The first....

Something I've been talking about with people that I think is really interesting about this whole experience is all the new firsts. I feel like a lot of times in life when people get bored of their routine it's because they aren't making an effort to create some new firsts in their lives. Here everyday there is a new first. My first time walking down a particular street, my first time trying a new tapas place, my first time using a new Spanish word I just learned, and the list goes on and on. This brings an excitement and a joy to each and every day that is not only beautiful but motivating. When I think about my life at home there are still plenty of firsts that occur but since that is the life I have known for 21 years, sometimes it takes a little more effort to make those firsts happen.

The beauty about being in another country is the fact that you don't even have to make an effort to have 20 firsts in a day. I'll list some that have stood out in my mind in my time that I've spent here so far.

The funniest part about a lot of the interactions I'm going to describe is the fact that to these people it was probably just the same old daily routine but for me it was a momentous occasion. For example...

The first time I asked for directions in Spain was when Paul and I were walking back from class and we got really lost so I had to ask directions and find our way home. It was just a fun thing walking up to some random person and speaking to them in another language and then using the information you get from them.

The first genuine conversation I had in Spanish was with the girl who works the desk at the gym when I was getting the tour of the gym I'm now a member of. I remember at the beginning of the convo I was stumbling over words and having trouble getting a thought out but as I relaxed I was belting Spanish. To her it may have just been showing around another potential climate but to me it was a big step in my Spanish experience. It's hard and sometimes scary to do these things and put yourself out there but when you do the result is almost always a great one.

The first genuine Spanish greeting I ever had was a few days ago at a club with a Spanish girl from the university of Granada. We were talking at the club and the regular Spanish greeting when you meet a girl is "dos besos" which is the kiss on either cheek, its the equivalent of shaking someone's hand in the states. So I met her, found out her name was Celia and did the dos besos and it was the first time I had done it in a real context, not a joking manner with other study abroad students. All these little things that help you assimilate more and more may seem like nothing to people around you but they make such a difference to you. Then I thought it was kind of funny at the end of our conversation she said in very broken English, "It was nice to meet you." So I had a genuine Spanish greeting and she gave a typical English goodbye.

The first real, deep conversation I ever had in Spanish was with my host mother Mavi one night after dinner. We sat and talked for close to 2 hours about life, relationships, just about anything you could imagine. She told me a lot about her divorce and the struggles she went through and still battles with on a day to day basis. It was a very honest candid conversation and she said something that really struck me, she said, "People come to other countries and are enjoying themselves so much that they can't imagine why people in that country would ever be sad. But the truth of the matter is no matter what color, race, creed, or religion you are every person wants the same thing. Every person wants love, friends, acceptance, and to find happiness. We all want those things but they are not easy to find." It really opened my eyes about this whole experience. We are all still in the "honeymoon phase" of  this experience where everything is perfect and we don't have a care in the world. But it's important to realize that people all around the world deal with the same things we do. Heartbreak, sadness, relationships ending and of course the opposite end of the spectrum in finding new love, making new friends, and finding the joy in every day. It's funny when you don't even realize you have preconceived notions about a group of people until you spend a great deal of time with them, for some reason we have this delusion that everything in Europe is perfect when in reality it's a lot more like the states than we realize.

It's just a great feeling when you walk away from an experience and go, wow that was the first time that has ever happened in my life. Without a doubt that particular situation had never occurred before and now it is a new experience to build on.

Here's a list of a few more of my firsts since I arrived here, I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch but here's what I can think of at the moment.

My first time...

- In Europe
- Climbing a mountain (In the Alpujarras)
- Living in a country with a language different than my own
- Living with a host family
- Staying out at a club until 7am
- Eating tapas
- Having a drink at an outdoor bistro
- Meeting people from Spain, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, England in Europe
- Going to a Chupiterria
- Eating a kebab
- Realizing how weak the dollar is compared to the Euro
- Saying something stupid in Spanish to a Spanish person and getting the "Oh my God, what an American." look
- Experiencing the Spanish schedule and way of life
- Joining a gym in a foreign country
- Trying both Burger King and McDonald's abroad
- Saying "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" then saying that again the next day and having it be true
- Trying hookah
- Experiencing a broma (Spanish word for a lighthearted joke)
- Writing a blog
- Skyping someone from Spain
- Experiencing all the things that I have heard about for years about traveling

I think in life it gets very easy to become complacent. To just accept what you have, where you're at, and to be not necessarily afraid of change but to try to avoid it whenever possible. I think in life finding working to keep finding firsts is one of the most important things you can do. By trying something new or doing something that puts you completely out of your comfort zone you learn so much about yourself as well as the world around you. How can you know what you will love in life unless you try everything?

People often get so caught up in things and they avoid these firsts. "I don't have enough money" or "I don't have time" well I've always been a firm proponent of having more experiences than having more money and I've found when you want to find time for something, there is almost always a way to do so. I am going to keep working to have those firsts keep coming on a day to day basis and to make sure that I keep putting myself out there in ways I never have before.

I'm going to close out this entry with a quote from one of my favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother, that I think fits in very nicely with this whole entry.

"The great moments in life won't necessarily be the things you do, they'll also be the things that happen to you. Now I'm not saying you can't take action to affect the outcome of your life, you have to take action, and you will, but never forget that on any day you could step out the front door, and your whole life could change forever." - How I Met Your Mother

Sevilla, Ronda, and culture shock...

We had an orientation session a few days ago from a psychologist who was absolutely ridiculous, I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth at certain points but for all her spacy, incoherent rambling she did talk about one thing that was very interesting to me and that was "culture shock".

Now I've been hearing all about culture shock since I even talked about the idea of doing a study abroad and everyone seemed to describe it a little differently but many people said it simply was adjusting to all the new and different cultural stimuli that you would encounter in a new country. I figured it would take some time but wouldn't be hard but I'm surprised at how different culture shock is than I expected.

The way the space case psychologist described it is "When the brain has so much external stimuli that it literally can not process it, so instead it just reverts to the base necessity functions to live and you just continue moving through your experience." So basically there is so much external stimuli that you can't actually process all of the things you are seeing, feeling, hearing, etc. Now in the past few trips we've have taken and just my time here I've been realizing how real culture shock really is. I landed in Spain and still couldn't believe I was here. There are still times that I'll be walking through the streets with my friends from the program and will just pause and say, "Guys... we're in Spain" and even after saying it, it doesn't quite register. A few days ago I was standing on top of a mountain in the Alpujarras and as I was going through the photos two days ago it just hit me, that was some of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. Living in a new country it seems like there are many times where your brain is playing catch up so I'm hoping by keeping this blog and writing down all my experiences by the time my brain catches up I won't have forgotten anything.

I will say this though. I thought culture shock was gonna be one big shock and then all of a sudden one day it would turn around. I've come to understand now that it happens gradually bit by bit and the other day I was walking through the plaza by the IES abroad center on my way to take my oral exam and I was doing something VERY American, walking and listening to my ipod. There are times where you want to work to assimilate and appear as Spanish as possible (very easy for a white irish kid with bright red hair) and other times where you just want to act American and one of my favorite things is listening to music while I walk so I went for a paseo (long walk) with my music and as I walked into the plaza the song "Beautiful People" came on on my Ipod and the sun was just setting over the buildings creating this beautiful orange light all around, there was a large group of hippies playing music on homemade instruments, and there were about 15 or 20 dogs running around playing with each other and as I looked around seeing all the friendly, smiling faces of the Spanish people around me for one moment, one beautiful moment it just washed over me. I'm in Spain. In that moment I was filled with a whole body euphoric feeling that I really can't compare to anything I've ever felt in my life. It was such a simple experience but it was life changing, one of those things you hear about in study abroad stories and I finally experienced it for myself. I know there is plenty more of that coming and I can't wait for each new experience!

 I had forgotten I had a picture of that particular plaza but this is pretty much exactly what it was like in that moment I described earlier.

Now I wanna talk about the weekend I just had. We took a one day excursion to Sevilla and a partial day excursion to Ronda and literally both were life changing for different reasons.

Sevilla

Now I have been hearing about Sevilla since I started considering study abroads and it actually initially was my first choice but ultimately there were no spots available. After spending my time there I realized that it's an amazing place but Granada is definitely my city!

So it started at 7:45 AM on Friday when we met at the bus stop at Neptuno which is our go to spot for IES sponsored trips. Everyone was tired and a little burnt out from going out the night before but here in Spain we really don't let that slow us down too much. It was three hours in a sauna of a bus where most people slept and me, Jack, Alex, and Paul quoted just about every movie you could ever think of. We arrived in Sevilla and to our shock and pleasant surprise it was much warmer in Sevilla. Comfortable walking around in t-shirt and jeans in February is something I am NOT used to but I am thoroughly enjoying it. So we toured through an amazing beautiful park and saw some truly amazing things.

And let me just pause for a second to say that the pictures I have posted and will post can't even come  CLOSE to the real thing. We keep looking at our pictures and although they're breathtaking we just keep saying, it just doesn't even come close to doing it any justice. That being said lets keep on rollin...

The day just kept getting better and better because each successive thing we saw was more and more incredible. These are some pictures from the garden that we saw in the palace that were incredibly beautiful.

And it keeps on going...

As I learn more about blogging I'll figure out how to mix these pictures in better but for now the long lists are gonna have to do. 

Then we came into an Islamic palace that was incredible but apparently is "Nothing compare to what we will see when we tour the Alhambra".

The architecture and precision is literally mind blowing. They would make these insanely elaborate murals and sculptures out of plaster that were just out of this world. Our program director Javier explained to us that a palace was meant to show a rulers wealth, power, and influence and was also meant to intimidate other visiting rulers. If a ruler came into your palace, every detail had to be perfect and impressive. I can't even imagine how much time it took and one thing we kept discussing is that these things were built hundreds of years ago without any power tools or anything like that. Really incredible.

Then we entered into the part of the palace that was built with Catholic influence 300 years forward in time and it was really fascinating to see the dramatic differences in the styles of architecture. 

Interesting story about this picture right here is that the dollar sign $ came from this Spanish crest. This crest was used during this era by Spanish rulers and it has Latin written on it and clearly someone thought it would look great so the "S" with the two vertical lines through it came from this.

Now this cathedral above was absolutely incredible, the tower on the right was about 300 or 400 feet tall and the architecture and details were just unreal. 

For some reason all the videos I took came out turned 90 degrees so I apologize but its gonna have  to do. This is the plaza where we had some free time before entering the cathedral. And something I forgot to mention was that at the beginning of the trip on the bus I took out my camera to take a picture of the Sierra Nevadas with the sun rising over them and realized to my dismay that my memory card was still in my computer and not in my camera. Then I realized that my Ipod had a pretty decent camera. Over the course of  2 days I took over 400 pictures on this bad boy and I didn't even have my charger. It ended up dying at like 9 PM on the bus on the ride back to Granada so needless to say I'm loving Apple products that much more. And all the pictures and videos for this entry were taken on my Ipod.

So we came to the entrance of this cathedral and it was just innnncredible. It was actually the picture that I started the Sevilla portion of the entry with.

Really just some amazing works of art and architecture. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with my friend while walking through this cathedral just discussing the fact that this existed hundreds and hundreds of years ago and people stood exactly where we stood hundreds of years ago. It's so hard to fathom (more culture shock) when you're standing in a cathedral that existed before the United States was even a country. The ceilings are all amazing and Javier explained to us that the way gothic cathedrals were constructed was in a way that always guided your eyes upward because where is God? Up. So you should be looking up when you are in church. Literally some of the most elaborate paintings and sculptures I have ever seen.

Now the story behind this picture is very interesting. These four men represent the 4 kings of Spain but Javier explained to us that there is a 5th king of Spain. Turns out Granada and Sevilla are kind of rivals. Now a days Sevilla is known as the more "preppy, stuck up" area and Granada is stereotyped as the "hippy town". There is some validity to each one as there is with any stereotype but Granada is not entirely hippies by any stretch. So we asked where the 5th king was represented in this sculpture and Javier pointed to this... 

Under one of the kings speared is a pomegranate that is being stabbed by the bottom of the spear. In Spanish the word Granada means pomegranate. So in the rivalry between the two places they had the respect to acknowledge Granada's existence but in this massive probably 15 foot statue the only recognition Granada gets is a small baseball sized pomegranate at the foot of the other kings. Very interesting little history lesson from Javier.

These two pictures here are of this portion of the church that literally took my breath away. It must have had thousands of individual sculptures of different religious figures and it had to be seventy or eighty feet tall. The picture doesn't do it justice because you stood and looked up and literally just couldn't fathom how someone could make this or how long it would make.

That was a truly incredible experience and after that we returned to the 4 star hotel in Sevilla called Hotel Becquer and it was incredible. 

The pictures are of the room, 2 of our friends from IES Christina and Dana, and then my two roommates for the weekend Jack the one in the green shirt, and Paul my roommate at my homestay. We had a blast in the hotel and it was nice to be able to take a long shower without feeling guilty about it like we do at our homestays. 

So after relaxing for a bit in the hotel we decided to go on a bike paseo with our program director Javier. He knows Spain so well and we knew he would take us on an amazing route. We rode along the river and then to the Worlds Fair Grounds from 1929 and those are most of the pictures below. It was absolutely amazing and just another incredible piece of architecture. 

So we went up to the top of one of the flights of stairs to take pictures and there was a loud salesman selling fans and castinets below us so he calls up to me and the people I was with and says "Ay, amigo" then he does a funny flex pose and points at me, so naturally I laughed then he goes "Te pinchas" and points at me and what that meant in this context is "You take steroids" because he did the flex pose, pointed to his arm, and acted like he was giving himself an injection. So I said "No I don't take steroids" (in Spanish) and he goes "Amigo... (then points to his chest and biceps and says) si te pinchas" so that was basically his way of saying dude you can't fool me its pretty obvious you take steroids. All in all hilarious guy who also screamed I'm sorry at the girls as we walked by him later and freaked them out and none of us really know what he was so sorry about.

This is the balcony where the salesman told me I took steroids and did funny dances for the girls. These are two of my friends from the program Haden on the left and Dana on the right.

So after our paseo we returned to the hotel to get ready for the flamenco show that we had to attend as part of the program and Jack discovered the heat lamp in the bathroom

I'm lying on the bed and all of a sudden I hear Jack pretty much yell from the bathroom, "Dude, were in a f#*&ing submarine". You go ahead and try and tell 3 college dudes that they can't make the simplest things fun and entertaining and they will go ahead and prove you wrong. 

We later went out for tapas with our professors and directors and since we were in Sevilla we had to pay for tapas, something we are not accustomed to in Granada but the portions were huge and the tapas were great. Then we went to the flamenco show and it was absolutely incredible. The man and woman moved with so much speed and intensity, I swear the guitarist had 5 hands the way he played the guitar and the singer was very powerful. All in all that was really a nice cultural experience.

Then naturally we all wanted to go out to party in Sevilla so we talked with some people and found a pub to head to across the bridge over the river. Now during the day many of the students were saying they were jealous of the study abroad students in Sevilla because of the energy the city had during the day. Honestly it had a lot of similarities to American cities, there were people out running and exercising which is not really common in many parts of Spain, most people spoke English, and it's a much larger city. We spoke with Javier and the way he described it was, "Sevilla is a great place, I love Sevilla but it's much better to visit. Day to day Granada is better in every way." We were a little skeptical but after going out for a night almost everyone agreed with Javier's sentiment. 

No one could really put a finger on why but the whole night there was just a feeling of tension in the air. The pub we went to first was called Big Ben and it was dark, dirty, and almost entirely American students. One big difference I noticed was that people in Sevilla didn't seem to be smiling nearly as much as the people in Granada. You are hard pressed to find people who aren't smiling and laughing in Granada but in Sevilla everyone just seemed stressed. 

So we ended up going to a discoteca called Buddha and not only was it an 8 euro cover but one of our friends got kicked out for having on sports shoes. Then one of our friends offered to trade shoes with him and he did, went back up to the door, they made him lift up his pant legs and told him those shoes were too small for his feet and clearly not his so he couldn't enter. I was wearing nice shoes but I had on my light blue Lebron James t-shirt that says witness on it and I had no problem getting in, amazing how shoes are that important to them.

So the club was insane, it had 3 floors, all kinds of bars, and was lavishly decorated. The people there still had that same Sevilla but me and a friend of mine said we were gonna have a good night. So we saw two girls near us at the bar and they seemed to be Spanish so we went over and I started talking to the one girl. I was speaking in Spanish and started talking to her and said a few sentences and she gave me this blank stare. Then I said something else and she shook her head again so I asked if she understood anything I was saying and she shook her head again. Then I stood there for a second really not knowing what to do because I had no idea what else to say then she says, "You're American right?" In perfect English. Then we both laughed heartily, turns out she was Irish and she said, "I'm sorry but I love messing with Americans it's just so easy." So people in Spain do get a kick out of messing with Americans every now and again. 

Now we finally come to Ronda.

Ronda

Now after the ordeals of the night before in Sevilla we were all pleasantly surprised to find that Ronda was a nice, quaint, small city with bustling people in the streets and a much more authentic Spanish feeling. We went and got lunch at a tapas bar and then since me and Paul were still hungry we went to McDonald's.

It was really funny seeing the menu with the "McPollo" and the other funny translations for McDonald's classics. Pollo is the Spanish word for chicken so that is the McChicken in the states. I just had to try McDonald's in Spain to find out if its the same as in the states because I've heard it's better abroad. It tasted exactly the same and was kind of a nice comfort food from home. Burger King on the other hand has much fresher ingredients and did taste pretty different. I know you may be wondering why I'm eating so much American fast food with all the amazing restaurants around but I got 4 months, plenty of time to try it all. 

Now after McDonald's we saw a bridge and went over to look out on it. Thinking it would be just a view of a little river or something I was shocked when I came to the edge and saw literally the most amazing view I have ever seen in my life. Truly, the most beautiful  thing I have ever seen. We were standing on a bridge a couple hundred feet tall looking down on a waterfall that falls into a small lake that has the deepest aqua and greenish colors that works its way through a massive canyon and then out into the countryside then beyond the countryside are the Sierra Nevadas some with snow capped peaks, others without. Truly no words or pictures can capture what I saw on that bridge. Then we went to the other side and saw an equally amazing view.

Paul and I were literally standing at one of the railings looking down on this expanse while birds were flying up out of the valley and behind us a man was playing classical Spanish guitar, it literally felt like we were in a movie. We talked about how we see these things in movies and we know they are real but we are skeptical, we think these beautiful things we see are too amazing to be real but the things we saw here were literally beyond anything I ever could have imagined. 

Then we took a walk down one of the trails and it was so beautiful and we came up to the edge and as I peaked over the edge it was a sheer drop of 400 feet or so straight down. On this part of the trail there were no railings, no protection, if you fell it was game over. So there was a rock people were taking pictures on and I got up to take a picture on it and peeked over the edge and literally straight drop nothing between you and the bottom of the canyon, a very humbling experience. I may have been smiling in the picture but I was terrified. 

Then finally after a life changing day in Ronda we boarded the bus and came back to Granada. We got home around 9:30 PM and then went out for the night, I got home from the club at 7am. 

So all in all this post has taken me pretty much the entire day and all I have talked about is 2 days in Spain. It doesn't seem real that I've only been here about a week and a half and already have done so many amazing things. I am so excited for what this trip will bring to me in the future and will do my best  to take advantage of every opportunity I can while I'm here. 

I feel like my life is changing in such a positive way, I'm learning so much about myself and about a completely new culture. Already in ten days I am starting to grasp how much this trip is going to change my life. But I'm going to stop here because me and some of the other students from the program are headed to Paddy's Irish Pub to watch the Superbowl. It starts at 12:30 at night here but as they say in Granada, "No pasa nada."