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~