one and said how beautiful they were, but when she got to me she said “hmm”. I showed her Suzi’s senior picture and said, “Guapisima”, which is like saying that she is very gorgeous and the most beautiful. Suzi’s blue eyes, Spanish dark hair, and “American white” skin would get her plenty of cat calls. The best is that I think Manoli has a crush on Dad. She looked at his photo, grabbed her heart and said “¡Un bigote! Como Antonio. Tan guapo.” (A mustache! Like Antonio! So handsome.) Manoli doesn’t eat with us, but sits in her TV chair next to the table and watches Spanish shows that are a mix between Judge Joe Brown and Jerry Springer that air just before the news. She is a very active TV watcher and is constantly giving her input on who’s right or wrong while sprinkling in some “Que guapos” that are little mumbles that fill the silence.

Everyone else from TCU got here yesterday, and now the real studying is about to start. We had our first group intercambio today and one person responded with, “Oh yeah, I do like, but I am from Texas and it’s obvious that it’s the most true to you every day” when asked, “How long will you be in Sevilla.” Lots of work to do.

Manoli-isms

            I have a habit of scooting my chair in when Manoli walks behind me, only because I do that whenever anyone walks behind me at a table. After about the third time doing it she said to me, with her hand on my shoulder, “I may be fat, but I’m not that fat.” I still haven’t broken the habit and sometimes catch myself mid lean waiting for the same comment and slightly firm motherly hand on my shoulder.

She told us that she can’t eat with us because she has an ulcer and can only eat a little bit of food at a time. Manoli is fat, and I only use that term because when I said she wasn’t she called me crazy and said “If a car is blue, you don’t say its red.” Anyway, she was explaining why she is so fat and she said it was because she loved chocolate so much. Here is what she said, “Chocolate is so good that it replaces sex. And look at me. I’m fat.”

She is also a very confident person. She explained to us one day, “I am the best cook. You eat my tortilla con patatas then go eat them at a tapas bar and tell me which is better. All of my past students love my food. I have never had someone who doesn’t like my food. I make the best food, and I make it especially for you.” Then there is maybe a five second pause and she says, “You like my food?”

I got really lucky in that Manoli has a sense of humor, because a lot of women here would say things like this without cracking a smile. Not Manoli. She laughs hard grabbing her ulcer-lined stomach and showing off her beautiful rotten teeth while wearing a bright pink robe and matching slippers, and curlers bouncing around in her hair. I can’t wait for more Manoli-isms.