I'm writing this post exactly one year after I left for Spain: August 24th. I’ve been back in the U.S. for almost three weeks now. Door-to-door travel from Granada to San Anselmo took 30
hours, but everything went perfectly smoothly and I was rewarded at the end by
a burrito with all the fixings that my very wise parents brought to the
airport.
My feelings were mixed as I left
Granada. I was itching to get out of there by the end, since only one friend
was left in the city and temperatures surpassed 100 every day. But I didn’t
know if I was ready to come back home, after having just completed the most
amazing month traveling through Europe. I almost envisioned myself purposefully
missing my flight and setting up camp in an entirely new country next
year—Study Abroad Round 2—but I dutifully boarded (and was grateful for doing so
when I saw the list of amazing comedies to choose from on the plane).
Day after day I kept waiting for
the reverse culture shock to set in. Sure, I didn’t study in a remote village
without electricity or even a third world country, but surely I would feel some
difference being back! Not the case. Upon
arriving home I felt that I had been gone a solid three days. 72 hours. And I still
feel that way, three weeks later. Nothing
feels altered, nothing feels foreign. Granada seems like a distant memory.
Looking back, though, I felt hardly any culture shock when I first moved to
Spain either, even while others were struggling with homesickness or changed
schedules or language barriers. Which either means I’m an insensitive freak or
adaptable. I’ll go with the second.
I don’t talk about my experience
very much, as people usually skim the surface with general questions like “how
was it?” and then change the topic. I don’t mind, though. I know what Spain did
for me and I don’t really find the need or desire to express it to
everyone—anyway, they can just read my blog! I have been trying to speak
Spanish a lot with bilingual friends or people I meet around here, although
100% of encounters have started with the other party commenting on my thick
southern Spanish accent. Little by little I might have to lose the lisp, the
‘vosotros,’ and maybe add some of those dropped –s’s back in so people don’t
ask me to clarify. But I’ll always speak grana’ino at heart.
I haven’t spent a summer at home
since I started college, and although I had strong reservations about staying
five weeks here after Spain, I have to say I’m loving it. Catching up with old
friends, running or hiking every day, enjoying 75° weather in SUMMER. . . . why
did I ever leave Marin in the first place? And great news, I just went to the
dentist and I still don’t have any cavities, even after a year of chino candy,
gelato, sweet sangria and a manual toothbrush. Here’s to good genes.
In a job application I recently
filled out, I was asked to explain how EAP changed me. Here’s my answer, and
hopefully it sums up my experience well. Thanks for following the blog; it’s
been so much fun updating it, even though I’ll probably read it years from now
and think what an idiot I sounded like in so many posts: “Today we went to
6,123 rounds of tapas and beer. Spain is just sooooo great!!”
How did your experience abroad change you?
After being back in the U.S. for only two weeks, I notice
that I got a little tanner from that strong Spanish sun, a little wider from a
year’s worth of tapas, a little more stylish after being stared down at one too
many times while wearing yoga pants to class. But luckily the changes go far
deeper. Studying abroad gave me a new perspective on being the underdog
academically, struggling to write college-level papers during the first
semester when my vocabulary was perhaps that of a grade-schooler. My time spent
there changed me linguistically, as I can now add Spanish to my repertoire of
fluent languages. It strengthened me emotionally, as I’ve never been on my own
in a foreign country for such an extended period of time.
But what I’m most excited to explore are my changed ways of
thinking and behaving after spending the best year of my life in a southern
Spanish city. My will to become fluent made me more outgoing, as I would start
conversations with anyone I could, simply to practice: a new father holding his
baby girl in Plaza Bib-Rambla; taxi drivers with such strong Southern accents
that even my best Spanish friends had trouble understanding; my history
professor during office hours, who seemed more inclined to discuss the best
tapas bars rather than exam papers. I made such good friends with a pair of
elderly women while listening to street music in Barcelona that they insisted
on getting my U.S. telephone number so they could call me at Christmas. I
lowered my guard and let a swarm of strangers into my life, and in return I
improved my language skills, my appreciation for Spanish culture, and my
sociability, What once would seem like impossible risks, like couchsurfing or
hiking 70 miles through Northern Spain alone, turned into incredible
possibilities to converse and make new connections with people from all over.
I learned what it is to be a part of two cultures, and to let
myself blend into the new one while maintaining much of the original. After the
initial shock of entering such a laid-back lifestyle—no more student clubs, no
part-time job, even the classes were much less demanding—I found new ways to
become involved, like tutoring two little boys in English twice a week, and
helping a policeman pass his English oral exam. But after a few months in
Spain, it became clear that the typical American way of thinking—that if you’re
not moving, then you’re a waste of space—simply doesn’t apply. I came to
appreciate the beauty in slowing down and spending 3 hours drinking a coffee
with friends, or taking a siesta during the middle of the day if I felt so
inclined. The culture is brimming with this rich social tradition, one that
places such importance on family that stores close for a three-hour lunch
break. I will be forever grateful for my time in Granada for infusing me with
some of these same values.
But perhaps more than anything,
studying abroad made me more self-assured. More assured that I can in fact successfully negotiate electric bills, final
exam topics, and missed trains in a foreign language. More assured that leaving
one home always means I’ll find another. And now back at home, more confident
than ever that I am finally studying the right major at UCSB, after trying out
several subjects and interests over the past two years. Every day in Granada I
was challenged and inspired to improve my language skills and put them to good
use. The linguistics nerd inside of me enjoyed even a professor’s droning
monologue because it meant that I could fixate on how and why and when he
paired certain words together. Each time I would successfully employ a new
idiom or the subjunctive tense I would internally celebrate, as though I had
just done something much more significant than produce a phrase that actually
made sense.
I know now that the relationship
between language and culture truly inspires me. My time in Spain steered me
toward my true academic passion after spending the better part of my education
succeeding academically but without any direction. As I enter my senior year
and think about what comes next, this new direction couldn’t come at a more
opportune time.