Blog Day 1

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Looking Inward

Being my first day in Spain—and ever in a different country—my first day was filled with lots of learned knowledge about myself that were exploited by the differences surrounding me. The main thing I noticed about myself was how I change in situations I am not very comfortable in. There were a few times in Barcelona where I had to interact with a worker or other person in the city to buy something or interact with them in some other way and although it was very little Spanish, I could feel my uncomfort and just had to say what I knew and be more confident with it. For example, when I was paying for a coffee at the airport, I knew how to greet and say thank you in Spanish so even though It was the very basics, those small things felt weird in a legitimate Spanish context and saying them would build a very strong basis for the Spanish I will work on over the rest of this trip.

The Relational Level

Relationships with peers on the first day developed quickly and spontaneously. Going into this trip, I was pretty nervous having not known anyone in the group very well prior and seeing other groups of friends that all knew each other. To combat this, I made sure to wander a lot and meet as many people as I could whenever I could and get comfortable during the waiting times in the airport. For example, when waiting in a line, I tried to pick a different group of people to stand with so I could talk to them and get to know them while waiting. The way I saw it, we could all stand around and talk to only who we knew prior or we could take advantage of the otherwise “wasted” time to build the bonds early. Relationships form pretty naturally for me, so this was not a problem or uncomfortable experience at all, just something that was either going to happen over the first week or over the first twenty-four hours. I decided to choose the latter and per the Culture Smart book, this is how Spanish culture would operate anyways.

The Social Side

I would say that my biggest concern for this whole trip was the aspect of being thrown into another culture and society I was very uncomfortable with and having to take what I had and go with it. It was sort of like being tested on material from a random class that you took 3 years ago, having never taken Spanish at a college level. The biggest social shock that occurred during my first day was when I went to a café to buy coffee and the cashier didn’t look me in the eyes during the transaction. In America it is very custom to maintain eye contact and smile during interactions or passing on the street, but not as much so in Spain or Portugal in the airport. I am not saying it was uncomfortable, necessarily, but more of caught me off guard and really showed me that little things such as eye contact can be very different in other cultures as discussed in the Culture Smart book about Spanish culture.

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