Failure :(

Note to self: Don't go out to beer and tapas the night before a final if you want to pass the exam....

           Finals are over here, and grades are out. Overall I'm pretty pleased--in three out of four classes I managed similar grades to those at UCSB. Linguistics of the Golden Age, however, took me down. I guess everyone needs to fail a final exam sometime, right? I'm sort of kidding about my opening statement, though--I did study a lot for the test, and even if I holed myself up in my room reviewing the notes endlessly the night before, I don't think I would have done better on the final. The format and expectations for the exam were too unclear, and even after I asked the professor for help in office hours, my doubts weren't resolved.
          This is what upsets me so much about the Spanish education system. Four months of the semester are spent essentially doing nothing--sure, people attend class, but the information in a lot of my classes was either incredibly repetitive, useless, inapplicable to literally ANYTHING in life, or scattered and hard to follow. So you get used to the idea that education here is really easy and sort of something that is taken lightly, and then BAM, the professors suddenly have sky-high expectations for the final exam. I know that this is true in the U.S. too--often times the final is one of the only scores in the class that determines your final grade. But at least in that case it is made clear throughout the entire course what is expected, and how seriously students and professors take their work.
         And yes, maybe I deserved a 4 out of 10 on the final. But then there's the issue of how the professor revealed the grades two days after we all handed in 20 page papers and each wrote at least 4 pages for the exam. And there are fifty of us in the class. You don't have to be a genius to realize that with those odds, he barely read any of the papers or the exams. So he essentially skimmed some lines and assigned a grade. One of my friends even asked him if he read the work, and he told her, "If I read everything you wouldn't have you're grade until March. And I don't want to be here until March grading."
        Even failing the final, I still managed an OK grade because of my previous paper scores, and the UC's curving system for grades earned abroad. So I'm not writing this blog because I'm upset with my grade, more because I'm upset with the entire education system here. I'll agree that the U.S.'s system has some serious funding flaws, but you can really note the quality gap between the University of Granada and UCSB.

       Without even so much as a week off, new classes have started here. I think the classes this semester will be much more applicable to my interests and major. Here's to hoping! I'm taking: History of Modern Social and Political Movements in Spain; Linguistics Applied to the Teaching of Languages; Hablas Andaluzas (basically a class about dialects of Spanish in Andalucia); and Comparative Linguistics between Spanish and English.

Carnaval

I’m still not entirely clear about what Carnaval is, even after I went. I think it’s simply a huge party full of costumes and merriment before the start of Lent, but basically every foreign student in the entire country seemed to end up at Cádiz, which hosts one of the most famous Carnavales in Spain (and the world).

A bunch of us took a 4-hour bus from Granada to Cádiz on Saturday morning, and then returned on that bus at 4 a.m. the next day. I made my costume the night before—I saw some left-over holiday wrapping paper in a store and decided to go as a present. One of my more creative costumes, considering this Halloween I taped a moustache onto my face and called it a night.

A bunch of UC kids on the bus

When we got to Cádiz a group of us walked around, ate lunch and saw the city. If nothing else, the overnight bus was a great and cheap means of transportation to see the port town, which is supposedly the oldest populated city in Europe. It was really quaint and beautiful as it’s surrounded by ocean on three sides. We sat near the beach for a while and soaked up the warm weather, and I feel like I defrosted for the first time since November.

Around 7 p.m. we started the festivities and headed to the city center to get a better feel for Carnaval. I have to say that it was very reminiscent of UCSB Halloween: massive crowds, general confusion and making friends with strangers in the streets, and spending about half the night in lines for bathrooms. Literally I would say the biggest form of male privilege is their ability to pee just about anywhere, while girls have to fight tooth and nail for the dingy stall in the back of the sandwich shop.

Some key differences, however, is that my costume this year would probably only be accepted at Santa Barbara if I wasn’t wearing anything underneath. Also, drinking in the streets with open bottles is completely acceptable, if not encouraged, and there was a surprising lack of law enforcement (far from the policemen mounted on horses in Santa Barbara).

Gogo girls, Marge Simpson, Polar Bear, and a present

The bus ride back was notable for the fact that no one threw up. I was willing to bet my life savings that the 4-hour journey would be made unbearable by some belligerent kids who didn’t know their limits, but shockingly everyone was quiet and peacefully sleeping on the return. 

February Updates

Here’s some things that have happened since getting back from Barcelona:

1. I finished my exams! Or should I say exam, as I had only one physical test. I crammed for a few days about lots of linguistic figures who helped make Spanish the beautiful and complicated language it is today, and can assure you that I started purging my brain of the information the minute I left the testing room. Although classes are a lot easier here, I must say that professors expect a lot from you in the exams, and if you’ve never tried memorizing important things in a foreign language, let me tell you it is challenging. For the most crucial facts I decided to translate the notes into English, memorize it in my native tongue, and then translate those details back into Spanish for the test. I want to say everything went well, but I was about the third out of 50 students to leave the room, which I wouldn’t say is a good sign…
2. I suddenly feel rich, as I spent much of this week helping a man improve his English conversation, as well as continuing to give English lessons to the little boys. The feeling of Euros hanging out in my pockets is a bit dangerous, because, when combined with the end of finals and the need to feel a taste of the nightlife again, the tapas bars have never seen so much of me.
3. For Valentine's day my mom sent me a package which, among other things, contained Mac n' Cheese. As great as these care packages are, they keep reminding me of things that Spain is missing out on. How can a child here grow up without Kraft? It simply doesn't make any sense. I thought Globalization was supposed to put an end to that kind of atrocity....
4. Teaching English lessons to the little boys Eduar and Alejandro is quickly becoming one of the most rewarding parts of my experience here, and I look forward to it twice a week. They always seem excited when I arrive and sad when I tell them the lesson is over. On Tuesday we made Valentine’s Day cards, although Eduar was too embarrassed to make one for his six-year-old love so ended up writing it to his parents instead. And on Thursday we continued to learn parts of the house by playing Hide and Seek, which is really more of a silent game but maybe in the process they learned “table” and “door.” One can hope.
5. As much as I bashed Ryanair in my previous post, it turns out that the airline helps bring family together. My sister will be in Berlin for two weeks at the end of this month, and I’m traveling to Italy at the same time. It just so happens that there was a 10-euro flight in between Germany and Rome, so Katie and I can reunite for my birthday! Although I’ve basically been 21 for six months now, we can celebrate in a tranquil manner, and I think pizza and wine will feel better the next day than the typical American celebratory shots.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to Cadiz for Carnaval!!! Blog to follow if I survive it. 

El Encanto de Barcelona

Barcelona is a world away from Granada. It’s hard to believe they’re part of the same country, except most people speak the same language and everyone’s at the bars by noon in both places. Although I’d still choose Granada to study, I can truly picture myself living in Barcelona forever. As Spaniards say, the city has “un encanto,” a majestic quality that made me fall in love with it. It’s a city of perfect opposites: small enough to walk between destinations but big enough to be full of life and new discoveries; Spanish enough to be able to keep practicing the language, but blessedly internationalized to the point where paella and ham are not the only two things on the menu; and old enough to have the most beautiful historic downtown, but new enough to feel like you’re in the heart of a European cultural capital.

My trip started off a bit iffy. At some point in this Blog I need to address Ryanair, the airline company whose own slogan is “The world’s most on-time airline.” That’s because they can’t brag about any of their other qualities. The whole thing is simply comical. Yes, all of us students take Ryanair because it is the cheapest airline in Europe and it gets us to where we need (or want) to be. But it’s almost a painful process. Even booking tickets on their website is a headache, as you scroll through screen after screen of purchasable extras, from car hires to Ryanair-inscribed suitcases. At the airport people line up ridiculously far in advance because everyone wants window seats and reserved seating costs extra. One you’re on the plane you can usually bet on sitting on the previous passenger’s pretzel crumbs, since the “on-time” slogan means they can’t kill valuable minutes cleaning the aircraft. And in my hour and a half flight to Barcelona, I was consistently kept awake by blaring announcements over the speaker system offering me an endless assortment of products, each one explained in three different languages. In addition to the normal assortment of purchasable food and drinks, Ryanair offers cigarettes (ironic on a non-smoking flight?), lottery tickets, tour maps, newspapers, perfumes, and a host of other overpriced products. I guarantee that 98% of the passengers would rather sleep than hear announcements for such useless crap.

When I arrived in Barcelona I met up with my friend from high school, Tess, who is studying for 4 months there. I should mention that the one weekend I decided to visit, all of Europe was experiencing a cold wave that dropped temperatures to 30-year lows. This meant that the normally very pleasant weather in Barcelona was a bitter zero degrees (Celcius), so Tess and I did a lot of lounging in her apartment that first day. I chatted with her amazingly sweet host mom who is from Madrid, and her accent was a breath of fresh air after trying to understand Andalucians for five months. That night we went out to a bar that served drinks in very unusual sizes: the smallest was one liter, and it went up to 16 liters (to be shared, hopefully). The glasses were like fish bowls. It was fun going out, but walking around in that cold was mind-numbing. I did, however, have a great conversation with my cab driver at 4:30 a.m., since I didn’t want to risk walking back to my hostel by myself in an unknown city after drinking part of a fishbowl. He was from Granada and we were both gushing about how great it was for ten solid minutes.

The trenchcoat Tess's host-mom lent me to walk around the freezing streets.

Tess and me at the bar

On Saturday I ambled for a while in Barrio Gracia, an adorable part of town with a substantial international population. I went to the first Mexican restaurant I saw, because, as anyone who reads this Blog knows, I always make a point to buy a burrito when I’m traveling since Granada has a severe lack. I don’t know why I thought Barcelona would be much different though—after all, it’s still Spain. I need to preface my disappointment by saying that I was already having a sort of rough time that morning: some girls at the hostel thought it was ok to talk in loud voices in the room at 8:30 am, meaning I got 4 hours of sleep. Also it was absolutely freezing, and my University of Granada sweatshirt (that I bought a week ago) was stolen at the bar the night before. So this burrito was meant to lift my mood, but sadly the minute I saw the woman layer the tortilla with mixed greens and then add brie cheese and sushi rice, I felt my eight euros go down the drain. It didn’t even come with beans, and when I realize that she didn’t add guacamole, I honestly almost cried. Luckily she sensed my imminent freak-out and gave me a side cup of the stuff, smiling empathetically when I said I was from California and was going a bit crazy without my Mexican food.

Ok, enough about odd cuisine obsessions (although can I stress one more time that it shouldn’t be so hard for these people to get down simple recipes????). On to what really counts, the city itself. I met up with my friend Hanna, who I’ve basically known all my life. Her sister Kaila was my best friend since I was six, and Hanna has lived in Barcelona for the past year and a half. We had coffee at the most adorable café (very reminiscent of Paris) and then she showed me all around Barrio Gótico, the old Gothic part of the city. This is when I really fell in love. Small alleyways, beautiful buildings, amazing Cathedrals, and so much life in the streets! It was like Paris but even more charming. We also walked along the beach—this city has everything! That night we cooked chili in the most amazing apartment Hanna shares with her boyfriend. I’m too jealous of her life, so I’ve decided I need to move to Barcelona after I graduate and try to replicate it. Anyway, it was great to hang out with them and be reminded of so many fun memories from growing up with her and Kaila.

On Sunday Tess and I took a free walking tour, although the frigid temperature even managed to turn the hot tour guide and his New Zealand accent into a painful experience. We then went to the Picasso Museum (where I realized that I don’t really like Picasso all that much) and had some Basque-style tapas for dinner. Granada spoils with me with free tapas, so paying two euros for a tiny little bite without a drink felt criminal. 

On Monday I devoted my day to Antoni Gaudi. I visited Park Güell, full of amazing architecture by the eccentric artist and very reminiscent of scenes from Alice in Wonderland. That man seems like he was on one long absinth trip (which apparently he was at times, according to our tour guide), but it definitely paid off, since his work is stunning. Then I met up with Hanna for lunch, and she brought me to her favorite sandwich place in the city. Yep, I’m going to move back to Barcelona just to have those bocadillos every day. After lunch I saw Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, his huge and unfinished cathedral. It was pretty impressive to say the least! The projected date of completion is between 2030 and 2080, so the construction team is certainly leaving themselves some room to work with.

Park Güell

Beautiful stained glass in La Sagrada Familia

My return flight was also notable, not so much for the endless promotion of products as for the very typical Spanish moments. A man on the flight refused to give up his seat (apparently it couldn’t be occupied for safety reasons or something), so we couldn’t pull out of the gate until he either complied or the police came (they were actually called). This means we were delayed (I’m sure the creators of the Ryanair slogan were repenting their choice of words), and so everyone in the plane started getting riled up. I’ve never seen such a thing! A chorus of Spaniards were chanting, “Vámanos!” and “Venga ya, vamos 35 minutos de retraso!” (We’re already 35 minutes late!). People were joking to their neighbors, “Qué coño!” and all sorts of curse words, but being social creatures, it seemed like they were enjoying every minute of it. I was sitting in between two men from Malaga, and I was completely cracking up at the absurdity of hearing two very friendly grown men dressed in business suits  dropping “coño” (the equivalent of fuck, although apparently less weighted or more accepted) every other word. People were even chanting for the flight attendants to kick the disruptive man off the flight. When the man finally moved seats, he was basically ostracized by the entire cabin community, although the other passengers seemed to have formed a unique bond between one another, and I’m sure that at least a few will meet up to share drinks and recount the experience after. Oh, Spain.

All in all I loved Barcelona, air travel and arctic temperatures and pretentious burritos aside. One of my favorite parts about this little trip was the fact that I was still in Spain, so I could communicate easily with everyone I encountered. Some of the best times I had were random conversations with people I met around the city—in a bakery, a taxi, a boutique, and even talking to friends like Hanna and her boyfriend in Spanish. Traveling within Spain is the perfect way to see new places while still practicing what I came here to learn. I hope to go back soon, maybe when my parents visit or maybe to move there permanently!