city of Gold, Gringos and Gangstas

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Don't think I can get more lucky. A friend from class invited me to stay at her parent’s vacation home close to Malaga for the weekend. She ‘forgot’ to mention that it was a condo with a huge pool in front, a view of the ocean and has the biggest Jacuzzi I have ever seen. She also didn’t mention that ‘close to Malaga’ really means, in Marbella, one of southern Spain’s ritziest holiday getaways. She also a car, so we cruised the Autopista de Mediteranea through rolling hillsides of olive trees, stucco houses, herds of sheep and remnants of white washed ancient villas. It was the most beautiful drive I have ever seen.

I’m still stuck with this cold, and I’ve heard that as long as I am a student in Spain I can get free doctor visits whether or not I have insurance. I love Spain. However, while I’m here, Margarita (which is actually a typical name in Ukraine as well as Spanish speaking countries) told me that she knew of something that would help my congestion. Turns out the walk to beach is lined with eucalyptus trees so aromatic that not only could I smell them (a feat in itself), but you can feel it in your skin as you walk past. Heavenly.

This week I started new classes, the first half with a new teacher who I like and the second half with the same teacher from last month who is only interested in talking about sex, swear words and ‘chocolate’ (code name for weed that you can buy in the Albycin). She can be funny, but I don’t feel like I am learning anything even remotely useful. Well… unless I want to make explicitly inappropriate remarks while asking for sex and drugs of the gypsies of Granada, which I guess could maybe be possible. . . (that was a bad humored joke).

Anyway, this class more encompasses the culture of Spain, and how it differs from the native countries of people in the class. We a couple new additions, our class now represents the US, China, Australia, Ukraine, France, Germany and Italy, so talking about norms is fascinating. Just so you all at home feel more prepared for your trip you are planning to Spain (because I’m sure by now you are….) I’ll recap the most important of the culture lessons. First off, Spaniards hardly ever say ‘thank you’ and never ‘muchas gracias’ unless they know they are talking to a foreigner. Instead, if you are at someone’s home for dinner, you are excepted to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ over all the different foods, and then invite them to your home for the dinner the next time. You could leave without ever saying ‘thank you’ and it would be perfectly acceptable. We Americans could never leave someone’s home without saying ‘thank you’, even to our own mothers, who I’ve heard Spanish mothers are offended if they are thanked by their children or family. This is understandable I guess. However, another tradition of Spain, is to reject the first offer of anything that someone wants to give you. For example, if you go to someone’s house and they offer to make you a bocadillo (sandwhich), you are supposed to decline initially until the other person insists a second time, and then you are okay to accept. It is really quite unproductive and superfluous but ‘when in Rome…’.

The point of this pointless Spanish culture lesson though, is that, after class I was to meet with my intercambio named Marie Carmen (like everyone else in Spain) and we would practice Spanish and English. We met, had a great conversation even though our communication was somewhat lacking, but within the hour she had already told me that the next time I came to Granada I could stay in her big house, that she wanted me to come over and eat with her and her family sometime soon, and that she wanted to introduce me to her 25 year old son. Did I make the right choice picking her, or what? However, its polite for me to invite her to my house someday where I can’t cook anything and it smells of the rotting pig leg that my roommates refuses to part with. I think I’ll just bring the wine and hope that it will be enough.

I will be sure to tell you all about my weekend in Marbella as soon as I get home (listen to me calling my pig-leg smelling piso “home”).

Da, Spasiba, (which means ‘yes, thank you’ in Russian),
Annie

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