I read a lot about Spain before I came here. I tried to learn something about the culture, about the people, politics, the education system, etc. I bought a couple guidebooks, I read travel websites like Lonely Planet. I also had a lot of opportunities to talk to students from Spain or American students who had studied in Spain.
But the thing that threw me off the most when I got here was the toilet.
Nowhere in any of those travel books did it explain how to flush a toilet in Spain. When I first got to my host family´s house, I spent about 5 minutes looking everywhere around the toilet for the little lever thing. I even looked on the floor, because in the airport in Paris, you have to press a little button on the ground with your foot to flush the toilet (it took me about 10 minutes to find that one). But I finally figured it out, and in case you ever go to Spain, there´s a silver knob thing on top that you pull up, and that flushes the toilet.
It´s the small things that cause me the most confusion, (and the most amusement).
I live with my host aunt, Cristina and her mother, Josefa. There´s also my host madre y padre, but they´re not in their house a lot, so everyone decided that I would be more comfortable here. They´re wonderful, and they are so hospitable; I absolutely adore my family here. The best part about living in Vigo is that my host family doesn´t speak English. Cristina knows a little English, so if I have no clue, then she can try to explain it to me. But the rest of my family here doesn´t know a word of English. I feel like I´ve learned so much Spanish already, just because I have to speak Spanish to everyone I meet here.
Another cultural thing that I´ve noticed is that people here eat a lot. No, seriously, A LOT. My host madre told me that they eat 5+ times a day in Spain. There´s breakfast, a mid-morning meal (which I´m going to call second breakfast,) lunch, a mid-afternoon meal, and then dinner. I always thought that I could eat a decent amount of food, but apparently not by Spanish standards. But the food here is amazing, so I try to eat as much of it as I can. It´s good. Really really good. :-)
I´m going to start shopping around for classes tomorrow, and I have a lot of things that I have to do, so I don´t know when I´m going to update this next. But I´m planning on talking more about food, how pretty it is here, and anything else that I can think of. And I have pictures, and I´ll try to upload those ASAP.
A mis amigos en los EEUU, !os pierdo muchísimo!
