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~
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~
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