Blanquita en españa

With 3 days left until departure, I am looking at everything like it is the first time I had seen it. When walking the same streets to school daily, I had taken for granted a lot of the beauty Segovia has to offer. I had become acclimated to seeing The Roman Aqueduct, The Cathedral and The Castle Alcázar everyday that it became like just passing another building. Taking my final tour of the city everything looked clearer and it was if a slideshow of the last 3 months was playing in my head. Every place in Segovia was a memory I had formed with my new family.

The bonds formed with my classmates were intimate because they are your lifelines in a foreign country. You don’t have your family or your usually friends and you are in a new place where you do not speak the language. You go through phases of emotions. When I arrived I was overwhelmed with all the new cultural aspects thrown at me. It later changed to frustration due to the language barrier. One of the most difficult things is wanting to say something and not being able to communicate what is in your head. The worst was when people speak to you in this half sign language/interpretive dance, talking ridiculously slow and shouting because they think, as an American, you don’t understand Spanish. At times I got so angry that my brain said, “No thanks, I’m done” and checked out from the conversation. As the language skills improved overtime, I developed a confidence and eagerness to learn more. Wanting to have a conversation with everyone just to learn a new phrase. The moment I felt comfortable, the semester was over and time to go home. Going through this at the same time as the students other students created an inseparable friendship.
As I was enjoying my last beer with my friends in the fuencisla (a big field below Alcázar), I felt a huge drop of rain hit my shoe. When I looked up in the sky all my American friends were laughing and all of my Spanish friends were oohing and ahhing and clapping their hands. The raindrop that hit my shoe was a giant bird turd that was sure to stain my new boots. My first reaction was to try to smear it off in the grass. I attempted to clean my shoes and nearly got tackle by all my jealous Spaniards. It is the best luck you can have is to get pooped on by a bird. At this moment every cultural change that I had gone through had finally set.

Everything about this trip has changed the path that I was on. I have learned that it is all right to slow down and enjoy more than working toward that perfect G.P.A. When you are immersed in a culture for your whole life, it becomes easy to think that other culture do things the same as yours. Being thrown into a culture shock created a lot of uncomfortable moments leaving me feeling vulnerable. These moments make you feel like you are alone when you are in a room filled with people. Adapting to this forced me to change my mentality and approach on life. Being in a state of uncomfort forced me to learn new things about myself. I learned how to live in the moment and stop planning all the meticulous details of my future. Instead of thinking about 5 years in the future I am able to enjoy day-to-day and worry about the present. I took a change of pace to teach me to be truly happy.

I’m about to board the plan and the only thing on my mind is how everything is going to look when I return to the U.S. I keep thinking how weird it will be to hear everyone speaking English. Also, I am praying that I don’t get seated next to the person that wants tell me their life story, or the bigger person whose extra loving spills over onto your side of the seat. My room here is empty and my bags are packed, I know I will be returning to Spain in the near future.