Changing My Mind

Living abroad by yourself is a very hard thing to do. Going into it you know it’s going to be different and challenging, but obviously you never know just how challenging it is until you are where you are going. And you also have no possible way to know how you are going to react. Because “different” takes on a meaning that you have never experienced before. Starting with the biggest factor, the location is different and even if you have seen pictures and know sort of what to expect-it is different. The people are different, even if you have studied how the people in this culture behave. Treatment of time is different, food is different, shopping is different, psychology is different, motion is different...you get the idea. The amount of difference is so enormous there is actually no way to predict anything. Including how you will respond. I have lived abroad before and each time I have done so I have responded differently: in Argentina I was completely terrified upon arriving in the airport to find my group had left, my luggage was lost, and that Argentine Spanish was not actually the Spanish I had learned, but my falling in love with all the difference Argentina presented happened within hours after my arrival. In Ecuador I was numb to difference and very slowly became overwhelmed and confused by the culture, poverty, corruption, and beauty Ecuador had to offer me; a feeling that never actually went away the whole time I was there. Now in Spain, I have reacted in a way that was so confusing I did not even understand myself, and that is the most unhinging of all. Why did I not love it right away? Why did I feel more homesick than the first time I ever travelled alone? Why have I not been able to really see anything that is here without personal judgement smothering any potential truth? Why, above all, do I feel like I have lost all growth from past abroad living and now have to start all over? Because, the truth is, I will always have to start over. This difference that exists everywhere in it’s own way removes everything familiar from your conscious mind. Difference strips you naked rather harshly so that all you have left is your core. And this is unfamiliar because this raw form has been covered up by a comfortable and familiar life wherever home is. Home rules, expectations, behaviors...the whole culture of your home has influenced and adjusted to you so much that you hardly know why you are you at all. And when you are faced with 100% difference all that vanishes in a blink and you are left with pure, naked, you. Real you, that you hadn’t ever met face to face. Then every reaction you have and decision you make is you in it’s most pure form and that, my friends, is exactly why I do it. I guess it is what some people call “finding oneself.” 

Maybe the way I reacted to living in Málaga has not been admirable, but there really was no way to control myself, because I had never been through this before. I take full responsibility in not appreciating where I am right away, breaking down for hours because I could not get the internet to work in my apartment, and keeping my head down instead of up. But I also take responsibility in changing my mind. I have decided for the millionth time in my life that I really love the beach and walking everywhere I go. That I can be outgoing and that I can dance. That I love having a view of the mountains and outdoor cafés and that I love more than anything speaking Spanish. And very importantly, that there are people in my life that I love and appreciate more than I could possibly say. It is a pain that I have to re-learn all these things and re-discover realities of who I am, but it gets easier to learn each time. My own self grows immensely with each restart and that means that wherever I go my own self will be stronger and less subject to negative influence.It is a powerful feeling to know who you are and it is impossible to get there without first realizing you didn’t know who you were at all.

What's In A Friend?

My definition of friendship is unfortunately very narrow. There is a very long list of people who I really like, respect, or even admire, but my list of who I would call a real friend is much smaller. I don’t want to make anyone feel bad or get into “what it takes to be my friend,” because that is not at all the point and it is really arrogant and obnoxious, but I had an interesting talk with one of my good friends that I made here about this topic. That’s right; I said friend. 

It was one of the many nights spent on the back porch after a day at the beach, hookah, and ice cream, and I was thinking about how sad I was going to be when my friend and roommate would leave. And then I thought, that’s extremely weird, Barrett, you have only known this man for three weeks. Then, after thinking more about it, I realized I had been in a similar situation many times before, all abroad. So I proposed the question aloud: why do we build relationships so quickly when we are away from home? Maybe there are people who always build relationships quickly, but I seem to take years at home to develop good friends, so it really is interesting for me. I thought about it being due to fixed time. When we go abroad we know we will only be there for a fixed amount of time, so do we subconsciously speed up our relationship-building process in order to be happy and have connections? Because it has become evident to me that people need to have connections to other people, even if it’s just one, to be maximally happy (theoretically speaking)...Do we cut corners and the bullshit that normally maps out the growth of indefinite relationships? My friend thought for a while and said maybe so, but brought up another interesting point: that it is the kind of experiences you share with someone that aid in growing closer, not necessarily the time spent with them. He said, in all his Germanness, “when you do somesing like sit on a nice beach all the day and watch the sunset it is romantic and special. You get close zees way.” 

And it made me think: all these random people I have known for three weeks or five weeks or even just five days have been really important people in my life because of what I did with them during that time. Seeing something like Iguazú Falls in Argentina is an incredibly, spiritually bonding experience. Exploring Inca ruins and watching a Shaman ritual is breathtaking and only the other people with you know that. It’s the indescribableness of moments you have with people that bring you close, even if it’s only for a day.

Maybe there is no science to it, but it is nice that I got to watch the sunset on this beach one day and in that moment grow closer to a new friend: 

Learning About Learning

Here’s a revelation for you I bet you have never thought of before: people are the same everywhere! Probably not news, but still interesting to keep learning. People really are the same everywhere, they make the same jokes, they study the same things, they are interested in the same topics, they play with their kids the same way...it really is cool to keep encountering that. I’m no socio-biologist, but I think there may be something really fundamental about people and society buried in there somewhere...

The one big difference, other than how language sounds (even though everyone talks about the same things!), I found at school and that is: the professors.

For some context, I had a Spanish professor recently who came to our school directly from Spain to teach in the United States for a semester. This is not uncommon in foreign language departments, but what was more uncommon was that I spent a lot of time in the school cafés talking with him about his experience. What did he think of teaching American students? Was is what he expected? Was it any different from teaching Spanish students? And what is that like? How did he feel about our higher education system? Etc. And because he has numerous degrees in subjects such as education and sociology, our meetings were normally rather long. What was always consistent in his observations, though, related to a lack of effort. A lack of effort from the system as a whole spiraling down to a lack of effort from the students. He said this was most evident to him the first time he posed a question in class and received 25 pairs of eyes blinking back at him, making him first think maybe no one understood Spanish after all, but more importantly that no one cared. I was a little surprised myself and replied by saying, “really, well you should sit in on one of my communication classes; you won’t be able to get a word in.” We laughed and enjoyed making harmless fun of communication students for a few minutes but then I really thought about it and found he was right. Speaking out loud in class is not that common. I was wondering why this is the way it is until I started school here. It all lies in the professors. 

My first day we went around the class doing regular introductions, you know, your name where you are from, why you are in Spain. But what was interesting was that the professor moved in his chair closer to each person (not a single classroom in my school here has desks in lines, they are all in a u-shape) and really listened. Once you said the standard things, he would ask another question. And another, and another, and another! It took us an hour and a half to introduce about 13 people to each other. I could not believe it. And what’s more, all the students were listening, too. Asking questions. Laughing, reacting. It was great! I feel like I actually know my classmates...what a concept. 

This kind of classroom philosophy permeates into everything: every activity is done in pairs and everything involves hearing opinions (including, to my utter shock, the political opinions of one of my professors) and learning more about each other. Measuring in quantity, obviously we don’t get very much done, but when you measure in quality, every day is a good day at the office. 

I have always had my reservations about the education system in the States, but now I am at least a little less critical of my peers. Not that it is that fault of the professors, because I understand we have an elaborate system that is difficult to work around, but something tells me if the American students in question felt like people and not just students during class you would have a hard time shutting them up.

Granada

Granada, Spain is completely incredible and you should all go.

Obviously, the Alhambra is the main attraction and is everything I thought it would be after seeing pictures of it and learning about it in my Spanish Art class. 

It really is so beautiful because from far away it looks like this:

And it has courtyards like this:

It has doorways like this:

And windows like these:

that have views to this:

Then it has ceilings like this:

And it is all decorated with artwork and Arabic calligraphy like this:

Can you believe someone carved that by hand? I can’t. Pretty cool to learn about Arabic art and all of it’s profundity and elaborateness and then go look at it.

But the rest of Granada is beautiful, too. It has the romance people imagine when they think of Spain. It has the small ally-ways, little cafés and roads that look like this:

But one of my favorite parts about Granada was that it has all that old European beauty we all love but it is also really famous for art that looks like this:

I love cities that can appreciate the collision between the old world and the new one and my friends and I finished the day talking about that and other things in a lovely tetería over hot tea, hookah, and falafel. Yum.