I have a big pickle (Oh tee-shirts in Malaga)

So now I’ve been here for a couple weeks and I’ve noticed some of my habits and I was thinking that it would be great to write to you guys to give you the FULL Málaga experience. One thing that I love, even though I don’t think that this is specific to Spain, is the bus here. Just the idea of public transportation is so new to me, since I’ve never really lived in a big city. I mean I’ve done the subway in New York and the tube in London, but I’ve never been anywhere long enough to really get used to it and feel like I have a good understanding of it. Here I really only take one bus, so I can’t say I have a grand knowledge of the whole Málaga bus system, but I certainly get the number 11 and this confirms that I really want to live in a big city when I get out of college. I like having the freedom of having a car, but being able to read or just people watch or do work while I commute. Now in the morning I make sure to catch the bus closer to 9 because the next one is always really crowded, so I have to stand. My bus does not take me all the way to my building where I take my classes, so I walk. I walk past two different free newspapers and I usually get both because our whole group has become obsessed with sudoku and one I like to read better but the other has two sudokus in it. One also has horoscopes in them and my friend and I enjoy reading them to each other. One thing that is different is that the horoscopes are not only split by signs but also by gender. And the male and the female horoscopes are very different. Like today for female Leos there are surprises that they should be careful of, but for male Leos they should get their finances in order.

One thing that my friends and I noticed is that it seems like there is a huge baby boom here, where it seems like a lot of women here are pregnant or have really small babies. One of my friends joked that she should get pregnant so she can truly experience the Spanish culture and what would our program director say about our idea. One thing that I love here is that the strollers here also have umbrellas attached to them to shade the baby which I think is very adorable and something I would like to take back with me when I have stroller needs (which is going to be a long long LONG time down the road).

Another sort of cultural shock element that I don’t even notice anymore is how people dress. I was sort of peeved about this because one of the first days our director was telling us to try and blend in. She told us then that for the women don’t start dressing in their summer clothes till much later and that we should not really wear our summer clothes yet, especially when we are in the city. I found this frustrating mostly because this is the kind of the information that would have been wonderful to have BEFORE I packed all my stuff and when I had the ability to bring more clothes so I could fit in. Luckily I brought two cardigans and two pairs of jeans, but I wish I brought more shoes that went with these outfits, especially since flip flops are not really ok to wear to class in the same way they are in college. At first I was doing this just to feel more appropriate but now I actually feel pretty chilly in the morning and the sweater serves its rightful purpose.

Another thing that I’ve noticed, not only in Spain but all over Europe is the amount of graffiti just all around the city. I’m not sure what the difference is, I am assuming that it has to do with the laws here and there but graffiti seems to be everywhere. On the bus it seems like names but on the street there seems to be a lot of political messages. For me when I first got here, I used the graffiti to figure out where I was, in making sure I got of at the right bus stop.

Another thing I have yet to understand is how the Spanish wait in line. Sometimes when we wait in line people will just let you go ahead of them. And it’s not just an age/gender thing, like letting the old or women or people with babies on first. I think it has to with when you get to the bus stop, not what place you are in line. And then when you get on the bus, people are super polite even when it’s crowded, and they won’t push passed each other to get to the slightly less crowded part of the bus. One of my friends said that in New York, nobody would stand for this and they would just yell at each other to move on back, even just for a couple extra centimeters of space. The post office is probably the most civilized place I have ever been, you take a number and you sit and you wait for your turn.

Today I had my last test of the week and then I went home for lunch. Usually I eat lunch alone but today there were four girls from Austria and Germany who are new to the house. It was funny because I’m pretty sure we saw some of these new girls on the bus because they basically took over the whole number 11 with all their suitcases because usually at the time we catch the bus it’s usually not that crowded.

It was funny to see other people interact with my host mom, who said that I was the captain of the house because I am here for the longest, she also just called me her daughter and was joking around about guys hitting on me in the clubs asking for kisses… The girls were nice but they were SO young the youngest being 14 and the oldest 16. They certainly look like they could be in college. I was talking to them in Spanish and they said that I talked really fast and well, which made me feel great and definitely made me feel good about my progress. Then my mother started asking one about one of the people in her group who used to live with my host mother’s sister and who was switching houses. I don’t think the girl understood that she was talking about her sister and was saying how the house smelled and she didn’t like how other students were living there and my mother kept trying to defend her sister’s house saying it was very large and very clean (which I know sometimes my mother goes over to her sister’s house to help her clean) and that the girl couldn’t find a better house in Malaga. So that was pretty awkward because I could completely understand what my host mother was saying but I’m not sure if the girl quite new what was going on, especially since she just got there. It’s interesting because it seems that the kids from European counties only really come for a bout a week and I feel like even five weeks is too short of a time, I am not sure what one could learn in one week.

It’s funny because my host mother will also asked me about the other Dickinson student who is living with her sister, but I am pretty sure she has her confused with someone else because she asked me about a girl with a completely different name and she says that she never goes out, which I also really isn’t true about my Dickinson friend, so I found that a little strange.

Anyway today I had a really excellent time on the beach, since now I feel freer since I am done with my tests for the week. I’ve been reading Tender Is The Night and it’s been good but I like The Great Gatsby much better. Nothing really seems to happen in Tender and I don’t feel any attachment positive or negative to the characters. One of my Dickinson friends had the new Carlos Ruis Zafron book, which I didn’t even know existed so I plan to borrow it although he said it wasn’t as good as Shadow In The Wind. It was super windy in the beginning today on the beach, so much so that every once in a while there would be this huge gust of wind would come and blow up this HUGE dust storm, to the point where we couldn’t see, which was actually kind of cool to see. But the wind died down and it was great. I actually did some swimming instead of just bobbing. For some reason the beach was especially relaxing, probably because my mind was temporarily free of stress.