First Week

Have you ever noticed when you travel to other countries which word they use for "uh huh, yeah, gotcha, ok, good,"? Somehow, I swear other cultures manage to find one word that fits ALL of these! When I first moved to Slovakia, it was the first word I picked up. Upon being picked up from the airport, Zarin received a phone call and I swear she must have said "dobre" 30 times in 10 minutes. It quickly became my word of choice. I often found myself just nodding my head and saying "Dobre, dobre" when someone would speak to me in Slovak, pretending like I completely understood what they were saying.

Shortly after arriving in Spain I had a similar experience with the word "vale" (bah-leh). Luckily my Spanish is about 1000x better than my Slovak was. However, this is the word I once again find myself using in unclear situations. Of course this doesn't always work in my favor like when someone is asking something of me, but usually my comprehension is high enough to realize when I actually need to figure out what is being asked. Usually! But not always. haha

So a few hours from now marks my first week in Spain. Here are a few highlights from my time here so far: In these last seven days I've...

-attended school at an "american" university. Although I am technically attending an American school, I feel far from convinced. Teachers are late, Spanish students don't come to class on the first day, classroom numbers seem to change about 3 hours before class, making it almost impossible to determine where your class is actually being held. The campus is absolutely TINY! A note to all my CND girls - if you think our campus is small...check out mine!! The school claims there are 700 students, yet all the classes are basically taught in one tiny little building. Today I just discovered the best part about my campus though - a rooftop terrace where you can eat and look out over most of Madrid. Absolutely gorgeous. Going to a new school is exciting, but I must admit, I'm getting a little sick of making all new friends. I've gotten pretty good over the last few years at being very comfortable introducing myself to total strangers. However, it can get a bit exhausting. It'll be nice when I feel like I really establish a good group of friends (sooner rather than later, let's hope!)

-eaten more oil olivo, carne y marisco (olive oil, meat and seafood) than I have in the last 3 months combined. This truly is not an exaggeration. Spaniards are very proud of their olive oil (I didn't it realize Spain makes olive oil till I got here...) It is pretty much their ___ of choice (fill in whatever word you'd like related to the cooking and consumption (e.g. sauce, dressing, base, )). And more than anything, it's really the amount of olive oil that they use that impresses me. Almost unfathomable amounts.

- I have also eaten some truly amazing Spanish food, just about every single meal. This is all thanks to my incredible new Spanish/Persian Mom, Mitra. She is an incredible chef. Every night tomato gazpacho, tapas, jamon, spicy meat, paella, the works. If it has meat and fresh vegetables, she makes it! It's incredible. I'm being totally spoiled. When I live on my own I'm going to be so disappointed by my own food!

-So for all my friends back in the states, here's a few things to put the US in perspective: Most things here are crazy expensive. Pens (you know the cheapest ones from walmart with the black caps? the ones that cost like 99 cents?) 4.50 euros here! (about 6 bucks!) Plastic water bottle: 19 euro. Writing notebook: 7 euro. Lined paper: O that's right, they don't have it in Spain! Only graph paper. Very interesting...I would have thought lined would be more popular and less expensive with less ink?...who knows...Also, Spanish unemployment is at a ghastly 20% - twice as much as in the US. I was truly shocked by this number. I knew that Spain's economic situation was pretty horrific, but I couldn't believe it was this bad!

-Im currently living with a Baha'i family outside of Madrid (about 1.20 hours with public transport each way. very far and wont be able to keep this up forever, but surviving the commute for now). This family is honestly God-sent I swear. I've never experienced such hospitality, love and warmth from people that were my complete strangers. From the moment they greeted me, the Mahrami's have treated me as nothing less than family. Our time spent together almost always consists in learning and laughing over our different languages. A few words weve worked on were the subtle differences between "desert" and "dessert". Although very clear to native speakers, these two words tend to cause quite a bit of confusion for others. Also the English hard "E" as in "sheets" is often pronounced as a soft i...making the word......sh*ts! Haha I got quite a good laugh out of my host-father's mispronunciation of this one

Wow, I have so much more to say, but I think I'll save it for another post. Hope everyone is doing well, and thank you to all for the birthday wishes! (turning 21 is spain dosent have the same excitement as in the US since I can already go to bars here and I don't drink. However, now I can vote in Baha'i elections!)