Aprovechar

Life here has been pretty quiet; not too much school and not too much adventuring, but I’m enjoying it. I think I spent 6 hours yesterday and 4 today (until I finished) reading The Girl Who Played with Fire, which was just as satisfying as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, although the ending was more of a cliff-hanger and I can’t wait to read the third! Fortunately, KCLS has an app for free e-books that can be checked out, my host dad has an iPad, and I was able to take advantage (aprovechar, in Spanish—it’s a popular word here) of both of those!

A few other Spanish vocabulary thoughts, if you are interested:

-yuxtaponer means to juxtapose. This is already a pretty satisfying verb, but when you conjugate it, you can get things like yuxtapusieramos, which is even better

-rehuir means to shy away from. I like how four words are wrapped up in one.

-to seek doesn’t have a Spanish equivalent, just buscar, which means to look/search for. Not quite the same….

And some cultural observations, which I’ve been saving on a post-it, and as I haven’t written in quite some time, it seems appropriate to fill you in!

--The weekday schedule here is quite different from that in the US. My host dad, for example, who is an engineer, seems to go to work around 9am, come home at 2:30 for lunch, hang out/nap/study (since he’s also going back to college for law), leave at 4:30, and come back at 10 pm (although he does stay later in the office than his colleagues, who I believe leave closer to 8). Shops here are open from 9 or 10 am to about 2pm, and then reopen from 5-10pm or so. Doing business or working in the evening is totally normal: when our refridgerator broke, the repairman came at 8pm, and when there were a few repairs to be done around the house and a handyman came briefly to take a look at what needed to be done…at 9:30pm!  Of course, I don’t think you’d ever be able to get anyone to come at 3pm. I’m not sure I would like this schedule if it became my real life, because it obviously would severely limits evening activities. But, I don’t know if people really have evening activities… My host sisters are busy, but they have all of their classes/lessons in the afternoon and are done by 7, and my parents and other working folks that I’ve talked to don’t have hobbies that the do in the evenings. However, the long and relaxed lunch certainly encourages spending time with family, which I do really like. We often spend an hour eating and talking, and even if someone is “in a hurry,” they’re around for a good 30 minutes or more. That’s pretty novel to me; if I am in a hurry (think of the last two years of my life), I eat something that’s half-microwaved while standing up in my kitchen and review some homework assignment or making plans at the same time. Needless to say, I like this more. Plus I never have to cook!

My little sister normally comes home for lunch, but sometimes she eats in the cafeteria at school if she has an afternoon activity and my mom doesn’t want to walk there to pick her up and then walk back to take her back to school, and cook lunch. Can’t imagine why!! The cafeteria meals cost EIGHT euros, which today is $10.25!! When I found this out, I a) was shocked, and b) thought back to a conversation we had in school a few weeks ago, when my professor said that it’s not common for students to bring their own lunch to school, but it’s become more common with the crisis. But, again because of the crisis, schools sometimes charge those students because they’re still eating in the cafeteria, requiring supervision, etc!! These are often the kids who live too far away to have time to go home for lunch, and if they are poor and can’t afford to pay for eating at school, they don’t go. My professor didn’t have numbers to quantify this trend, but it’s become more of an issue in Spain (as you can imagine; remember, unemployment is at 25 %!)

--A different topic entirely: Spain doesn’t have the death penalty or life sentences! A different professor said that none of (Western?) Europe does, although I haven’t taken the time to verify that, so please correct me if I’m wrong. Here, they were both eliminated with the Constitution of 1978 (when Franco’s dictatorship ended and Spain chose to become a democracy, more or less… Hard to believe that change happened within my host parents’ lifetime!)

It wouldn't be a good blog post without some photos... So, last weekend I went on a day trip to Gijon with my host parents, my littler sister Esperanza, my brother Guillermo, and my (American) friend Olivia. It’s a neat city on the coast, but unfortunately the weather was atrocious and we spent as much time indoors at cafes and restaurants as we did outside. But, we did get some entertaining pictures! (Note the hair...) It was, as usual, fantastic to spend the day with them: educational and fun at the same time. We went to some museums and cafes that I probably too certainly wouldn't have found by myself, and I got to practice a lot more Spanish that I do when I travel with my American friends.

Also, I leave Leon in under a month... I don't think my brain can comprehend that fact!