Érase una vez…
Once upon a time…
This is how most fairy tales begin.
This is also how my blog begins, but while parts of my study abroad journey so far have seemed like a fairy tale, others have brought me back to reality faster than ever. Social media photos and adventure stories are only one side of the ever-flipping coin of the highlights and lowlights of studying abroad. Humbling, difficult, and laughable moments are always just around the corner.
Pictured above: sunset walk back from the Plaza Mayor.
Learning From Mistakes
For the past two weeks, I’ve been confidently asking for a “botalla de agua” (bottle of water) when I go out to a restaurant. A few days ago, feeling confident in my growing language skills, I ordered a “botalla” of wine for the table I was at with some friends from my program. The waitress gave me a strange look and asked me to repeat myself. Again, I asked for a “botalla” of wine. One of my friends leaned across the table from me and laughed, “It’s botella. The word botalla doesn’t exist.” I grimaced and leaned back in my chair as the waitress frowned and walked away to get our wine, and suddenly, every strange look that waiters had been giving me in the past two weeks when I ordered water or wine made sense.
In moments like these, I’ve learned to laugh at myself. However, other moments in the first few weeks of living in Spain have evoked many other emotions and realizations about the world I live in. During these first few weeks, I’ve learned many lessons about stepping out of my comfort zone, being okay with making mistakes, and adapting to a new environment completely unlike anything I’m used to.
Pictured above: me in the Plaza Mayor, moments after ordering a "botalla" for my table.
Survival Spanish
My ability to speak Spanish has grown in leaps and bounds every day, but I’ve also grown annoyed that language seems to be the main barrier between me and learning more about the Spaniards I lived with and the culture they grew up in. I’ve realized that while I may not be able to have long conversations in Spanish, I am still improving with every word I say, whether it is cprrect or not.
Before I came to Spain, I had a passable proficiency in Spanish. I had been learning it in a classroom for four years, and I practiced it on a trip to Guatemala. Learning Spanish in a university classroom seemed fairly low-stakes to me until, on the first day in Salamanca, I stepped into the streets with problems - I didn’t have any data for my phone, I was hungry, and my friends and I had no idea how to get from the Plaza Mayor (the main city square) back to our residencia. Faced with real problems that could only be solved by speaking Spanish, I abandoned any sense of fear as I pushed open the door of the phone store and walked up to the man at the desk. After asking a few questions and being fairly sure I had understood what the phone man had told me about the plans I could use in Europe, I paid for my new phone plan and walked out of the store, hoping dearly that I had understood everything correctly. I popped the chip into my phone, and I sighed with relief as Google Maps popped open and gave me directions to the closest supermercado (grocery store.)
After finding snacks at the store (and using my Spanish to ask where I could find the gluten-free bread), my friends and I walked around the city, down Calle Toro, the shopping street. We walked past the many clothing stores that I would later spend more time and money at, and as I began to get oriented in the city, I gawked at the beautiful streets, cathedrals, and parks that made up the city of Salamanca, my new home. During the first week, I felt like I was using the Spanish I knew in order to survive and get the things I needed. Now, after two weeks, I’m beginning to use my Spanish skills to learn more about the environment I’m in.
That first night in the residencia was like a movie. At every corner, I was challenged to understand more Spanish, surprised myself with what I did know, and learned a lot about myself entering a new environment. Read my blog about my first day in the golden city of Spain for more stories about the beginning of my stay in Salamanca.
Waking Up in a New World
Pictured above: my daily walk to class.
On Tuesday, May 31st, I began summer classes at the University of Salamanca - the fourth oldest university in Europe - in the International Courses building about a 10-minute walk from my residencia. Every weekday, I have two hours of Spanish grammar, one hour of Spanish conversation, and a final hour of Spanish literature, all taught in Spanish. In the first few minutes of my Spanish grammar class, my eyes widened as I realized that all of the Spanish I had learned so far had been preparing me for these next few months. As the class continued, however, I began to smile softly as I realized that I would be learning more in the next few weeks than I had ever learned in my Spanish classes in college.
Amidst moments of growth and happiness, there were also many moments of fear and exhaustion. For the first week of class, I was inexplicably excited but also incredibly tired and hungry all the time. I joked with my friends that my brain was burning calories speaking in Spanish all the time. Every day, after I finished four hours of Spanish class in the morning, the only thing I wanted to do was curl into a puddle and sleep. Instead, I dragged myself to the lunchroom, nervously anticipating eating lunch with the Spanish students where I gave all the energy I had left to have a simple conversation. The prospect of making new friends is something that usually excites me, but now, I had to push my tired body down the stairs to lunch driven by near-starvation and the smallest voice inside me that reminded me that doing things that require courage - like making friends in another language - usually provide the greatest reward.
In the first week, I became increasingly frustrated that it took so much energy to have simple conversations with the students in the residencia. One of the things that have been the hardest to accept is realizing that eventually, no matter how slowly I speak or how hard I think about my words, I will make a mistake speaking Spanish. However, I found that the moment I stopped caring about making mistakes and just started speaking, I made more mistakes than I could count. From the mistakes, I learned that the word “pez” refers to fish living in the sea and “pescado” refers to fish I’m about to eat; there are two ways to say “I’ve heard of this” and I now know which one to use when; and I also know to ask for a “botella” of wine when I’m enjoying a night out on the plaza. So far, making mistakes has been the best way that I've learned.
I’ve had to remind myself that it’s completely normal to feel exhausted when interacting in a new environment with a new language when every moment is out of my comfort zone. I’ve been humbled in one way or another every single day I’ve been here, but I’ve had to shift my mindset from thinking that I’m “wrong” about something to realizing that I’m learning. Our program director reminded us that whenever we feel frustrated, we should realize that in order to speak like an 18-year-old native Spanish speaker, we would need to have been speaking Spanish for 18 years. I realized that in this regard, I should have the speaking skills of a four-year-old (which isn’t far from the truth, but it’s just not as cute when a 21-year-old uses a word that doesn’t exist as to when a little kid does.) I’ve learned a lot about giving myself grace and transforming my need to recharge often to do things that bring me joy, like writing this blog, taking Zumba classes with Spanish moms, and asking friendly store employees where I can find chapstick with sunscreen and continuing the conversation for a few more moments. These little moments of joy started out few and far between, but the longer I’m here, the more I begin to have.
Pictured above: the view of Salamanca from the top of the cathedral.
Making More Mistakes and Memories
As I’ve become more comfortable in classes, in the residencia, and on the streets, the conversations and interactions that once drained me are now bringing me a new sense of excitement, and my energy levels are beginning to match the fire behind my heart to learn more about the environment I’m in. While Salamanca hardly resembles Minnesota, the place I’ve called home for most of my life, I’ve found myself strangely at home here. I’m excited to keep exploring Salamanca, learn more about the language, and make even more mistakes that I can laugh about and learn from later.
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