Hello, Minnesota

Here I am in Bemidji, MN at 4:30 AM, jet lagged, and thinking how bittersweet it is to be home.  I can squeeze my baby nephew and snuggle with Riley.   But I already miss my friends and I still speak Spanish in my head. Returning from Germany, the last week and a half in Sevilla flew.  I’m sappy and so the last few days I walked by Torre de Oro and the Cathedral saying, “this may be the last time that I...” On different days, I gave the Cathedral a few good goodbyes.  Before long I was saying goodbye to Marta, Octavio, the American students, and professors.  Our program had a final get-together which was a chance to say adios.  It was sad to have one last group hug with Amber and Molly in Sevilla.  We had many adventures together and Amber and I mused over a potential trip to Madison State to visit Molly.  Although all of the Spaniards told us that this “adios” was really only a “hasta luego”, the only 'see you later' I was confident in was with the other Olies. I’ll see them in a few.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

 Most of my end days were spent with Irene, Elisa, and Fátima (their roomie).  Because I was done writing papers on the European Union Summit and such, the last weekend was my favorite.  Elisa and I made music with our toothbrushes by opening and closing our mouths and brushing to a rhythm.  A different time, all of the girls went to the theater to watch Narnia and I was quite please to have understood it all.  Also, we went for a run:

 

Irene (Spaniard): “Gracieeela”

Grace: “¿Si, Irene?”

Irene: “You look really Americana right now.”

Grace: “¿Why?”

Spanish: “Because Spanish women don’t know how to run and American women do.”

                                                                                                                                       I guess she is talking about the fact that I don’t bring my wallet “just in case” and I don’t stop before the run to buy 4 rolls of toilet paper because the house is out.  I don’t bring my cell phone on short runs and I don’t talk to my b/f for 10 minutes while running.  Despite that, it was the most fun run that I went on in Sevilla. On Friday night, we went for my last tapas dinner at Los Coloniales. Goodbye croquetas.                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Elisa and Irene decided to fly to Madrid with me Saturday morning because they can fly free, whenever, wherever.  Willing to wake up at 4 AM and share the taxi fare, they saved me from paying 30 Euros by myself.  Sadly, we got to the airport to find out the flight was cancelled.  So we stood in line for 3 hours to change flights but the time we got to the front of the line, we found out that the flight to London had been cancelled.  Soooo, the mad dash to catch the later flight to Madrid rushed our goodbye.  That first flight was miserable; who were you kidding when you said you weren’t a cryer, Grace?

Next I missed the flight to the U.S. but I at least spent the night in a 4 star hotel and met some cool people.  I’m going to make it a point to wear St. Olaf apparel when traveling because I always meet someone when I do.  Rachel’s brother had just graduated from St. O and she was going to the U of M Duluth.  What’s more, she had also studied in Sevilla this semester.  It’s a small world, or as you would say in Spanish, the world is a handkerchief .  We talked together for a long time about how much we’ve learned and the odd cultural experiences that we had both had had.  We also met a funny British couple and an Irishman, Kealan .  It felt like a scene out of a comedy movie.  It was the funniest, craziest couple I had ever met and they made us laugh so hard that I’m sure we were a little obnoxious.  Do you know the sound of a peacock? Chris, our British friend intimidated the sound and in the same way he flagged down the waiter, squawking señOOOOR? I can’t explain a sound, but it was hilarious.  We had accent demonstrations, including the Bristol accent and of course, I threw in the Minnesotan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

It seems fitting that since I started this blog with a “goodbye” that I end it with a “hello”.  Something that I know now is that as sad as goodbyes are and how numerous they seem to be, there are just as many hellos to counter it.                                                                                                                                                                                                    

HELLO FAMILY. HELLO BABY GABEY. HELLO TESSA.HELLO HEATED HOUSES. HELLO SNOW. HELLO PANDORA.  HELLO AMERICAN BREAKFASTS.

Germany

My trip to Germany just barely happened; I squeaked by the airport 7 hours before the air controller’s nationwide strike in Spain.  It was pretty serious-- All flights in to Spain were cancelled for 2.5 days and Spain went into a State of Alert.  Eventually, under the threat of arrest “Spain's air traffic controllers were forced to return to work – escorted by armed police – after a walkout caused chaos throughout Europe” (telegraph.co.uk). It was news in Germany and we couldn’t believe how lucky I was.  Besides the strike, elsewhere in northwest Europe flights were cancelled due to huge snow storms. Yeah, snow. That doesn’t mean much to you, Minnesotan’s.  But for me, who just had run in shorts and a t-shirt-- sleeves rolled up-- a few days before, it was a body shock.  So I borrowed jackets, leggings, scarves, and gloves.  Also, Aleen’s dad lent me boots which I looked a little ridiculous in.  Despite it all, I was cold in the streets.  It was the first time that Aleen was more accustomed to the cold that I was.  

I hadn’t seen that girl in 2.5 years.  We were amazed at how fast time goes -- 5 years since she studied in Bemidji.   It won’t  be long until I’m saying, “5 years ago I was studying in Sevilla.”  We had too much to recount and so despite having arrived at 12 PM (plane delay), we stayed up talking until we fell asleep without intending to.  And that’s how we went every night, laying in bed, talking long after first burrowing under the covers. 

Hensted-Ulzberg, where Aleen actually lives, is a cute little town.  We spent most of the time there, sledding, eating chocolate, and watching a few movies.  It was weird to me that Aleen heard two parts of a movie that I didn’t catch.  It impressed me a lot and again made me enthusiastic to continue my Spanish and learn other languages.  One of the nights, we went to trampoline practice and if you have ever seen it on T.V., you can imagine how much better is it to see people doings crazy flips 45 feet in the air right in front of you. Another night, I met her best friend Aleena and her boy friend Lennart.  We played the German version of Sorry in her room and later went out dancing.  Good fun!! 

I liked spending time in the house, watching Aleen and her family interacting although I didn’t understand what they said.  I knew more random words that I thought, useful phrases like “spitting is forbidden” which Dad said to my brother a few years back.  I expanded my German vocab from 20 words to 30 and can now count to 10. Impressive, right? ;)  Despite that I couldn’t understand the actual words, I sometimes understood what was going on by watching gestures and an occasional English sounding word.  For example, I picked up on the “Well, I s’pose” phrase that Germans say which means “Ok, I guess we are on the verge of being bored, so let’s politely hint that it’s time to go...”   Also, I experienced the German keyboard which was hard to get used to; I know that I sent out a few emails that had mistakes.   After having explained to Brenna via Facebook that the z’s were switched around with the y’s, she replied to me:

“As I was reading the first part of your email, I was a bit concerned about your use of "z"...it appeared that you had morphed into a gangster. Which would have been totally acceptable, I feel that you would be a great thug :)”

Aleen and I ate a lot of amazing German food because her mom is 

a genuine cook. She prepared us a typical German breakfast with fresh buns with lots of spreads:  cheese, potato spread, raw salmon, 4 or 5 different sausages including raw sausage!!  Probs have trichinosis now, but everyone was doing it. In retrospect, I think that the Americans worry too much about germs.  I have seen in Mexico, Spain, and Germany food left out all night and sometimes morning and still eaten later.  I’m not completely over being anxious in eating it, but apparently it’s fine because I haven’t died yet.  For dinner one night, we had onions and spices rolled up inside of a slice of meat, balls of flourly potatoes, and cabbage. I had never eaten cabbage and liked it before this trip.  Birgett also cooked salmon for one dinner and a delicious cheese dish for another, both because I had talked about how I liked the German cheese and jealous I was of their fresh salmon.  That is so cute of her.  

Other than that, we went into Hamburg. Unfortunately, Hamburg was bombed to smithereens during WW2 and so there were few old buildings, a disappointment to me.  However, we did check out an old church that was bombed and left with the charred remains standing as a war memorial.  It was pretty impressive.  We walked by the harbor, saw a few churches, and walked through a happy Christmas street market.  It had lots of typical German foods and we shared a bratwurst.  No exaggeration when they say there is no comparison to the original German bratwurst.

¡Oye, Dios!  We also went to Starbucks... and I had thought that Starbucks was expensive in the U.S.  But, Starbucks + Europe = 2 basic coffees for 7 bucks.  Kill me. 

 

We also went to Lübeck which did have old buildings. One thing that I noted is that the churches in Germany are noticeably different than those in Sevilla.  For that matter, German churches are different that those in Costa Rica and Mexico which were similar to those in Spain.   That’s not really surprising considering the influence  Spain has had on Latin America.  After all, the Spaniards were a major contributer to the introduction of Catholicism in Latin America.

The week past too quickly.  I’m not much of a cryer.  So, what do you do if you want to express "i’mnotreadytosaygoodbyeican’tlookinyoursadeyes” if you can’t cry?  Where's the dislike button? At least she has promised to visit this summer :)

Mom and Elliot

One of my favorite weeks in Spain was with John Elliot and Mom.  For a moment my two halves came together and my family saw a glimpse of the Spanish world that I have been raving about for this past year.  While they were here, I realized that despite occasion frustrations I CAN speak Spanish!  It was really exciting translating between someone who spoke no English and someone who spoke no Spanish. John Elliot, however, is always a surprise to me.  He has an incredible talent for language, remembering words he heard once and guessing the topic of conversations I would have.  In one museum, I started feeling bad about myself because he was translating the Spanish captions better than I was.  Me, to myself: “How does he do that??!  I mean, there are some words similar to English, but come on!!” One, it’s because he’s intelligent and two, because he’s a snake; in reality, he was reading the English captions and “translating”. Hahaha.

How do you sum up a week?  We went to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Cathedral, the Alcazar, the University of Sevilla, the Plaza de España, Maria Luisa Park, the Toro de Oro, neighborhood Triana, and the old Jewish neighborhood.  Culturally, the nicest thing that we did was watch a high-quality Flamenco dance.  Flamenco is very beautiful and it wonderful sitting in the 3^rd row with Mom on my left and Elliot on my right.  It sounds like a busy week, but we took it really slow, doing whatever, whenever.  We mossied around, stopped for coffee and would often end up having good serious discussions.  We drank a lot of coffee this week  because our hotel had a surprisingly good and free coffee bar which we visited it at least once a day, sometimes twice. There were 4 or 5 different kinds of coffee, different teas and free little cookies as well.    So, life was good.  Yet not to my surprise, they did not were not OK with the customary slice of toast and coffee for breakfast.  So, I explained to the waiter that we are Americans and we want something more sustainable.  He laughed at me and brought out meatballs and a delicious spinach/garbanzo bean dish.  

Elliot and Mom got to meet Marta, my señora, and see where I live.  Marta invited us over and we had dinner and talked for while about nothing in particular.  I was surprised at home much English Juano, Marta’s 13 year old son, knew. It was a good night. They also met my interchange student, Octavio, with whom I go on coffee dates (half in Spanish, half in English).  This night, he took us to an awesome tapas  bar in Triana (not a topless bar, Mother. Hahahaha).  He ordered us two different types of croquetas, a goat cheese dish, and stuffed eggplant.  It turned out to be one of the best meals that we had that week.  At the end of the night, he made me sad by saying that he wished I was staying longer... ahhhh.  

 
 The last Spaniards Elliot and Mom met were Elisa and Irene, the most important thing that I wanted them to do on this trip.  We went to Los Colonias, a famous Sevillan tapas  bar and ordered gazpacho, croquetas (I could never eat too many), and some other tapas. A few days later, their mom, Mari who I love, sent me a facebook message saying :“las niñas me han dicho, que tu familia es muy cordial muy guay jajajajajja.”-- (The girls have told me that your family is very friendly and cool, hahahha).  What great girls ♥

On the weekend, we went to Granada, the last city reconquered from the Muslims.  It was pretty cold there, but very beautiful with the Sierra Mountains in the background.  We got a bomb hotel that had an American style breakfast, which made us all very happy. Mmmm, eeeeegggs.   We looked at a few churches and went to La casa de los Tiros.  Bar none, la Alhambra was the best thing that we saw, the old fortress that rests high up above the city.  It’s so impressive with its different leveled gardens and high walls, and windy cobblestone paths.  And ahh, the view of the city from the towers...

It was really strange having Elliot and Mom here.  I loved it -- solid family time.  It made me miss home a bit, but it was pretty great showing them around.  Funny to finally be the one who knows where they are going...