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| Through an historic Roman arch we see the Spanish countryside. Welcome to Spain! |
We’ve been in Spain for just over three weeks. Our first week traveling in Barcelona, Madrid and Segovia was as varied as these three cities. In Barcelona, we saw some of the city, Parque Güell, La Sagrada Familia and Las Ramblas , but our hotel was right across the street from the beach on the Mediterranean Sea. So we had a beach holiday too!
In Madrid, we went to the Palacio Real and El Museo de la Reina Sofía and explored Spain’s largest city. When we got to Segovia, we were ready for a small city we could ‘navigate’ well with our budding understanding of Spanish life and our growing confidence and ‘sea legs’. So, we wandered the city, wondering about Spanish life, the history of the structures we saw and our upcoming experience in Salamanca.
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| After a wonderful flamenco show, a great group picture |
Now that we’re here in Salamanca, we’ve been going to classes and learning to live with a ‘strange’ family – in the sense that they are different from the real strangers here - us. We are learning to ‘read’ them through their gestures, tone, intonation, voicing, language, customs and culture. They must find us to be very odd, too! In many ways, we are all becoming self aware because we are learning to see ourselves as we are reflected in them. The way our host families respond to what we say and do makes us understand how what we think is “normal” changes when the cultural context changes.
We meet in La Plaza Mayor everyday at a quarter past noon, after our morning classes. All 34 of us seem to be bonding in many ways. It’s fun to see how this group of people – some of whom didn’t even know each other before the trip – are becoming close, because we are all experiencing Salamanca together.
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| La Plaza Mayor de Salamanca! |
We’re visiting museums, seeing Spanish films, going to el rastro – the Sunday morning flee market – eating Spanish snacks and meals, buying Spanish clothes and souvenirs, playing guitar, dancing and getting ready for the big challenge of the trip – going 24 and 48 hours without speaking, listening, reading or writing any English at all! That’s going to be really hard for us, but it’s an amazing and invaluable experience, if we sincerely try.
There have been a lot of pictures swimming around on Facebook, Twitter and in email. Our Twitter account (http://www.twitter.com/Salamazing) seems to be turning yours truly (Mr Murphy / Señor / Murph) into a bird – at least that’s the silly - no - corny joke that I made one day. The pictures give you a slice of our life here, as we are living it by capturing the moment, a cultural artifact or a fun new experience. Check it out and come along with us as we open the door to Spanish culture. It’s Salamazing!!!
¡A por ello! Yo soy español, español, español. Yo soy español, español. Yo soy....
