busy, busy, busy

¡Buenas tardes a todos!

First of all, I apologize for the gap in blogging, but I hope this one is sufficiently interesting to make up for the time lost. :)

 So many things have happened since I last posted! First of course was September 11th and all of the memorial activities that went along with it. It was an odd experience to be out of country on such an important day. Usually the news stations here in Spain show a lot of US news anyway, but the 11th was a little different, it seemed that nearly every news station was showing video footage of either the plane crashes or the memorial events going on at Ground Zero. My host parents told us what they were doing when it all happened back in 2001 and asked us if we remembered what we had been doing.

For some cultural background, the TV is always on during mealtimes here, whether it is on news or sports or De Buena Ley (literally "Good Law," it is a show that is a mix of Judge Judy and Jerry Springer). That took a little bit of getting used to, but the TV is directly in front of the dining table so it is what it is. Anyway, coincidentally enough because Salamanca is 6 hours ahead of NYC, when the first plane crashed at 8:46am (2:46pm Spain time) most Spaniards were sitting down to la comida (usually at 2:30pm or so) watching the news as per usual. Nati and Fausti told Katie and I that they thought their normal programming had been interrupted by a movie or something, they couldn't believe that what they were seeing was actual footage. They said this is the same reaction that they had heard from other Spaniards as well. It was really eye opening to see how much the world pays attention to the goings-on in the US and to see that there are people in other countries who really do share our pain from that day. There was one Spaniard killed in the attacks and they held a memorial service for him here somewhere in Spain. Also when Nati and Fausti talked about it all they kept saying was how sad and painful and useless it all was. Although I got to see some of the activities that went on at Ground Zero and I got to see pictures from the activities at Gettysburg, it was something I would have much rather been home for, to share in the remembrance and patriotism of the day.

On a much happier note, on the following Wednesday (9.14), a group of 12 of us IES students along with David and Barbara (IES staff) left at 8:30am to embark on El Camino de Santiago, specifically the rua Frances. Here is a map of the route we took; I've marked the cities we stopped at with a bright green dot and our route (more or less) with a darker green line:

Probably most of you have already seen my pictures on Facebook, but if you haven't here is the link:
¡Vamos! ¡Venga! ¡Animo!
Additionally, our guide Enrique, posted all of the pictures he took on a Picasa page which you can access here: El Camino de Santiago Picasa

El Camino was incredible..it is hard to describe it in words so I hope you check out the pictures to get an idea of what it was like! I can't remember if I already posted something about it on here, so if not here is a brief description: El Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage route that leads to Santiago de Compostela where it is believed (and recognized by the Catholic church) that the remains of James the apostle of Jesus are kept in the cathedral there. The first written account of the pilgrimage was finished around 1140CE, and today thousands of people from all over the world hike El Camino every year for a whole slew of reasons, not just religious motivations.

We walked between 20 and 28kms ( 12.5-17mis) per day up hills and down hills and through mountains, forests, farmland, and villages. It was a perfect preamble to the start of classes, we all got time to just chill out and be with only our thoughts or God or whoever/whatever you wanted for about 6-7 hours a day. I definitely felt refreshed and ready to start classes by the time we got back!

We returned from El Camino around 11 on Sunday night and bright and early Monday we all started our IES classes! It's only been three days, but I really like all of my classes so far and I can't wait to start classes at the University of Salamanca. With IES I am taking four classes: Literature & Cinema in Contemporary Spain, Spanish Language/Grammar, Regionalism in Spain, and Comparative Religion. I am going to try out two classes at USAL, History of Sexuality and History of Gender Relations, but I will probably only end up taking one; those classes start next Monday.

Now time for the fun part of the blog! Or what I think is fun, some more cultural tidbits and other interesting quotidian things I've discovered.

First, SO MUCH WALKING. Salamantinas (I think that's what they call people from Salamanca) walk a lot. At minimum I would bet that the average person spends at least 1.5-2 hours walking each day. With my schedule, I'm going to spend at minimum 2 hours walking every day, just to and from class and my casa! Yay being healthy and having calves of steel!

Second, there are no public restrooms. If you need to use a restroom in a bar or restaurant or store or whatever you are expected to by something, even if it is as small as a pack of gum. Also many of the bathrooms we've seen on our travels have cost .20 euros or so to use. Apparently bar owners here really dislike American students/tourists because they come into use the restroom and don't buy anything!

Third, the news and television programs here are much more explicit than at home! It is pretty common to see naked people of all shapes and sizes on the news and TV shows. For example, today on De Buena Ley there was this guy who was suing his boss for the right to streak and/or strip tease as a form of protest. This is not an isolated incident of some crazy guy who just wants to get naked in public, apparently strip teases and streaking are both relatively common forms of protesting against the crisis here. Anyway, they showed footage of all of these naked guys who made a video at their workplace (it looked like some kind of construction company) to protest all of the firings! 

Fourth, interesting feelings about Franco/democracy. So you know how we're all more or less brainwashed into thinking that democracy is the only way, political freedom and liberty for everyone, blah blah blah, well, I thought that I was a little more open minded than to believe that one single political system should work for every country, but I was very surprised to find myself bristling at my host parents talking about how democracy doesn't work in Spain. I always kind of thought that Spaniards on the whole had been glad to be rid of Franco and his dictatorship (because let's face it, we're taught to abhor any kind of political system outside of democracy), so it was kind of shocking to me to hear my host parents speaking with nostalgia for the days under Franco and with annoyance and frustration towards the current political system (parliamentary democracy/constitutional monarchy). But, as I listened more, it was easy to understand why they and many other Spaniards are fed up with the current government. I'm not sure if many of you are aware, but Spain is in a crisis right now, and I don't just mean that figuratively. Every news station, every day, shows stories of "La Crisis" and footage of people (mostly young adults) protesting the government programs that they believe are related to La Crisis. The main issues are that there are no jobs for young people (or older people for that matter), prices are rising and wages are of course pretty stagnant, there is a lot of discontent with the Euro, and the education system is in tumult. Actually what is happening with the education system is similar to what is happening in the US.

The whole education issue is very interesting to me, so pardon me while I take a minute to explain the deal! So here, the public high schools (colegios) and universities (universidades) are more or less free for Spanish citizens and are considered to be of the highest quality, if you want a degree that will get you somewhere you go to a public university. The private high schools and universities are very expensive and, according to my host father, are all affiliated with/controlled by the Church. Spain is getting ready to hold general elections on November 20th and the party that is more or less slated to win is Partido Popular (PP) (People's Party), which is a far right party that serves the interests of the rich (so says my host father). Part of this party's platform is to privatize the education system, thus destroying the option of free public education for many people. This has teachers, professors, parents, and students alike frustrated and, frankly, pissed.

Anyway, back to sentiments about Franco, according to my host parents, during the dictatorships there were jobs for everyone and people didn't go hungry because they couldn't find work. I asked about the other bad things that happened under Franco (Gernika, political and religious oppression, etc) and even with these things it seemed that they thought life under Franco was better than life under the democracy. It seems that the price of jobs for political freedom is a bit too steep after all.
*As a disclaimer, these are only the opinions of one couple in Spain, and certainly shouldn't be taken for the sentiments of an entire country. 

Ok, sorry for the long winded history/current events lesson, but I think it is really interesting! Also sorry for the lack of pictures, but I hope you'll check out my facebook album and the picasa album!

I hope everyone is staying warm and dry across the pond, I heard it's been rainy and cold. It's been sunny and in the 80s here...haha.

Until next time, ¡hasta luego! ¡besos!