Just Another Cottage in Blogville

Hola from Spain

Well, I'm back - how unusual that I would splurge with money when I am so short of it. Trying to get a job soon; so fingers crossed. Figured I might treat myself to something for passing my exams. Maybe a nice glass of Port, too, since I'm too young to drink in the US.

This summer I am participating in an immersion program in Salamanca, Spain, where there is a huge Baroque university. The university is so old that it is actually mentioned in Don Quixote. The program has involved grammar and conversation classes, traveling to different famous cities, and in general just trying to engage in the culture. I came with seven other students from my university back in the States; all but one other took this as a vacation opportunity more than academic. Only once did I spend a night on the town - which involved two shots, or enough to make me affectionate but not drunk. Oh, and it enabled me to learn to salsa, which ordinarily I am too stiff to do. The things ya learn.

For some reason I was under the impression that Spain is a rather romantic country. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that, in literature and poetry, there are so many references by so many authors of "castles in Spain" as a getaway. Perhaps that was the case one hundred years ago, but now it is a country with an economy in such shambles that I had a nightmare about some of the homelessness I've seen. The hardest thing is before and after Mass on Sundays; they stand outside the churches and beg for money in their drug-destroyed voices as a kind of conscience manipulation. It's really nauseating, first because of the pity it invokes, and second because there is the frustration of "are they emotionally manipulating me or is this genuine?". It seems to be the former, because the same churches that have outreaches to the homeless also immediately lock their doors after Mass; when I developed better conversational skills, I asked a woman why: "They are drug addicts, and if the doors are not locked, they hide their cocaine in the churches."

Sure, the architecture, old cities, and language are all very beautiful, but after the "honeymoon" fades and you're living there for a month, you see the nitty-gritty. The yellow underbelly. It's not vacation anymore, it's daily life. There is political graffiti and anarchy signs blazoned everywhere - on ice cream shops, churches, grocery stores, dental offices, bars, law offices, banks... As a student of international relations, I've studied the anarchy-tyranny loop, which is, the way to solve anarchy is tyranny, and vice versa. Think about it. Spain hasn't been exactly free of surviving dictators.

Anyway, I am going to get ready for lunch (probably a some mix of ham, cheese, fish or tuna) and finish editing an article that I may have published. I promise the next few entries will be more cheerful, uplifting portrayals of my discoveries in Spain.