Multicultural Spanish: About Me and Those I'm With.

Today in Spanish class we did a mini personality questionnaire to practice Spanish words, and between "puntual" and "impuntual" can you guess which one I was. Yes, I came out (mainly) as "impuntual" (or unpunctual, in English). I'm late on writing this, I know, but I've been rather busy, quite tired, and without large chunks of time to write an update. So now, here I am. I hope I haven't caused any trouble or worry, but I'm guessing you are all pretty good at being patient with me by now ;)

Well, I left off at two Mondays ago. The following Tuesday from that (the 15th of January) we again had a switch of students in class. T. who had joined us on Monday was also switched to a lower level, but A. (she is originally from China but is now from London) stayed in our class. We also got a new classmate, J.. She is from Haiti. They both have had some pretty fun stories and they are both very fun and add a lot to class. Our class dynamics are really good and we've all gotten comfortable with each other and we have a ton of fun. As I said last week, we have a fabulous teacher, so that helps too. (For those of you wondering why I'm using initials instead of names, it's for safety and privacy. We went over this before but's it's been a while. Some people's names are not very common and listing them in a certain context could pinpoint them. Also, for people I don't know very well, such as classmates, I don't know whether they would want themselves broadcasted to the world on the internet or not, so I avoid their names for privacy's sake).
That evening I had dinner with my host family while watching the Real Madrid fútbol game. Good day.

Wednesday, our teacher was out sick with an ear infection, which kind of sucked for her, but we managed to get along with the substitute.
That evening I went to M.'s foot doctor to see if we could find out why my toe had been giving me trouble. It turns out it wasn't my toe at all, but rather the nerve between my third and fourth toe. I must have pinched the nerve, causing it to be prone to agitation, which is why walking on it had caused so much discomfort and pain. And the doctor said that usually when that specific nerve is pinched it's felt in the fourth toe, which is why I thought I had done something to my toe. I got a prescription for little anti-inflammatory pads that I was supposed to put on my foot to decrease any swelling so the nerve wouldn't be rubbing up against things. Well, that night after the appointment we went to the pharmacy but they didn't have what we needed just then and they told us to come back tomorrow and they should have it. Well, I didn't really go out on Thursday and Friday I forgot to take the prescription with me and then by the next time I went by there, though I had the prescription, I forgot to stop in because the pain was pretty much all gone. Anyways, I never got the prescription, but now, last night, it started hurting again (I must have repinched it or something), so I'm planning on actually getting it tomorrow and following through with the doctor's orders this time ;)
Wednesday evening I had a discussion for about thirty minutes with my host mother, mainly about different languages and education systems (high schools and colleges), but it was awesome to be able to mainly keep up and be a part of an actual conversation.

Thursday was plain and simple. School (our teacher was still out and we had a different substitute), lunch, relaxed afternoon (which included doing some homework and studying), dinner, more relaxing, bed. Nothing all that exciting.

Friday morning when I sat down on the bus I could smell a very strong perfume. Well apparently the lady in front of me could smell it too because she leaned over in front of the girl sitting next to her, took a huge, long sniff, and then sat back up as if nothing out of the usual had happened. I guess she was just seeing if the girl next to her was the one wearing the perfume, but it was just so funny. It took all my control not to burst into laughter. That totally made my morning :)
We had our teacher back for school on Friday, she still wasn't completely better, but she was able to be just as fun and animated as ever. I've started spending the break with our classmates in the cafeteria. It's nice to have some coffee and conversation in the middle of the day as a break from class. It gives some revitalization.
Reneé and I had lunch at the Abuelos, M.'s parents. I love food, and good company, end of story.
Okay, not the end of story, I do still have stuff to say, but end of that part of the story. For dinner I went out with my host brother and three of his friends to the Real Madrid Stadium's TGIFriday's. It was a good night, except for the fact that I didn't really understand most of what was going on, including the part where we ended up in front of a night club and I realized that this was the next part of the evening. Long story short, I was sort of the party-pooper and we all just ended up going home after I was like, "Wait, woah, no me gusta."Ya, it was kind of awkward. I had offered to go home alone if they wanted to continue on, but they wouldn't allow it. Sorry guys that bringing the American kid along cut your night short, though I'm not sorry for my not liking night clubs, that's really not my thing.

Saturday was a sleep-in and relax and do homework day. In the evening Reneé and I went with the B. family to see "the Hobbit, an Unexpected Journey" in 3D. I'd already seen it, but I still enjoyed it (even though I am still a bit upset about how unlike the book it is).

Sunday afternoon I got to Skype my teammates in Thailand, which was super cool, as well as refreshing to see such lovely faces. That night I watched the Real Madrid game, of course, with my family :)

Nothing has really happened since then this week. We've had school, which is going well, even if it's a little hard sometimes. We're learning a lot, but it can still feel sometimes like we've only made a dent of progress compared to the crater of knowledge that it feels like we should be making. But hey, little by little, step by step, poco a poco. What's the point of life if it doesn't include experiences, challenges, failures, and accomplishments. And God too, he's kind of important.

Last night I did get to babysit little baby N.. He is so cute, and we had a great time together. And think we're developing a mutual love for each other, makes me so happy! :D

So you know how I've mentioned, multiple times, how I love sleeping and taking naps? Well here is Spain they have these totally awesome shutter things called persianas that are in most every window that completely block out all light, so I can take a nap anytime of the day in complete darkness. It's so nice!

I've also added some new music to my iTunes library these past weeks. I had some iTunes credit from birthday and christmas gift cards, so I got Gungor's CD "Beautiful Things," mainly for the song by that same title. But since I've listened to the whole thing I've really fallen in love with it, he's a really good musician and artist. Some of the other really good songs besides "Beautiful Things" are "Late have I loved you" and "The Earth is Yours." That's some really good music right there. I also downloaded Laura Story's "Blessings," which is just a totally, completely incredible song in every way. And then today I got the Tangled soundtrack, which was long overdue, such good, fun music. Oh how I just love music! Isn't it just like one of the coolest things? (And I believe it's one of the greatest proofs of God, like seriously, how could humans ever come up with something so beautiful, banging rocks against other rocks? I don't think so. It's too complex, too perfect, so great). Yes, I love music very much!

Well, as do most things, this blog has come to an end. Thanks again for putting up with my tardiness. I'll try not to be so late again, but it will probably happen a few more times, so bear with me. As usual, if you have any questions or comments or concerns or whatever you can post those here on the blog or send them to me through my communications girl extraordinaire, Hope, at constanceh.95@gmail.com. Also, if you would like to be included in my prayer request updates you can contact Mike at biblebeach@hotmail.com.

Thanks again. I miss you and love all you guys so much.
Adios amigos,

~Asher Fickett~

Apparently They Speak a Different Language Here

Well, yes, the rumors are true. They speak Spanish here. And I don't. Hahahaha, I try, but it's a process, like a molasses waterfall, slow and catastrophic. I actually haven't made any major mistakes yet, but I've definitely been the cause of a few laughs. But hey, when am I not. Not being laughed at, that is :)

But honestly, I'm loving it here (besides the obvious of missing family, English, and familiarity). But the people here are great and I'm learning a lot. But I do have some interesting observations to report of things that I find interestingly different.

1. Barefoot is not an option here, not even in the house. It's out of a concern for health and it is believed that walking barefoot (in their very clean homes) will likely get you a cold or sickness. Thankfully I brought along a pair of slippers.

2. Like I mentioned last week, meal times are very different. They have smaller meals, but usually have a few breaks in there days for snacks. You could say they are, in a way, smaller-proportioned hobbits in the sense that they eat often (though less per "meal"), not in the sense of physical size. They have a sort of first breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, tea time, afternoon snack, dinner, late night snack. Now that's not exact, but none of those would be considered unusual here. Most people don't take advantage of all of them, but the culture is more bit by bit oriented rather than a few larger meals.
3. Spaniards are proud of their culture and heritage. They like the way they do things and they like to talk about the way things have been done in the past. I mean, they sort of have a bit of a right to be proud, seeing as they've been around for a really long time. Just to give some perspective to those of you in the US, Spain was under Arab and Islamic rule for about seven-hundred years, from about the beginning of the 700's to the end of the 1400's. Obviously, the Spanish re-conquered. But now think how that compares to the United States. That would be like having Britain or the Native Americans, in about 400 years, deciding they wanted "their" country back and reconquering America. Ya, we're a very young country, and so in comparison, it's obvious why the Spanish are proud of what they have.
4. How people use phones here is different. Most people don't really use texting because pretty much all plans here, even the best data plans, charge for text messages. Instead, people use an application called Whatsapp that uses wi-fi and data to send messages so it doesn't charge extra. Also, their are these landlines, that as far as I can tell aren't "landlines" at all but rather house-phone cell phones that you can take with you anywhere. As far as I can figure, once you get your landline, you keep that number no matter where in Spain you move to (since it's practically a cellphone), and any "landline" to "landline" call in all of Spain is free. Also, I think it's just something that is, and not something that you pay for, like it's part of taxes or something. But I'm not really sure.
5. TV is just as big here as it is in the States. But the interesting thing is is that they have a lot of American shows and movies, just dubbed over with Spanish. My host mom was telling me that it's a career here in Spain to be a dub-over actor, and the same Spanish counterpart will always play the same original actor. For example, the same actor would speak for Chris Hemsworth in The Avengers and in Snow White and the Huntsmen.
6. Strikes (like not-working) are common and totally legal. They are especially frequent recently with the bad economy and unemployment.
7. There are also a lot of American or English-named stores. I think it's kind of funny because most Spaniards probably don't understand what the name means. Like why not translate the name? Probably my favorite one so far has been "Nails 4 Us." First off, neither "nails" or "us" are Spanish words, and even if a Spaniard knew those words, they wouldn't understand what the four was for. "Four" to "for" doesn't translate over. "Cuatro" to them just wouldn't make since. One has five fingers on one's hand, not four?
8. Scarves are incredibly common here. A majority of people that one sees when out and about are wearing one. It sort of goes along with the slipper idea of staying in good health, the Spanish believe in bundling up a lot or otherwise "you'll get sick."
9. Tissues aren't common here. You're not likely to find any boxes of tissues around a house here like you would in the States. In fact, I have yet to seen a box of tissues in someone's house yet. They do have little tissues packs, but even those aren't very abundant.
10. Forward arrows here point down rather than up.
11. There are a lot of round-abouts here, and lot of interesting driving, and not a lot of car. Yes that is singular on purpose, the cars here are all very small, hence why "not a lot of car."
12. License Plates here stay with a car forever, rather than the owner. So you can actually tell about how old a car is by it's license numbers and letters.

We started language school this past Tuesday, since Monday was still a holiday day. We have class for four hours a day from 9:30am to 1:30pm with one break in the middle. It started out kind of slow because it was mostly stuffed I remembered from High School, but it's been picking up and I feel like I'm actually making progress now. Our teacher is very fun and teaches us and talks to us only in Spanish, so there is a lot of acting out and drawing on the white board to explain the meaning of things. I mean, if you're going to learn a language you might as well learn it in that language, right? We had one class mate, Violeta, but he (yes, he) had trouble keeping up, so today switched to a simpler class. But today we got two new compañeros, Angel and Terri, who are from London and New Mexico respectively.

Tuesday night, while lying falling asleep, the fourth toe on my left foot started hurting and aching. I didn't really know what it was but it was uncomfortable. The next morning, it hurt when I put weight on it. It felt kind of out of place, but I couldn't think what had caused it (I still have no idea). By the end of the day I was in a lot of pain from having walked and limped around on it all day. Since then, it has been getting progressively better, but it still feels a little weird with a little pain from time to time. I'm gonna be going to M.'s foot doctor this Wednesday to get it looked at.

Most of the rest of the week was just schooling and eating and homework and so on, so I won't bore you with that.

Friday night Reneé and I helped take down Christmas decorations in the church and then helped eat a pizza. Saturday I got to sleep in and I did some homework and review before heading out with Reneé and some others to see the Hobbit (in original English). It ended up being sold out, so instead we got tickets to the Life of Pi. Well, of course, as would be our luck, the projector in that theatre stopped working. So we ended up getting our money back and then going for a little afternoon snack at this place that serves little baguette things with toppings (like chicken and garlic sauce, or nutela and cream cheese). We then did some city tourism, mainly at the Egyptian temple again, but this time we got to go inside. I had dinner that evening with my host family in front of the TV watching the Real Madrid Fútbol game. I then went with my host brother to his friends house to play some SingStar on PlayStation. It's sort of like Guitar Hero or Rock Band, just with singing. I was really bad because I didn't know any of the songs, even the few America pop songs they had, so I just tried to sort of "na-na-na" my way through it, but it was lot of fun and it was good to spend some time with my host brother in his "natural environment." (Haley Olson, if you read this, I just thought I should mention that they had "Let's Dance" by David Bowie, and that was the only song I sort of knew.)

Sunday was chill again like last week. We went to church and then hung out at B. and M.'s. The kids at church are warming up to me, so that was fun. I always love chasing, tickling, crawling after, lifting, and playing with kids, and it's possibly even more fun when they do those things to me. So yeah, fun times with kids equals a good day.

There concludes my update. Sorry it's late, but hopefully you enjoyed and learned from it without too much boredom. Please feel free to comment or leave a remark, or send that to me through my wonderful communications assistant, Hope, at constanceh.95@gmail.com. Also, if you would like to receive my prayer request updates when I send those out you can contact my coordinator for that, Mike, at biblebeach@hotmail.com. Also, if you are praying for me but aren't on the email chain, it would be really cool if you did get on it so you can have my in the moment prayer requests when a need arises. The more prayer the better!

I Love you all so much and I miss you guys,
Adios, mis amigos,

~Asher Fickett~

And I'm Back...

¡Hola mis amigos!

            I am alive and well, at least mostly. I’m very tired due to jet lag and little sleep and busy schedule and straining my brain over comprehension. But things are starting to settle a bit. It feels like I’ve already been here for a more than a week but it’s really been just barely half a week. So much has happened!

            I left Wisconsin on Wednesday and flew to Philly and from there to Madrid. Due to going ahead seven hours we arrived at about 7:30 Thursday morning. I actually ended up getting sick for my first time ever on an airplane and had some bad congestion and a headache that just got worse with the higher altitudes and a queasiness that led to some new acquaintances, such as those little barf bags in the seat-back pocket. Aiy, aiy, aiy! And because I wasn’t feeling very good I couldn’t really sleep very well. I did get about a half hour of semi-sleep on the first flight and a little more than an hour of bad sleep on the second flight; so really, Wednesday and Thursday were just one, long day for me. By the time I finally went to bed I had been up for a little over thirty-one hours. Anyway, the rest of the day was mostly just hanging with B. and M. and C. and K., whom we know from the States. In the evening we took Reneé to her host family’s home and then me to mine. I was introduced (B. and K. came up with me to do some introductory translation and to meet the family), and shown around the apartment (most everyone in Spain lives in apartments), and shown my room into which I unpacked. They then invited me to have dinner with them. Now here’s something you should understand, the Spaniards’ daily schedule. You wake up sometime in mid morning (somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 usually, depending on if you have school or sports or whatever) and you have breakfast, which is usually more of a snack or small meal by our standards. Then the day begins, like going to school or to work or whatever. Then the big meal of the day, lunch (or “comida” [coh-MEE-dah]), happens around 2:00, and sometimes even later. From lunch time till about 5:00 most everything closes and people have what is called a siesta [seeEY-stah] which is sort of like a mid day break or nap or family time. Then things sort of pick back up till dinner which is anywhere from 8:00 pm to 12:00pm, though average is about 9:30pm. So yes, when they invited me to dinner that evening it was about 9:30, and so my long day kept growing longer.

           

I have actually been able to catch more of what’s going on and the meaning of things more than I thought I would be able to, especially when they talk slowly and little-by-little for me. It’s just trying to process quickly and come up with a response that’s the hard part. My host mom does speak quite a bit of English, and my host brothers (Nacho y Alberto) speak a little and understand more, so on tricky subjects we can communicate if need be or clarify meaning and problems. Language school does start on Tuesday, so hopefully we’ll be able to start improving. We’ll be doing a month of intensive study. We haven’t actually gotten the schedule yet, but it’ll be something like three to five hours a day for five days a week. ¡Immersion, set and go! Whew!

           

            Friday was a hard, long day just because of how tired I was. After breakfast Reneé and I went to the school where we’ll be doing the language study to take a placement exam. We’re both out of practice; we both ended up in level A1. We then toured around the city some with Christina, which was a lot of walking for one so tired, but it was fun. We saw a Christopher Columbus statue and the statue of Madrid’s symbol, a bear standing up against a tree and reaching into its branches, and we saw an artisans’ market at the statue of Don Quixote and a part of an Egyptian Temple the Spanish salvaged from a river and the royal palace and a lot of the more general city what with walking from place to place.

Madrid's Logo/symbol thing

The Center of Madrid and Spain, Kilometer 0

Cathedral across from the royal palace.

Paneramic of the cathedral

Cathedral 

Palace front

Egyptian temple pieces

Reneé and I with Don Quixote

         Nothing exciting really happened on Saturday until the evening. What we call Epiphany, twelve days after Christmas, is their big Christmas-esk celebration. They call it Reyes (meaning kings, or Three Kings day, which refers to the three wise men) and the 5^th is like Christmas Eve and the 6^th is like Christmas. The tradition here (similar to the Santa Clause tradition) is that the kids polish their best shoes and but them either by the tree or the Nativity and leave out campaign for the three magic kings and water on the balcony for their magic camels and then the kids go to bed. In the morning, if you were good that year and if your shoes were nice, you would find presents in your shoes or in place of your shoes. With the kids being grown up (Nacho is 18 and Alberto 15) our Reyes was a little different. My host mom’s sister and brother-in-law from Poland came as well as los abuelos (the grandparents). The sister/aunt had actually done an exchange when she was in high school to America, so she could speak quite fluent English and was able to translate for me and include me in on what was happening or explain the jokes and whatnot. The meal was about a 20 dish, two-hour long meal, just eating little bit by little bit until you were stuffed and then eating some more. I had the first seafood that I’ve actually not totally disliked. It was actually pretty good, it just still had too much of a seafood after-taste and, ya, just general seafoodness. I would say it was good, just not my favorite. But the meal as a whole was very good and I enjoyed it very much. We then waited till midnight (when the magic kings come) to celebrate, which was done with campaign or sparkling cider (the latter for me), and get presents. I got a very fun scarf, a t-shirt, and tour book of Madrid, thought its in Spanish, so its another reason to learn and practice. Also, I was able to surprise them with presents I had brought along with me, which they enjoyed very much, which made me happy :) It was a very fun night. I was thinking, I should come to Spain every year in January so I can have two Christmases all the time.

Mi familia de España, Alberto, Susi, Nacho, y Manuel

Today (Sunday/Domingo) wasn’t very interesting, we went to church and mostly just chilled with nestros amigos (our friends). I guess writing this blog is kind of interesting, so I hope you enjoyed it. Have a great week and I’ll talk to you again soon. As usual, if you have any questions or comments you can send those through my communicator girl extraordinaire, Hope, via constanceh.94@gmail.com. Also, if you would like to receive my prayer request updates you can send your request to be included to Mike at biblebeach@hotmail.com. Thanks again for tuning in.

Funny little bench things they have at some bus stops. It's a little lower than waist height and about a third of a foot wide. It provides a little something to lean up against while waiting.

Some photos of Madrid's Metro

Many Loves and Misses

~Asher Fickett~

Quick Update from Madrid, Safe and Sound

Hey, just a quick update in the flurry of things. We've landed, been with the B.s and the K.s, done a little walking around and a bit if shopping. We had a bit of a rough flight, but things are going smoothly now. Later tonight we'll head over to our host families and meet them. Also, for those of you who are curious, we are seven hours ahead of the Wisconsin people and six hours ahead if those in Pennsylvania.
That's just the quick blurb to let you know we are safe. A fuller update will follow later in the week.
Adios, mis amigos,

~Asher Fickett~