Alan Liang: Spain

Language Immersion and Travel- Spain 2012

Arrival to Madrid
Looking out the plane window as I was landing in Madrid, the first thing I noticed was how the majority of land around the airport was non-urbanized desert, and overall just very dry, grassy, and rocky land.

The design of the Madrid airport was very un-traditional: the roofs looked like they were made of straw and the support beams gave off somewhat of a bamboo look. My group and I gathered ourselves with the other group in the same program and we headed over to our hostel in the blazing heat of Madrid.

A view of the design of the Madrid International Airport

Orientation: Madrid
Shortly after dropping all of our stuff of, my group and I headed to grab lunch. We grabbed a multi-course meal that consisted of chorizo, ribs, chicken, a baked potato, and ice cream. I asked for water and there I was reintroduced to how European restaurants work. Practically every time you ask for water, they WILL give you a bottle, not a glass of “free” water. However disappointing this may be, the water does seem to taste better than water in a glass, but maybe that’s just the money talking.
    We spent the first part of our first day in Madrid exploring the city without our leader. We trekked through Plaza Mayor and the Puerta del Sol for an hour or so. The heat became unbearable so we all went back to our hostel and took a siesta before our scavenger hunt.
    The scavenger hunt really forced us to go outside our comfort zones and attempt to interact with an unknown culture. Activities we had to do included asking Madrid locals what their opinions were of recent architectural changes and weaving our way through roads and plazas to find the smallest church in Madrid (even though we didn’t know we were looking for a church). The scavenger hunt definitely helped me become more comfortable with the layout of Madrid and also gave me confidence in my abilities to speak and interpret.
    In Madrid, we hit up a few popular tourist attractions. The Palacio Real was magnificent: over 2000 rooms, a variety of art from different regions of the world, and even a Chinese-designed smoke room! It was hard not to be overwhelmed by the size of the place. We visited two museums: Reina Sofia and the Prado. At Reina Sofia, the most memorable piece of art I saw was for sure the Guernica, an enormous Picasso masterpiece. The Prado had a wider range of painters, with works by Velázquez, Goya, and Ruben. My favorite had to be "Las Meninas," partly because we had talked about it in my Spanish class and it was so incredibly different to see it firsthand.
    The moment I had been anticipating the most was being able to watch the Euro Cup semifinal in Madrid. I expected there to be a huge screen in the middle of a plaza with thousands of people, but for some reason the government decided not to do it for a semifinal. Instead, my group and I watched the game in a bar with some locals.

Part 2: Language School in Granada
After 3 days in Madrid, my group and I took a very long bus ride to Granada to begin the second portion of the trip. Along the way, we stopped in Toledo for a few hours and explored the city. Toledo is very mountainous, but also very historic. I spotted a local scaling the rock walls right next to the river, which seemed incredibly dangerous.
    In Granada, we spent our first weekend just relaxing and recuperating our energy for a taxing first 3 days; constant walking and jetlag left us completely exhausted. We did visit the Alhambra and its beautiful surrounding gardens, called the Generalife.

A Toledo local climbing the cliffs next to the river

    The most incredible experience I had was by far watching the Euro cup final with a bunch of local Granadians on top of the Palacio Congreso. Coca Cola was sponsoring a party there, and there at least two hundred people of all ages watching the game on the four flatscreens they had. At random moments during the game, people would break out in cheers, most of which I couldn’t understand. However, I did learn one chant, which consisted of chanting “Yo soy español” over and over again. Sharing this experience with locals really showed me firsthand how crazy and passionate a lot of Spanish people are about soccer. After Spain had won, the DJ started playing music and everyone was screaming and hugging, and overall just happy. We, being Americans, added our own flavor to the party by running into the fountains and having a mini-rave in them.

On top of the roof of the Palacio Congreso with my group!

After getting completely soaked and hanging out on the roof for a little bit, we left the rooftop to check out how the streets of Granada were like after a Spanish Euro cup victory. Let me tell you, the streets were ABSOLUTELY INSANE. Every car that we passed in the streets would honk and people would have their bodies halfway out of their windows waving Spanish flags. It was by far the craziest soccer experience I’ve ever had.
    Fast forward two days and I now was in a classroom learning Spanish for a local teacher! In Granada, I had class every day except Sunday for four hours a day. I had two different teachers; one called Juanfe, who taught mechanics and vocabulary to us, the other called Maria, who introduced us to a plethora of literature, music, and dancing. In Maria’s classes we also did a lot of improvisation and acting, which forced me to think instinctively in Spanish and accustom myself to common phrases to use in certain situations.
    While we were in the school learning Spanish, at the same time there was a group of local Granada students our age learning English. Every day after school, we would have lunch with them and then participate in different activities with them, such as playing soccer, going to the beach, going to the pool, and playing the capture the flag with water balloons. We also threw a huge 4th of July party for the Spaniards, which was pretty awesome.

My hermanos españoles in Granada!

While in Granada, I fell in love. Aquarius de Naranja was an incredibly refreshing, thirst-quenching, and tasty drink that I discovered in Madrid, but really began to appreciate it in Granada. Unfortunately they don’t have it in America.
    In terms of food, I tried a lot of different authentic Spanish/Andalusian foods in Granada. I discovered the tortilla de patata, which I found to be by far my FAVORITE Spanish dish. Also I tried foods such as croquetas, Spanish horchata (different than Mexican horchata), lomo, and others.

The Tortilla de patata

Part 3: Homestay in Guadix 

My wonderful host family!

On to the next part of my trip: the homestay. I had one younger brother who had just turned 15 and 22 year old sister. We stayed in a fairly nice apartment complex with a pool right next to it, which was pretty cool. My host brother was very nice and pretty comical guy, but we had absolutely nothing in common, so at first it was pretty difficult to talk to him. My host mother was very supportive of my learning of the language and always tried to involve me in her every day routine, whether that be running to the pharmacy to pick up something or cooking lunch for the family. She actually did make me cook lunch for the family; I made a tasty kind of pasta with lomo and chicken mixed in, with her help of course. I think she realized my inability to cook would preclude me from producing an edible meal without her help, so that was the only time I had to cook for my family.
    Throughout the homestay, all my group members and their host brothers and sisters would get together for organized activities. These included visiting the huge Cathedral in the middle of the city, staying overnight in some cabins on a farm, going to the beach, and painting. Since Guadix is such a small city, a lot of my group members and I were able to hang out with each other and our host brothers and sisters together, which was fun.

Part 4: Pyrenees Mountains
On to part 4 of my trip: my stay in the Pyrenees mountains. We met up with two other experiment groups and took a 10 hour or so bus ride from Guadix to the mountains and stayed there for three days. The mountains were a nice change of scenery for me, with cooler weather and a more relaxed schedule. Activities we did included soccer, hiking, and a LOT of foosball.

    On the first day we went on a very challenging hike. We split up into two groups, one with people that wanted to go on an easy hike and one that wanted to go on a hard hike. Safe to say, I chose the hard one. We hiked uphill for four and a half hours and once we made it to the peak, we saw France, which was pretty awesome! Chris Burrus and I led the way for the Big Red and repped MBA on top of the mountain with our boccadillos.
We also took a two and a half hour downhill hike to a very old city from the 12th century. The architecture of the buildings definitely reflected the medieval times. I also saw a church from the 11th century in that very same city, which is still locked and unlocked with the same key that was used almost a millennium ago.

Part 5: Barcelona
Finally at the end of the trip and confident in my Spanish abilities, I took to the streets of Barcelona as soon as I got there, scouting out restaurants and stores and interacting with locals. However I quickly realized that Barcelona was very different. The people there still use Catalan, an old romance language used in the areas surrounding the Pyrenees Mountains, and even though most of the locals speak Spanish as well, many of the signs are in Catalan as well.
    In Barcelona, we visited a lot of Gaudi’s work such as the Sagrada Familia and his massive Catedral, which is currently still under construction and will not be finished for at least two decades. We also visited a Picasso museum and a couple of cathedrals.

Gaudi’s breath-taking cathedral

The beach in Barcelona was absolutely incredible! The water was the absolute PERFECT temperature and was so ridiculously clean that you could clearly see your feet when you were 10-15 meters into the ocean. It was definitely the nicest beach I’ve ever been to.


Final Thoughts:
Overall, this trip was an unbelievably enriching and rewarding trip for me intellectually and culturally. I learned so much of the customs and language of Spain and met so many amazing people. I can say for certain that my life has changed for the better because of the five weeks I spent and Spain, and I want to give an enormous thank you to the Wilson family for generously supporting my study in the Spanish language through this grant, as well as Mr. Gaither, Dr. Gaffney, and Mr. Gioia for helping take care of the logistics and making sure everything ran smoothly, and finally Sr. Paolicchi for truly inspiring me to advance my studies in the Spanish language and undertake this trip.