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Jordan Gindt- CIEE Seville, Spain
Looking back on my time in Spain, I have compiled a ‘best of and worst of’ list, chronicling my time here. Here goes:
Best of Spain
Worst of Spain
Well, this is the end. I don’t want anyone to think that just because there is 1 more thing on the ‘worst’ list than the ‘best’ list that Spain or Sevilla is more bad than good. Quite the opposite. The ‘worst’ can be overcome (and note than some of the ‘worsts’ aren’t even that bad), and the ‘best’ probably is valued at double what the ‘worst’ is, especially the ‘culture’ and ‘language’ points: those are worth about 5 points each. Overall, I loved my time here, and wouldn’t have traded it for anything. My favorite semester of college so far, without a doubt. I’ve made friends, had some great experiences, and seen quite a bit. I would recommend studying abroad in Sevilla to anyone, and having been around a lot of Europe, would definitely recommend studying abroad somewhere; almost to the point of mandating it. I have a different world view, and a better appreciation for different cultures, history, and how big yet how small the world is. I’m looking forward to going back to greatest country on earth, knowing for certain that Spain and Europe hasn’t seen the last of me. Until my next adventure…
London The Sevilla soccer team is in the UEFA Cup, which is the 2nd best international league in Europe, and were playing in London against Tottenham, the 2nd game of a home-away series, in the quarterfinals. My boss and his family were going to make the trip, and I don’t know if they actually wanted to take me along, or just wanted an English translator with, but they invited me to go. The game was on a Thursday, and they invited me on a Tuesday, so I had to buy everything, including my flight, within two days. I managed to connect all the dots, and before I knew it, I was eating fish and chips… Our group consisted of 9 people: myself, my boss, his parents and a family of five. My boss knows relatively good English, but I ended up doing all the translating. The actual language part of my interpreting experience went well, except everything else didn’t. For example, one night at a restaurant, everyone told me what they wanted, and I ordered it. Of course, the waiter brought the wrong thing, so I looked bad, and they were teasing me, asking if I actually spoke English. Later when we got in a cab, they told me to ask the cab driver to take us to this place called “Harrow’s”. To make the story short, the cab driver was talking about the suburb called “Harrow’s”, and my boss and his family were talking about a restaurant called “Harrow’s”. We resolved the confusion, but once again, I looked like an incapable translator. London was a great city. It is kept extremely clean, and they do a good job keeping buildings renovated and nice-looking. The only downside to London, and the rest of England for that matter, is that the pound is more than double the dollar, so everything is ridiculously expensive. Taxi rides are over $30, drinks are $12 and meals are around $40. Fortunately, my boss and his family paid for all my expenses while I was there. We saw all the main sights, although somewhat quickly, in the two days we were there. We saw Trafugul Square, the London Tower, London Bridge, Big Ben, and the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Overall, a very pretty place to go sightsee. Back to the main point of our journey. Seeing a soccer game in England was one of my life goals, and everything about the game was amazing. The stadium was very cozy and intimate, clean, and the England fans were crazy as always. I sat in the visitors section with all the other Sevilla fans, and the game proceeded without incident. The game ended up tied 2-2 in the end, but it was all Sevilla needed to move on, so the Sevilla fans were in good spirits the rest of the night. The next day we flew back to Sevilla, and it was back to reality. I loved London, and especially loved seeing a great soccer game.
To the Fatherland! This past weekend, I set off to Munich, Germany to spend four days with two of my friends who are studying there. Being of German heritage, and growing up in a very German state, I was excited to go there and compare Wisconsin’s beer and brats to the real thing. To start things off, the German guy I sat next to on the plane to Munich has been to Wisconsin, and even Green Bay. He commented on how pretty Lake Michigan was, and asked how Brett Favre was doing. For a moment I thought maybe Wisconsin was Germany. Anyway, I met my friends at the airport, and we immediately bought a wurst at the corner stand. That is when it hit me, I was in the only other place in the world, besides Wisconsin, that knows what a brat is. We put my bags in a locker, and went out to get some German supper. We went to a beer hall, which is the German equivalent of a bar, except for a couple differences, or what I consider to be improvements. The place is pretty much one big room with picnic tables stuffed inside. A traditional German band is playing in the middle of everyone, and the majority of the people older than fifty are dressed in full lederhosen. The walls of the hall are lined with individual locker-looking racks of steins, which the locals actually buy and keep their personal stein locked-up and on site. I’ve never seen anything like it. After that beer hall, we went to a different beer hall, the most famous one in Munich, which served food. I ordered a plate of wursts (four to be exact), served on a heaping bed of sauerkraut. I could have swore I was at a church picnic in Anytown, Wisconsin. Later that night we headed back to Ingolstadt, which is the town an hour north of Munich where my friends are studying. We took a train there, and I can immediately tell you why the Germans settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota: the landscape is nearly identical. Everything was green, and the landscape was primarily rolling hills and family farms. One weird crop I saw was hops. It grows vertically on polls or wires that are placed in the field. It was strange to see whole farm fields full of 20-foot telephone polls. I asked my friend what other crops were grown, and he told me that there are only 4 crops grown in Germany: the only three things besides water they are allowed to put in beer, and the thing they need to put on their wursts. In short, wheat, barley, hops, and mustard. The next day we spent in their town of Ingolstadt. They stay in a resident house for students that is the house in which Pippy Longstocking originated, and Hitler once stayed. The town of Ingolstadt is very quit, but very nice. We saw the world’s first medical college, which is the place from which the Frankenstein legend originated. We saw an old castle, a huge cathedral, the downtown, and attended some sort of festival that was celebrating beer. The next day, we headed back down to the big city of Munich. Our first stop was the Allianz Arena, the home of FC Bayern Munich, Munich’s soccer team. The stadium is state of the art, built in 2005 for the 2006 World Cup. We toured that, and then headed downtown. We decided to skip Olympic Park, and as a result of some poor planning, we were not able to make it to Dakow, the first concentration camp from which all the others were modeled after. Instead, we decided to take a stroll through the English Gardens, which is one huge park. We walked quickly through the majority of it, due to the large quantity of male nudity. Apparently, it is totally acceptable to sunbathe and walk around totally nude in the middle of a public park. By this time it was time to grab some supper and head back to Ingolstadt in order for me to get up early and catch my flight the next morning. Everything else in the weekend went fine, besides that I lost the key to my airport locker where I had my backpack locked up. Overall, I loved Munich, and Germany. I accomplished my goal: drink some phenomenal beer, and eat an obscene amount of sausage, brats and wurst. Now once again I am looking forward to going back to Wisconsin, aka ‘Little Germany’.
This past weekend, I hopped on a plane and flew to the tallest country in the world: Holland. Being tall, it was nice to fit in a little better, yet I didn’t know any of the language. Holland is quite the unique country; the whole country is below sea level, their chief export is tulips, seemingly nothing is illegal, and I swear there are more bikes than people. I will here try to give you an accurate recount of my time there, although words can’t describe how cool of a city Amsterdam is… I love the cheap airfare here in Europe. There are an abundance of student-discount companies, and I have been taking advantage. That being said, all my flights have left before seven in the morning, or after ten at night, which after you factor in transportation and arriving early, doesn’t leave much time for sleeping. I got into Amsterdam at 11:45pm on a rainy Dutch night, meeting my friend at the airport. We caught the next train to the part of town we were staying in at 2:00am, and stumbled into our hostel at 3:30am. Night 1: 4 hours of sleep. We woke up early in order to get a full day of sightseeing in. We took a free city tour, given by a middle-aged Irishman, who by way of having an outside-looking-in view of the Dutch, was absolutely hilarious. After that, we changed moods and went to the Anne Frank house. Due to the large line, we opted out, but just seeing the house was eerie. Before I get too far, I have to talk about their canal system. Their whole country is built on land that would be underwater if not for their dams. As a result, all their houses are leaning in at least one direction, and literally every street has a canal running through it. Dutch food is nothing to write home about, but one thing they got right is (if you remember from Pulp Fiction, which Tarantino wrote in Amsterdam, when John Travolta’s character says, “Do you know they eat mayonnaise on their fries in Amsterdam?”) is their ‘frites’. This is true, and possibly was my favorite part of the trip. French fries come with a sweet mayo, something I am determined to recreate in my kitchen when I get home. Needless to say, I ate frites three times in my less than three days there. After this, we hit up Amsterdam’s most famous, or probably infamous, sight: the red-light district at dusk. By ‘hit-up’, I mean we walked through it, keeping our eyes straight ahead and our money in our pockets. After that we went out for the night for some Dutch nightlife, and called it a night shortly before the sun came up. Night 2: 3½ hours of sleep. We woke up, hopped on the subway to the Ajax stadium, which is the professional soccer team in Amsterdam, and one of the most famous in the world. We took a tour of the stadium, which was only slightly marred by the large, obnoxious Dutch bachelor party that was on the tour with us. Our tour guide spoke decent English, but certainly wasn’t a communications major. After visiting the team store, and dropping some Euros on some merchandise, we headed back to the city center. We went Dutch on some more frites, and made our way to the Rijksmuseum, which is home to the Rembrandt’s most famous works. We walked through, saw the famous “Night Watch” painting, and I got my fill of ‘culture’ for the day, making my mom happy. At this point, it was about time for some more frites, and then out for the night for St. Patrick’s day. My plane left the next morning at 6:10am, and we didn’t get back to the hostel until 2:45. Night 3: 1 hour 40 minutes of sleep. Well, I am here, alive, post-Amsterdam. It was a wild three-day adventure, in possibly the coolest city in the world, yet I still don’t know the meaning of ´double-Dutch´.
It has been almost six weeks now, and this is my third blog. I would have to undoubtedly say that my perceptions of Spain and Sevilla have changed drastically in the last couple of weeks. Not in a bad way, just in an evolving or settling-in way. I guess that a major part of the cultural experience is being a foreigner, but this last week I learned that fact the hard way… We were waiting in line to get into a discoteca, and finally got to the front when the bouncer took one look at us and told us there was a €30 cover charge. I thought maybe that would include dinner, but it didn’t. As we stepped aside to decide if we still wanted to enter, the bouncer let in a group of Spaniards with no cover charge. I asked the bouncer why that happened, and he said that it was ¨Spanish Night¨ and if we wanted to get in we would have to pay. I don’t think that this guy represents all Sevillians, but I have found that the extreme lack of diversity here does play a role in the locals´ perceptions of foreigners. On a lighter note, one of my classes is an internship at a local business, and I have so far enjoyed the experience of working in a Spanish business. I work at an insurance company here, and am learning a lot. For one thing I can’t complain with their daily work schedule: work starts at 10am, and involves a 2 ½ hour siesta break in the middle of the afternoon. Besides working, I have got a membership at a local gym, and have discovered a new game: padál. I would describe it as a cross between tennis and racquetball. It is played on turf, outdoors, with a tennis net and a tennis ball, but the court is maybe only half as large as a tennis court, and fenced in with glass windows. It can be played with one or two people, and the rules follow like tennis, except the ball can bounce off the wall, and the racquets are real soft so you can’t hit the ball as fast as in tennis. I have yet to try this new game, but will surely take it up soon. Augmenting my workouts, I have been taking protein supplements to keep my weight up, as the typical Spanish diet consists of bland bean soup, bread and water. If I didn’t know any better, I would think this were the 30´s. I don’t want to make it sound like I am going hungry though, I get full at every meal, it is just that the food is bland and simple. I would kill to have my George Foreman grill here. My roommate, and the majority of my study abroad group made the trip to Carnaval in Cádiz, a city on the Spanish coast, this past weekend. Due to a number of factors, such as getting ready for two straight weekends of international trips, I chose to stay home and rest, to make sure that my next blog entry is extra-juicy, and spiced up with some Holland and African flavor (hint hint). To leave on an exciting note, there was a 4.1 earthquake in Portugal this past week that was felt all over Sevilla. Things were knocked off shelves and buildings cleared out. However, I am reluctant to say I did not feel anything. I leave you with a beautiful picture of Sevilla by night along the Guadalquivir River. Jordan Gindt, signing off live from Seville, Spain. Stay tuned America, and remember: its live, anything could happen.
Four weeks have now been completed, and I feel like a native. Well, I don’t yet have the all-so-popular mullet nor have I picked up smoking, but I have figured out the bus system, which is a must in this city. I have also taken advantage of the ‘Rebajas’ that are going on here. ‘Rebajas’ is the time of the year in which every store decides to collaborate and have a massive sale on everything, sometimes exceeding 50% off. It reminds me of ‘black Friday’, except it lasts well over a month. I’m surprised that Spain during Rebajas hasn’t caught on with women in the USA as a popular vacation destination. When I first came here, I was told that Andalucía was in a permanent state of drought. Over the last couple of weeks, I realized that whoever told me that had to have been from either Seattle or London. It has rained here almost every day for the past two weeks. My digestive system is just now getting used to the massive amount of olive oil that I am forcing it to work with. I was much relieved to find a store that sells milk, except that it is not pasteurized and is not kept cold. I was very skeptical at first, but have found that despite what it lacks in cleanliness, it makes up for in taste. Apparently the pasteurizing process takes away that straight-from-the-cow flavor I have grown to love growing up in Wisconsin. I fear I might have been caused permanent damage when I saw my Spanish brother eating partially-dehydrated chicken blood. That’s right, a red substance that looks like a cross between jellied cranberries and SPAM but is actually 100% chicken blood. On a cultural note, the two professional soccer teams here in Sevilla played last week, and the locals treated the game as if it were the second coming. I also rented a couple of Spanish movies that won ‘Goyas’ two weeks ago (the Spanish-version of the Oscars). It turns out that Viggo Mortenson knows Spanish, and is a big star in Spanish cinema here as well. While taking a different route to class one day, I stumbled upon a quasi-monument in the median of the road. Upon closer inspection I realized that they were roman aqueducts, dating back almost two-thousand years. Seeing these aqueducts really puts into perspective how short the history of the U.S. is. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to take the train to the city of Jerez (the picture is of the cathedral there), known for its wine, and apparently the sherry-Mecca of the world. We toured the factory of the most famous sherry company in the world: Gonzalez Byass, and its brand ‘Tio Pepe’. On a side note, the train is the way to travel in Europe. Its quick, lets you avoid delays, having to arrive early, and offers you more leg room than planes do. Providing your not traveling international, I would unequivocally recommend the train system.
It’s possible I’m too close to the situation, but to me, preparing to study abroad can be a lot like training to sky dive. I fill out a lot of paperwork, read about what I should expect, sign away a few liberties, and will eventually get on a plane. The process has been long and very tedious at times, but it’s amazing what you’ll put up with when you know your reward is great and growing nearer everyday. The truth of the matter is, all the paperwork; the application, the visa, the passport, the scheduling, is only a fraction of the real preparation for studying abroad. I find myself concentrating a little harder on my tone when speaking Spanish, because I know in just weeks I’ll be asking a local where I can find a payphone, and I don’t want to come off as a snob. I engage in conversations with my friends and family more sincerely, because it’s just not the same in an e-mail. I check the exchange rate incessantly, and I peek at a map of Europe every chance I get, still amazed at how close everything is. After I check the current temperature in Milwaukee, I check Seville, and smile. I have lists. Lists that tell me what I need to pack. Lists that remind me to turn in this, mail that, and ask questions about all of the above. I flip through travel books in my spare time, plotting weekends or a spring break. I read over ways to deal with culture shock, homesickness, and banking in Spain. But the times I can really tell how excited I am are when someone asks me about it. It never gets old. Next semester, I’m going to Spain. No, I’ve never been there. Yes, I can hold my own in a Spanish conversation. And yes, I’ve heard of the Running of the Bulls. As the whole preparation process draws to a close, I’m starting to feel like studying abroad might be a little like skydiving. I’ll jump off that plane, open my eyes wide enough to try and take it in all at once, try to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest, somehow land on my feet, and sit in amazement that it all went by so fast.
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