So for my third blog post, I thought I'd talk a little bit about Spanish stuff and the day to day goings-on rather than a straight summary. Let's start with my host family. They consist of a mother (Paula), a 20 year-old son (Pedro), and una gatita, Lola. Lola is always getting on the furniture. "Bajate, Lola!" They're good people.
Meals here go something like this: breakfast basically whenever, and you can eat in casa or at a restaurant. A restaurant's offer usually is toast with jam or ham, coffee, and juice. It's not a big breakfast like many people eat in the US. At about 2-3, there's comida, which is lunch and usually the biggest meal of the day. It varies, but two elements are always present: meat and bread. There will always be bread at every meal. Sometimes potatoes as well. One meal consisted of penne pasta in a red sauce with tuna, french fries, and bread. The female exchange students are worried about gaining weight with all of the carbohydrates we're eating. My host mother seems to be fond of eggs (usually fried) and melón or sandía. Fried rice is also surprisingly common. I think that her cooking style derives from the fact that she doesn't really have a big stove that's suitable for big pots, so everything goes into a sartén, or frying pan. In between lunch and cena, most people usually have a merienda or snack between 5-7. Not that it's unusual to see Spanish people at any hour of the day in a bar eating or drinking something. Most bars do close down between 2 and 4 for a siesta, and it becomes difficult to buy anything or get help because everyone has their doors closed or rolled down, like a garage. Dinner is between 9 and 10, depending on the family. I've pretty much adapted to the schedule, as long as I try to merendar a little before dinner. In the apartment, meals are usually eaten in front of the television, where a game show, the news, or some celebrity update is playing. The Simpsons plays pretty often on one of the channels, though (in Spanish of course).
My room is fairly small, but a good size for the average person in an apartment. There's a clothes closet and a miscellaneous items closet, a desk, a bed, and a nightstand. The window looks out onto the pool. Kids are always playing Marco Polo out there. I also have my own bathroom, which surprised me. It has a good-sized shower and a cabinet for toiletries, which I was admonished to use by my host mother because it makes the bathroom "easier to clean" if you don't have stuff on the countertops. The hamper is also in the bathroom. One of my first culture surprises: when my host mother called me into the laundry room to talk about my pants. In the United States, we wear pants once and then wash them, right? My host mother expressed surprise at the fact that I had six pairs of pants in the laundry for six days, when most of them weren't "dirty". I managed a feeble excuse about sweat, but I guess that's just a cultural difference. It does surprise me, though, that she holds this attitude when she also requires the use of shoes in the house (the floor's made of tile). For Spanish mothers, the CIEE housing guy explained, walking around barefoot (or in socks, I would imagine), is considered unhealthy. It just seems like an odd juxtaposition. Anyone who can offer an explanation, please do.
What's typical in Sevilla? For one, people "comer" their "s" and their "d", as well as the ends of words. Therefore, "estamos todos?" (are we all here?) becomes "e'tamo' to'o?" The Spanish "theta" is prevalent here too. That's the tendency to turn "z or c + a vowel" into a "thh" sound. Therefore, "zeta" or "z", is pronounced "theta". There are also bars everywhere, and almost every one of them sports a Cruzcampo sign. Cruzcampo is the local beer of Sevilla, and is served "glacial", or from -2 to 2 Celsius, which is a blessing because it's really hot. Almost every day it's 92-95, with the exception of one day when I think it was 85? Cruzcampo is very popular and sometimes the only beer served. In one bar, I got two for me and a friend, and a guy came up and asked for the beer of the day. What was the beer of the day? Cruzcampo. It's the beer of the day every day, it seems. In another bar, I asked for Mahou, which is another Spanish beer, and was told that they only had Cruzcampo. It's very light, but it's cool, refreshing, and better than PBR, so who am I to complain? The other popular beverage right now is "tinto de verano", or summer red wine. It's a sangria-like red wine with ice and sparkling water, sometimes lemon or orange flavored. There are a lot of heladerias (ice cream shops) in Sevilla, which is not surprising considering how hot it is. There are also a lot of little tiendas de alimentación, or food shops, which sell sodas, snack foods, and a little bit of everything else. Many of these are run by Chinese people who, my guide informed me, due to an agreement between Spain and China, do not have to pay the sort of start-up business tax, giving them an advantage.
Most of the streets are really narrow, and the names are either not listed or on buildings above the street itself, which can cause problems for unfamiliar college students. You can't really locate yourself when every street is like an alley. It also causes problems for motorists. In a street only a dozen feet wide, there's not much room for a pedestrian and a car. However, there's a lot of cool architecture, old churches and such. In my intensive history class, we've been going around the city and learning about it. There's an archaeological site under one of their modern art projects, popularly called Las Setas (the mushrooms, look it up to see for yourself), called the Antiquarium, stylized with a Roman V, that incorporates artifacts and history from the first to the thirteenth century AD, showing Roman, Visigothic, and Islamic periods. It's a really cool city, and I'll be learning more about it for sure.
We'll stop here for now. Until next time. I'll leave you with this, which I have seen a five-man brass band play a couple of different times in the street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UEWikG_KaE
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