Proud to be an American?

When I first spent some time living in Spain, I was a spunky sophomore at Winona State University. At a mere 19 years old, I left the good Midwest and ventured to Barcelona, where I would spend five months having my world view change completely.

I studied abroad with the only program I could find that would send American students to study in a real university setting. AKA, they wouldn't send you to Spain to take classes with American students and American professors in an American center, like 99.9% of programs. This place would send you, for a light $13,000, directly to the Universitat de Barcelona. The Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE), it was called. This program was independent from my university, and so I went completely alone. I didn't know anyone, and that was the part I liked about it. My goal was to stray away from Americans if I could, and attempt to meet some local friends for what I thought would be an enlightening cultural experience as we were promised we would all have upon embarking on our semester-short adventure on the other side of the big pond.

My first but important change in worldview came via a group of Colorado-natives who, using a technique which I like to call lighthearted (yet damaging) bullying, made me fully aware that I had a ridiculous Minnesota accent. Every time I spoke they laughed at me, pointed a bit, and then made me repeat words they thought were funny. I couldn't hear my accent, but I was, suddenly, made fully aware it existed. When in group settings, I stopped talking altogether. But hey, whatever. It was honestly the best way for me to not get sucked into an America away from America experience abroad.

In my time in Barcelona I made the typical mistake. I didn't get to know Barcelona all too well. I started to travel and travel and travel, one weekend after another. France, Belgium, Scotland, Holland, and aaaaaaall over Spain. I pulled some of the weight all traveling Americans did at that time: the weight of President Bush. Regardless of how you may have felt personally about Bush, the rest of the world didn't like him very much, aaaand the rest of the world was usually ignorant enough to treat me like shit because of a president I didn't vote for. All the same, people would come to me, bash my country to my face, and I would usually agree with them.

Now, on top of the general anti-American sentiment in Europe at the time, I was super duper young and started to have all of these amazing revelations about my culture, country and lifestyle... They were intensely enlightening for me at the time, but all the same were insanely negative. Suddenly, my country seemed to be full of ignorant non-travelers whose eyes had never been opened to a world of street cafes and the ingenious invention that is walking... anyone who hadn't lived abroad just hadn't lived, goodness gracious!

The outcome upon my arrival home is what I like to call "Study Abroad Syndrome": or, I hate America and all it stands for. Patriotism is bad and next time I travel I might even say I'm Canadian.

All I could seem to spit outta my mouth was insinuating that Spain was way better than America. "In Spain, this, and this, and this..." and my friends and family, for the first five minutes of conversation, would respond with the affirming, "Wow, cool." But that didn't last for long. (Understandable.)

After those five minutes and for, maybe, another week, they started to directly ignore me. (Fair enough.)

Once that week or two passed, and I still insisted of Spain's superiority, I got the response of:  "SHUT UP YOU'RE NOT IN SPAIN YOU'RE IN AMERICA!!" (More than fair enough.)

The next step in the process was being pissed at all my friends and family for not understanding me. The acceptance process went a bit like this in my head: Okay, Spain is better but if I want friends after tomorrow I have to wire my jaw shut to keep myself from telling everyone how ignorant they are for not having lived in Spain, or at least dreamed about it. Okay. Accepted. (And then I'd only talk about it drunk.)

This sentiment hung around... my obsession with my home away from home never faded like it did for some other fellow study-abroaders, and I ended up moving back to Spanish-speaking land the fall after graduation, in October 2009.

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I landed in Spain's version of the deep south: Jaén. The land of olives and it's oil. The land of "I can't understand anything you're saying because your accent ruins my concept of the Spanish language." The land of tapas, drinking til 9am, and that's about it cause there was really nothing else to do. 

This was my second move abroad alone. I, luckily, connected with another American girl, Holly, before leaving and met her there upon my arrival. We found an apartment together on the most beautiful pedestrian street in town, which we shared with a friendly Peruvian guy.

During my eight months working as an English teaching assistant, I was the owner of what would come to be known between my fellow Americans and I as "Spain face." Definition? I was smiling 24/7. The first few days, Holly would have to tell me to stop smiling as I walked down the street... Turns out I was embarrassing my friends as I bathed in my European bliss. I didn't care that I was kinda in the middle of nowhere, I was straight up happy to be there.

This time around I didn't care about diving into Spanish customs by ignoring fellow Americans in an attempt to be cultured or something. This time around, I learned that foreigners run in packs because, surprise, you have one thing in common: you're alone. And another thing: you're all crazy enough to move away alone in search of some kind of meaning in life, and so you all get along really, really well. And it's really, really fun. 

Another thing happened. I was pretty darn sure I would never live in Spain again. Why? I didn't want to. Spanish people started to annoy me: they talk loud, they're rude, lazy and ignorant, they never want to leave their parents because they're all spoiled brats who live for free until they're 30... independence is of no importance, cheating on their significant other seemed to be the norm because they would rather suffer through a lifelong relationship that started when they were 15 than be alone... all I saw was negative. I loved the language, the nightlife, the lifestyle... but I started to really dislike the people! It was like I had suddenly overdosed on cultural experiences.

The other side of this? I started to glorify home. The variety of food. The people. Better yet, the polite people. The American dream. The mindset of working hard, being independent and self-reliable. The wide streets. Cars. Big cars! Green places. Quiet places. Houses! (How can you live in an apartment, anyway??) I finished my work contract, celebrated my birthday with an all-nighter, and flew home the next day. Shit, I practically ran home. I would have swam if you told me I had to.

My parents picked me up from the airport with a cooler full of Taco Bell (best welcome home gift ever!) and drove me home. As we cruised through Minneapolis and into Robbinsdale, I felt like I was passing through a surrealist film. I expected marvalous-ness. I spent eight months with such a desire for home filled with unrealistic wishes of life being perfection that I went through the strangest thing ever: reverse culture shock. Home didn't feel too homey anymore, or at least not like I remembered. I got bored after two weeks... and even started to miss Spain. I spent the summer keeping up with my Spanish by interpreting and decided that if no dream-job dropped into my plate (which of course it didn't) that I would wander off to Spain again. Not because I really wanted to, but just because I figured... why not?

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And so, move number three came along in October of 2010... I went alone again to work as an English teaching assistant, again. I showed up in Gijón, a rainy city on the northern coast, known as "La costa verde" (the Green Coast). I was lucky enough to be invited into the home of a Polish girl named Magda, who I contacted through couch surfing (for those of you who don't know, it's defined as: "A volunteer-based worldwide network connecting travelers with members of local communities, who offer free accommodation and/or advice"). The first day, her Italian friend and neighbor, Alberto, carried a suitcase or two of mine up four flights of stairs and offered me homemade pizza and a beer. I decided these people would be my future friends, and they were. Our international group of pals was pretty much an unofficial UN: Belgium, Poland, Italy, Germany, Spain and the US were all represented. I didn't spend much time with any Americans, which didn't worry me. Like I had learned before, foreigners run in packs... and I learned that it didn't matter what kind of foreigners. In the end we were all alone, all the same. And all we had was each other.

It was during this year when I finally leveled out my opinions about my country. I finally realized it wasn't paradise, but it also wasn't a shit hole full of ignorant hillbillies with superiority syndrome. Maybe it was due to being surrounded by so many different types of people and cultures, or maybe it was having two years of such extreme feelings- each from a polar opposite end- that brought me down to earth.


It may seem like a simple revelation, but it wasn't easy for me to come to. I realized every country has their good and bad, just like mine. The problem just happens to be that America is huge. Not only is it huge, but it's in the center of the world culturally and economically, not to mention militarily (I didn't think that word existed but spell check didn't jump me, so looks like it's good...). Everyone across the world watches our movies and listens to our music. They wear our brands and dream of traveling to our cities. They follow our presidential elections and political movements and choices. They criticize our health care system and our values. They tear us apart because it's easy.  We're in the center... and therefore we're easy to pick on. I'm not suddenly on the other extreme of "America is the best," but I am currently in the happy middle. My country is great, and hey, yours is too. Sounds kinda like a Sesame Street episode or something... but that's how I see it now. (Now if only Big Bird would pop out from around the corner and give me a hug. He was always my favorite.)

I also came to the conclusion that ignorance spans the globe. Whether European, Asian, American, whatever- there are dumb people everywhere. I spent last year defending my country and my culture for the first time in my life. I began to note that the majority of people dissing on my country had never been to my country, and all of their conclusions were taken from MTV or late-night talk shows who make fun of dumb people in general (which just happened to be filmed in America). What they don't realize is, if they did that here, you'd find people who don't know how to locate Mexico on a map, too. 


My favorite drunken phrase random people say to me here is: "You're all dumb and ignorant!! Look at your people on MTV!!" My response? "If you think MTV represents all the people in my country, you're the ignorant one." 

"And most American people think Spain is next to Mexico!!" 

My response?  "Have you met any Americans who don't know where Spain is?"

Theirs? "No... but on TV..!!!"

Mine? "Maybe Spain hasn't done anything important enough in recent years for us to have to know where Spain is." 

That's always a good way to get an argument going... 

Anyway, in the end, after a few years of living here, I've realized that simply enough, one is not better than the other, it's just different. And compared to before, where I would have held up a Canadian flag to hide the fact that I was American, now I'm proud. I'm simply proud. My country is pretty damn great. And to answer my own question, yes, I am proud to be an American. (Finally.) And it feels good.


That's all for now, folks.

Thinking of Snow

My facebook news feed is a perfect combination of almost everything I need to stay as home-sickness free as possible while living far-far away from my dear motherland.

Entertaining, informative, gossipy. I love it. I just love it. Forget the morning paper, my news feed is all I need. Sound pathetic? I could get why you would think it's a bit pathetic. But, if you stepped into my corner for a weekend or two, you'd get it.

Now, when you're abroad you miss everything. The staples of friends and family, and food of course (what I would GIVE for an after-bar run to Taco Bell every weekend)... but there's lots of things I miss while away that might not even cross your mind.

I think it's fair to say that it's a normal thing to have friends. Think about what you usually do with those friends. Your list might include sports like drinking, er... I mean... biking, or going to the movies, or shopping, for example. What that list should really say is "talking about people we know." So, what do I miss? Gossiping. I miss gossiping about family, friends, acquaintances and people I don't honestly care about... Like... neighbors or dogs or whoever, and, surprisingly enough, since you know these people from high school or sports or because they are your mom's friend's son, it's all interesting! 

Here, since I don't have an extensive web of people I know well enough to gab about, I get that gab from facebook. I get my sense of home- of knowing more than a handful of people at once- by reading updates on people I know though facebook. You would be surprised that your sense of home- more than places and food- is your sense of knowing a shit load of people who all happen to be in the same place!

Another thing I get from facebook? Weather updates! As a Minnesotan, we know how important the weather is. It's either too humid, too cold, too frozen or too perfect (only for a couple of days a year, that is). Yesterday, I know it started snowing because of facebook. 12,000 complaints of white beatifulness falling from the sky, and everyone is complaining. Now, I know you have to deal with it for the next... 4-ish or so months... but man, that first snowfall can also be breathtaking. A breath that hasn't been taken from me in three years, now. Via facebook, all of a sudden I can curl up in my bed, call my parents on skype, have them point the webcam out of their window, and ·vuala·, I'm in Minnesota.

Without technology, I'm not sure how I could handle being so far, far away...

"I wanna picture with the bad boys!!"

This Christmas I visited home. It was just about the strangest feeling. I was stopping by, saying hello, and leaving for another six months. But, it was also happy. It was like a layover to help me push homesickness away in order to enjoy my last lag in Spain. I was at a point in my life timeline where I was pretty positive my Iberian Peninsula adventures were coming to an end. I would be moving back to Bird-Town in summer. I was already pondering going to look for some rockin' bilingual job, interpreting on the side, and hopefully becoming stable enough to move into the near-Uptown area. Well... that was before I met the Spaniard everyone said for years and years that I would end up meeting. Right when I was pretty convinced my love affair with this country was ending, turns out it was just beginning...

Summer came and the days started to pass, and pass, and keep on passing. I soon realized I had to make a decision: to move home or to visit. I ended up with the later choice, and "take my Spaniard home day" came in late August.

The visit home is a strange sensation, as suddenly meeting up with friends and family is for catch-up and meet my fabulous boyfriend purposes. Days in Minneapolis were filled with concerns about where to eat? where to drink? where to do everything I love about this city and only have two weeks to do? Talk about decisions!!! The plus side is that playing tour guide with a foreigner makes things way more fun. We were generously gifted Twins and Vikings tickets. My mom threw a family BBQ. My friends made lots o' time to hang out. I got to watch Pelayo eat his first s'more, and, shit, we even got to shoot a gun at Bill's Gun Range!

I considered filling this blog entry with a blurb about every stop on our month long American adventure. But then I realized that can get quite boring to read, and even to write. SO, I am going to debut my fabulous Spaniard on my blog today with the most entertaining story of the trip... And if this bores you then you are probably boring.

...

It was a stickily humid weeknight right in the heart of Uptown, where we were engaging in the typical tourism chat which always consists of: "This used to be hipster and cool and unique but is now commercialism center." Yes. Very typical. And overdone. But true? Anyway, as we were walking up Lake, a few guys sped past on their neon-glowing motorcycles. Pelayo does the whole, I'm a dude and love motorcycles thing, whips out his camera and tries to snap them, failing pretty miserably. So, the chase down starts. We run, as casually as possible, stalking them into the Cowboy Slim's parking lot. Suddenly there was no way to sneakily takes pictures of them. I am used to being a foreigner and have come to discover that when you are foreign you can get away with shit you cannot get away with being a local, like asking three scary, gangster looking bikers if you can take their picture. My conclusion? "Pelayo, ask them if you can take a pic with them." To my surprise, he does.

"Hey, can I take a picture with you guys?" he asks innocently.

"You can take a picture of the bike, but not of me," biker 1 growls. Camera in hand, I started to back up slowly...

It seemed like an eternity passed before Pelayo let a huge grin spread across his face and spit out, "But I wanna take a picture with the bad boys!!" He recalls regretting that the second it flew from his lips, but it ended up saving his ass.

"Umm, you're not from here, right?" questions biker 1.

"Nope, I'm from Spain."

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Is that really what he thought, though? Of all the foreign dudes asking to take pictures of you- a scary as hell dude- they would be from Spain? Whatevs. All I know is that all of a sudden this guy was like, nicer than I could have ever imagined. "Is it your first time here? Why are you here? Where did you guys go?? Did you go to Dinkytown for Mesa Pizza? Are you gonna go in to Cowboy Slims? There is a better one is Bloomington, you should bring him to Bloomington. Did you go to the Mall of America? When are you guys getting married????"

We chit-chatted, took a couple of pictures, and kept on our way.

I guess pigs can fly now.

Little Facts about Barcelona, 2007

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a Word document I created back when I was studying in Barcelona. I was there studying for just five months, but made some pretty interesting observations about seemingly insignificant but quite telling differences in lifestyles, cultures and languages...

Me in Barcelona, 19 years old

Now that I have been living in Spain for a more significant amount of time, I never seem to notice these small differences that seemed so big to me when I was just 19 years old. For those of you who have spent some time in Spain, you might just find this interesting.

Little Facts about Barcelona 2007

1. Old men walk with their hands held behind their backs.

2. Spaniards are OBSESSED with saving energy because utilities are so expensive and scarce.

3. Long showers don’t exist. If it’s longer than 8 minutes you’re American and ridiculous.

4. They are also obsessed with every single door in the house being closed at all times (and they also have a lot more doors).

5. Fat people do not exist here. Anyone overweight is over 65.

6. All the music played in stores (of any kind) is really terrible American 80’s and 90’s music. Celine Dion and Mariah Carey always top the list.

7. Everyone is stylish- but weird 80s stylish. Ankle tight jeans are very popular, along with high-heel knee-high boots, and tights or leggings.

8. The city smells pretty bad.

9. Everyone smokes cigarettes.

10. Siesta doesn’t really exist in the big city, but lots of shops and stores close for two hours from lunch (1:30-3:30).

11. They eat five times a day. Breakfast at 8am, snack at 11am, lunch 2pm (their big meal), snack 5pm, dinner 10pm.

12. You can get a bocadillo anywhere for pretty cheap and they’re always delicious!

13. A huge piece of French bread (baguette) costs $.50.

14. They can talk at 5million miles a second a still understand each other.

15. Public transportation is amazing. There’s always the metro, the bus, the train, or your own feet.

16. When you order a pop at a restaurant it comes in a can and a glass with no ice.

17. You can’t get tap water at a restaurant.

18. They don’t really drink water here… but you can get a 1 liter bottle of water at the grocery store for $0.30!!!

19. Mopeds are everywhere!

20. They take “public display of affection” to a whole new level.

21. Hanging out at someone’s house doesn’t happen. To spend time with friends you meet at a bar, restaurant or café.

22. All of their convenient shops end with “ia.” Panadería (bakery), Farmacía (pharmacy), Perfumería (Perfume and makeup shop), Peluquería (hair salon).

23. Milk and juice for drinking at home comes in cardboard boxes that you can keep warm for a long time.

24. Chocolate is everywhere! Every block there’s a bakery that sells tons of chocolate covered/filled croissants and goodies. Nummy!

25. Cell phone minutes are really expensive and can be paid for by contract or by pre-pay.

26. To be able to walk to the grocery store and back home after shopping, lots of people own bags similar to a rolling suitcase to carry their groceries in.

27. Dogs are everywhere, poop everywhere, and go without a leash- without a problem.

28. For an area to be considered a “park” here it just has to be a brown sandy/dusty area with a few benches.

29. The blinds are outside of the house and you open and close them with a cord inside the room.

30. They don’t drink tap water.

31. Chocolate is king here!

32. Clubs (discotecas) are open until the wee hours of the morning (7am, 9am, anyone?)

The simple serenity of background noises

After two years of working as a professional waiting room individual due to my job as a medical interpreter, I began to appreciate the delicate sounds of group background noise. I got insanely accustomed to the sounds of quiet whispers between family members, the gentle rustle of magazines and newspapers, the quiet shuffle of feet when a name was called...

With time and boredom, these sounds took on an an extreme relaxing effect for me. Suddenly any hush-hush waiting room became my nursery, and more than fifteen minutes in an over-cushioned, arm-rested chair would send my head bobbing.

It happens that now that a good nap of mine thrives on good group background noise. Listening to the distant murmur of my roommates talking down the hall in the kitchen, the neighbors clanking dishes in their kitchen across the patio, or the light clicking of my dad's fingers tapping my laptop on the couch in front of me send me into siesta bliss...

The funny things that come out of jobs, eh?

Hola, me llamo Modi.

It never fails.

"Hola, soy Molly." Hello, I'm Molly. Seems simple enough, yeah? It is only the statement I have said approximately 5.7 million times in the years I have spent living and traveling throughout this fabulous yet apparently hard of hearing country.

"Modi?"

"Molly."

"Como? Moni?"

"MoLLy!"

"Modi?"

If I do not give a flying fuck about the person who is insisting on calling me Modi/Moni/Morocco, at this point I say, "Si, Modi," brush it off my shoulder like any good rap star, and continue on with my evening (while, of course, simultaneously racking my brain to figure out why the Spanish cannot distinguish the difference between my pronunciation of L and D). If the person is even suspected of being pertinent to my future social life or work opportunities, this goes on for a while... until I remember my new found, mythical weapon that does not amuse me at all.

"Sabes... Molly Malone...?"

"Ahhh, claroooo!! Moli!"

Aaand there went my dignity out the window. Being compared to a fish-selling Irish legend chick accused of prostituting on the side. Would you like a happy ending with your trout? Sweet dude! The most unfortunate side effect? This is officially my nickname for some of Pelayo's family members. 

An... older POV

Last week I met a Spanish woman in her 80's, and I think she took the cake for the wisest woman I've met in quite a while.

Upon discovering I am American, she suddenly said, "I am going to tell you some things I noticed about your culture and your country a few years back." Now, as many of us travelers/expats might do, I smiled outwardly but inwardly cringed in anticipation of some stereotypical, ignorant, and close minded statement about my country that I am so accustomed to hearing.

I am happy to say this woman surprised the shit outta me. "Back in the 60's, I went to visit some friends of some friends in a military base in Morocco." (*Note that Spain in the 60's was living under a Catholic dictatorship, which left them in the dust in terms of modernity and technology.)

She continued, "The kitchen was full of plug ins. Full of them. They had one plug in for every electronic thing in the kitchen. And of course, they had an electric knife, a toaster, everything!" In Spain, kitchens tend to have one outlet which is used for all kitchen appliances. You finish, unplug one, and plug in another. I had never thought about the plug-in/appliance ratio until I talked with her.

"Then, in every bedroom on the base, every nightstand had a TV! Every bedroom!" At this time in Spain, you were pretty lucky to have a TV at all. "A little excessive, your culture."

Then came some simple difference in time schedules and eating habits. "Oof, the Americans eat such a heavy breakfast, a light lunch, and a big dinner. I just couldn't figure out how to get full. I can't drink more than a coffee for breakfast, I have to have a huge lunch and a light dinner. I've never been hungrier than I was on that base!" She giggled at the differences between eating habits, and found it quite silly that she had never been hungrier than the time she spent around a bunch of Americans.

And of course, the classic, "And the Americans, they were so tall!"

I have to say, we could all learn a lesson from this lady. It took an 80 year old woman to state her observations respectfully. She told me all of this without saying once that one place was better than the other. It sure would be nice if we could all be as respectful and observant as this lady.

Her closing thought, which I found just plain interesting, went like this:

"I am at an age in my life when I know what I like. I'm at an age when I can look back at my life and see the things I actually liked because I liked them, and the things I thought I liked when I only liked them because of society's expectations. Now I know what I like: going for strolls, making my own clothes, and reading. And that's what I do now."