Yesterday marked week two of my stay in España, but, to be honest, it feels like I’ve been here longer. Orientation, language shock, beach trips, moving into a new home, a jaunt to Ibiza and, believe it or not, even some classes, have all transpired in the past 15 days. And I’ve only had time for four siestas. It’s a rough life. In all honesty though, once my tourist feeling subsided and the reality of three and a half months here finally hit me, I found my emotions bittersweet.
I’m a notorious loather of cities but Palma seems to be an exception. The main part of the city sits alongside a large port and everything about it is gorgeous. My apartamento is one block away from the iconic cathedral that has greeted all port entrants for centuries. In this Arab district where I live, much of the architecture is, as the name suggests, of Arab influence. It took a while before I was able to successfully navigate the labyrinth of small identical streets but after getting lost for three consecutive nights, I now know my “hood”. Very nearby are the “Plaza del Rey” and “Plaza del Reina”, which are very popular pedestrian (mostly tourist) areas. Also nearby is the “Plaza Mayor”, the focal point of any Spanish city. From it, cobblestone streets lined with shops, bars, cafes and businesses branch out in all directions. Auto traffic on these streets is sparse, and the businesses are packed in one after another. To me, this is the defining and distinguishing feature of European cities when compared to an American city like New York or Boston.
Summer is winding down here in Palma but it’s still mid 70s to 80s and sunny essentially every day. No complaints there except that I need to use the fan in my room 24/7. My room is pretty big compared to a normal Colby single, but I have no windows so airflow is minimal. I live with Carlos, a 50-year-old single man. He’s cool and we speak only in Spanish. He’s also a good cook and does my laundry (he’s forced to do women’s work because he lives alone). The apartment is small but as I stated before, it’s a very nice area. Dinner time is around 8:30 every night. While on the topic of food, tapas are probably my favorite part of Spain. Patatas Bravas are the best. Very simple- they’re basically french fries or hash browns with a spicy sauce on them.
As for the negative parts of Spain so far, I’d have to say that first and foremost is my group. My CIEE group consists of five girls and me. While this might sound like a spectacular ratio for many situations, in this case, it’s a poor one. They’re nice but it’s getting harder and harder to deal with them. I miss my bros at home. This aside, I’m starting to make some new international friends so that’s a positive. I’d say another negative is that I’m really not a tourist anymore. I actually like being a tourist. A short amount of time in one place, experience the culture for a day or two and move on. I see cruise ships come and go week after week and I honestly envy them. At times I almost feel stuck here when all I want to do is go back on the ship and get a chicken sandwich at the buffet with my friends/family. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here; I just wish I had at least one close friend to hang out with day after day.
As for classes, to get to campus I walk 10 minutes to the metro station then take a 20 minute metro ride. Then I walk 15 minutes across campus to my CIEE classroom building (in the hospitality school). My other class is close by in the economics building. I take four CIEE classes and one UIB (Universidad de los Isles Baleares) class. Tourism, Economics and the Environment has two other kids, Business Spanish has one other, Catalan has one other, and Cultural encounters has five others (one being a 56 year old man from Switzerland). My UIB class has about 35 kids in it but 8 are in my classroom and the other 30ish are in classrooms in Menorca and Ibiza (other Balearic islands). We’re all connected through cameras and microphones, which is pretty cool. All classes are in Spanish all the time but I feel like I’m getting very good at understanding essentially everything the professors say. Speaking is where I find the most difficulty because it’s frustrating to have an idea in English that I can’t quite relate the way that I want to in Spanish.
Campus also has a very nice athletic facility with a gym, pool, tennis courts and a soccer field. I’ve been there every day this week to swim or run/bike (minimally, still in rehab mode) but I’m glad to have access to these facilities. The gym isn’t just for students at the university, it’s open for people who enroll in memberships so I see a wide array of people there on a regular basis. I’d say that a lot of students don’t go to the gym at all.
With that, I have found the main difference between American college culture and Spanish college culture. Here, kids are only at the university to take classes. There’s only one dorm (200-300 kids) and most live at home. They don’t take their studies as seriously as American students and they also don’t have any organized clubs or sports at the school. No one really has school pride. It’s kind of like community college but at a lower level (except for the class difficulty). They don’t sell shirts or sweatshirts or any apparel that says the name of the school and apparently this is common in Europe as a whole. In the U.S. we are literally at school 24/7 and we take more pride in our extracurricular activities than we do our classes. College is literally our life but here it’s just a small aspect. I find this Spanish college culture very difficult to accept. I think this is the reason why I’ve been homesick lately. In high school and now in college, I’ve always had a sense of community but now my community is five girls from my program. It’s just not the same. I know, different is the point of studying abroad but this isn’t the kind of different that I was expecting.
Overall, I’m happy, but a few things are still missing. I’m currently planning trips to various European countries when I have free time and my group leaves for Madrid tomorrow morning for the weekend. I’m going to try to update this blog once a week. We’ll see how long that lasts.
Matt
Soller, Mallorca
Soller, Mallorca
The group minus 1
El Catedral
Carlos and me
A Mallorcan calle (street)
