This blog post comes nearly a month late as I have been having a difficult time finding a concise way to express the multitude of thoughts and feelings that are floating around my head. The goal for this blog post was to paint a picture about my holiday experience abroad, whether that involves missing home, cultural differences, the vacation time spent with my family and boyfriend or a reflection on my experience as I pass the half way point. So here it goes…
I have found that one of the hardest parts about being abroad is not being in my native land for the holidays. It is when I get the most homesick and antsy to be around those I love. Although I can say that living abroad and not being home for the holidays has, on the contrary, made me greater appreciate the way my country celebrates the winter holidays and more thankful that for the last 22years I have been able to spend each season with family and friends. Not to mention it is times like these when you have the opportunity to reflect on cultural differences.
This year (well 2012) it was right as Thanksgiving was approaching that all I wanted was a warm house, filled with the smell of turkey coming from the oven, and the company of those I missed the most. I even wanted to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which I know isn't the most thrilling but its' tradition to at least have it playing in the background at home all morning in the Warner household. The images of the Macy's parade, as giant balloon characters, high school marching bands and pop singers aren't exactly something Spaniards would ever have strolling the streets. Spain doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. What Spaniards seem to know about our holiday comes from the Hollywood depiction (of course) of family members sitting around a huge table, overeating foods they have never heard of (besides turkey)nor would they eat for dinner. Let's not even get started with letting them imagine Black Friday. In the States we all know what happens after stuffing our faces with turkey, the spirit of Christmas begins for most with the music, decorations and shopping. Unfortunately, Spain is different.
Let me paint you a picture of Spain and Christmas. The Spanish have adopted Christmas from America. This is predominately a Catholic country and most people more commonly celebrate January 5th, which is called "dia de los reyes" or Day of the Three Wise Men/Three kings. On the eve of January 4th the three kings visit the houses and deliver presents to the children, obviously this is very similar to our Santa Claus (Papa Noel). Now a days, most families with young children do both Santa Claus and the Three Kings. That's a lot of shopping if you ask me. It was interesting to have the holiday season approach and be working with kids in the high school setting and in my private tutoring sessions. I would ask the students about Christmas, hoping for some faces to light up, yet they just never seemed to really care or take much interest in it. It was so odd to me and quite frankly disappointing. The students I tutor didn’t know the classic songs like Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman, Let it Snow or even A Charlie Brown Christmas. Gingerbread houses? Nope. That red and green are Christmas colors? Nope. The image of a white Christmas? Nope. My Spanish floor mate straight up told me Christmas isn't that important to him and that it seems like just one big commercialized holiday in America. True but C’MON!!!! Por Dios. The one thing Spain does a great job of though is putting up spectacular festive lights in the streets. I don't know how they can afford it with the cost of electricity but Europeans are always about looking good and putting on a good show.
All I could keep thinking about was that I love Christmas time in the States. I love the lights on the houses. I love the smell of the Christmas tree. I love the holiday cookie exchanges. I love wearing red and green. I love wrapping gifts. I love listening to Delilah on 106.9. I love the chill in the air and seeing the snow capped Olympic Mountains. I love listening to my sister play holiday music on the Piano. I love the spirit of it all. But why? And why did not having any of these things create this unexpected small tear in my heart? WHY? I realized it’s because of how I grew up and how I am most comfortable. Spending the Christmas season in Spain suddenly made me feel like a fish without water. Maybe that seems like a dramatic analogy but imagine not having the ability to be comfortable during the holidays! Comfort is the definition of the holiday season whether it’s the lights, family, food or music.
Jenna and I in front of the festive lights in Sevilla
Now by this point you can probably imagine, I was rather excited that my family would be arriving in Sevilla on Christmas Eve. They were really the most important part that was missing. I had planned out their 6 days in Spain and was beyond excited to show them where I live and teach them first hand all about the Spanish culture. I eagerly waited for their late train to arrive and spent the whole time contemplating whether it would be appropriate to start sprinting towards them once they unloaded from the train. Finally, their train arrived and I saw three tall people, wheeling their carry-on suitcases at a brisk pace. They reminded me of three windup toys having a race down the train platform. You can imagine after having been wound up for 26 hrs of travel (or maybe 4 months) and finally being released upon exiting of the train it was quite a site. I instantly recognized their individual "waddles". I started waving but no one responded. Awkward. Thanks family. So I waited in one spot. More awkwardness. I knew they finally saw me cause mom and Jenna started running full speed ahead. It was a wonderful and gratifying reunion filled with teary eyes, smiles and never ending hugs. YEAH! (I guess the sun was shining in their eyes so they didn’t see me standing there!) On Christmas Eve in Spain, everything closes as the entire evening is dedicated to family time. Therefore I brought them to my apartment and prepared a dinner while our favorite holiday movie, Elf, played in the background. Dinner was quite entertaining as the 26 hours of travel were catching up to them. Jenna legitimately feel asleep sitting up as I was telling her a story. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as her head snapped backward. She never fails to provide unintentional humor.
We spent the first three nights in Sevilla. I showed them my favorite tapas bars, viewpoints, running routes and shopping areas. It was a bit odd to not spend Christmas Day in front of our tree, in our pajamas, being lazy and then preparing for the evening Christmas dinner but we were fortunate to have beautiful weather in Sevilla. The last half of our trip we visited Ronda and Granada. Ronda is a one of the most beautiful, authentic small towns in the South of Spain that any visitor must include on their route list. It is a bit hard to get there via public transportation so we bravely rented a car and drove through the countryside admiring the random old castles, rolling green hills, farm animals and sunshine. From Ronda’s small streets, the slower pace, the local food, the farmhouses, the old bullring and the Spanish people it provided a good contrast to the city life of Sevilla. After getting a taste of Ronda we continued 2 more hours East to Granada. We only had one full day in Granada but it was enough to get a taste of the city I spent 4 months studying in during the fall of 2010. Overall, mom liked Ronda the best, dad preferred Granada and Jenna liked Sevilla. Goes to show you the diversity of this country and how much just three cities have to offer. With the parents becoming empty nesters this year, this trip was a bit different from others and it was mostly about enjoying the limited time we had together as a family unit and I could not have been more thankful for that.
Ronda, Spain
A happy family in Granada!
It was the 30th. A day of mixed feelings as it was unfortunately already time to say goodbye to my family yet time to say hello to my boyfriend, JT. Coincidently their flight was leaving a few hours after JT landed so we were all in the airport together for a few minutes. I felt like I was dreaming. JT and I said good bye to the family and ventured to our Madrid hotel where we would spend the next 3 nights including the most anticipated event of his 12 days in Spain, NEW YEARS!!! I can't really put into words how excited I was for the next 12 days. It was about to be a dream come true. The first night out we were walking through the streets and there was people everywhere, screaming and shouting, drinking and hanging out with friends. Apparently they were having a pre-new years eve celebration as New Year's Eve is typically spent inside with just family. It was quite a sight. The highlight of our time in Madrid was New Year's Eve. It was recommended to make a dinner reservation somewhere as most bars and restaurants are closed and don't open up until after midnight. But we figured we would wing it and not spend over 85euro per person on a meal. That quickly proved to be a bad idea. We ate fast food pizza in the rainy street and had a few fancy tapas. I guess that's what happens when you're stubborn and cheap (my fault!). But all that was quickly forgotten as midnight approached. We went to Puerta del Sol where everyone goes to watch the clock strike midnight. There is a Spanish tradition of eating 12 grapes on each stroke of the clock at midnight with each grape representing a wish for the New Year. One comment about the grapes: easier said than done, especially if your grapes have seeds. In order to digest our grapes we spent the rest of the night and part of the morning dancing at a 7 story Spanish dance club (or Discoteca as they call it).
After the constant hustle and bustle in the capital city we were both looking forward to a few days in the small town of Aracena, about an hour outside of Sevilla. The highlights of our visit were seeing limestone caves (SO COOL!), hiking through the Spanish country side, seeing the famous black pigs, eating local food, watching the sunset and simply relaxing. Following Aracena it was back to Sevilla where we would spend the rest of our time. We did anything from running, cooking, site seeing, watching the Seahawks in a Spanish bar, going out at night and enjoying anything and everything Spanish. One of the highlights of our time in Sevilla was taking JT to work with me. I was a bit nervous about how the kids would react to him as I still get stared at four months later and I could only imagine their faces as two tall, fair skinned foreigners strolled through the hallways. The first class was only a preparation period with the chemistry teacher but Pedro showed JT the chemistry lab which was of great interest to him. What a nerd! The last class was Ethics with 15 year olds. The teacher had asked the students to prepare questions for JT to answer. They could ask anything. JT got to describe his job on the submarine which isn’t easy telling to non native speakers but apparently he gets that question a lot and therefore has had a lot of practice with “dumbing it down”. They actually understood him. My favorite questions were “how long have you been with Mandy?” and “where did you meet her?”. I wasn’t expecting them to go out on such a limb, but what else would you expect teenagers to care about beside the facts of your personal lives and the chance to embarrass you a little. We all had a good laugh and luckily JT answered the questions correctly J. The following week the teacher told me that after JT and I left the class all the girls thought JT was quite adorable. Good thing he was only there for one day. After school we headed to my tutoring classes. I was thrilled to have a partner to help me out. Rosa (9yrs old and speaks fluent English) was pretty excited to play with him. We passed the hour playing a competitive and high level game of hangman. Let’s just say Rosa and JT are both competitive so they got along pretty well. Now, Rosa likes to semi make fun of me for having a boyfriend. One of her homework assignments consisted of coloring a boy and girls clothing. She proceeded to label them as JT and Mandy, drew a heart between us and then sent JT a picture message of it. Little booger, but all in good fun. The second tutoring session was with the group of 4 six year olds. They didn’t know he was coming with me and man the expression on their faces showed it. They eventually got comfortable as we proceeded with the lesson but I have to say it was by far their best behavior I’ve seen in four months. Basically, JT and I had an over the top Spanish vacation and the only bad part was that he had to go home.
Ringing in the New Year!
Sunset in Aracena!
Enjoying a beautiful day in Sevilla!
I spent some considerable time reflecting after my family and JT had left. There have been many mixed emotions in the first four months of my time in Spain and having visitors solidified and complicated some of these thoughts. Yes, don't get me wrong I have been enjoying this semi unreal lifestyle but there are moments more often than not that I purely just miss America. I've determined I am not meant to live in the foreign land for the rest of my life. I think many of my friends and family and maybe even myself a bit, thought I wasn't even going to come back. But I can't express to you enough how much I long for the everyday convenience and seemingly normal things that belong solely in the USA. Right now, many assistants in my program are in the process of reapplying for the same position next year. I'm impressed they could do it again. I frankly couldn't. It's not just that I miss my friends, family and boyfriend but I don't think I could handle the Spanish educational system, the aggressive Spanish personalities, the food, the lifestyle etc. I was born and raised in American and that's where I belong. For now I feel a bit refreshed and ready to enjoy the next four months to its fullest. I already booked my flights to ITALY for SPRING BREAK!!!
Thanks for reading this long one. Congrats if you made it this far. Hope 2013 has been great so far!
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