 |
| BROS: hanging out with my old friend, King Charles III |
 |
| FLAGS: please don't ask me to identify them |
I thought, in my worn-out stupor, This must be where the light bulbs go. How strange they would expect me to buy my own
light bulbs. Go figure. I was so exhausted that I didn’t even for
one second consider the absurdity of this, so I simply resigned myself to using
the flashlight on my cell phone to unpack enough clothing for a makeshift
pillow and blanket. Following a restorative but chilly sleep, I did a quick
google search and discovered that the circles in the wall are actually European-style
outlets, and the room’s power only turns on when the key card is inserted in
the activation slot. This felt like when the computer tells you to “Press Any Key,”
and you exasperatedly search in futile for the “any key” on your keyboard.
The next
morning, the university held its international student welcome event, followed
by a tour of the campus. I met some guys from the Universities of Arkansas and
Florida, and despite being thousands of miles away from the SEC, I simply could
not restrain from ragging on their football teams. In all seriousness though,
those schools also have top-ranked business programs, and it’s
the opportunity to connect with other driven students that makes studying
abroad at a prestigious university like Carlos III invaluable.
That night,
I went with some friends, two Aussies and a Canuck, to an event at a nightclub
in the city sponsored by a student club on campus. The event had a vulgar
English name, which I’ve found to be commonplace in Spanish-speaking countries
since curse words tend to be the ones that
stick. In any case, it was an event specifically for newly arrived
international students to learn salsa and bachata from an instructor. We got
there a little late, and to our horror, all the girls had already paired up.
After standing in the corner painstakingly watching people learn to dance for fifteen
minutes, I started to lose faith that there would ever be an opportunity to
switch partners. I even dared to go with my friend to ask two girls who were
dancing with each other if they could please bail us out so we didn’t have to
stand in the corner any longer, but they were not very compassionate
and outright rejected us! Playing it off like it was no biggie but secretly
burning with embarrassment, the two of us got our coats and left to explore the
city because, as we say in my family, “Time spent in reconnaissance is
seldom wasted.” As we’re walking along, to my utter amazement I happened to see
someone I know from USC who graduated a year ago. As it turns out, he teaches
English here in Madrid, and by pure chance I ran into him on my very first
night on the town. So he took my buddy and me to meet up with his colleagues
from work, and we got the inside scoop on city nightlife. Just goes to show how
when one door closes, another one opens up.
For how architecturally beautiful and historically charming
Madrid is, the suburb of Getafe is to the same degree barren and squalid. Most
international students are staying in apartments in the city and commuting to
classes on the train, which in terms of aesthetics is the better call.
That
said, dorm life has been really entertaining. I’ve already made tons of Spanish
friends in the dining hall and by chatting to people on campus. Tuesday night, as two buds and I were hanging in their residence
hall (which is across the street from mine), three Spanish girls came in the
room out of curiosity, and ended up staying with us until two in the morning. We
all had so much to talk about since the girls wanted to learn English and us
Spanish. It was funny how they couldn’t point out Boston, Toronto or Brisbane
on a map, nor could we locate Palencia, Cáceres or Mallorca, their home cities.
It ended up being a super fun night in the dorm, even in spite of the fact that
the girls called me Ron Weasley all night. Hey, you can’t win ‘em all.
One thing that has struck me is how little I know about the
world and how much I’m learning from the other international students.
I’ve always wondered why each Spanish-speaking country has so many words for
the same thing (for example, “the bus” is el ómnibus in Uruguay, la micro in
Chile, el camión in Mexico, and el autobús in Spain). But I’ve come to find out
from spending time with the Australians and Brits that English is just as
localized by region as Spanish. My buddy Nick keeps saying “that's chips” when he
thinks something is cool… I mean seriously, you never know what’s going to come
out of an Aussie’s mouth next! The point is, I’ve quickly realized how limited
by cultural and geographic understanding of the world is, and it’s been really
interesting and educational getting to know the students who are here from
across the world.
What has surprised me is the fact that a lot of international
students don’t speak a lick of Spanish. I suppose that Madrid is such a
world-famous city that students are attracted to study here even without
knowing the local language. This has often put me in the amusing position of
translator. During that Tuesday night in the dorm, for example, Matt from
Brisbane and Justin from Toronto decided to turn to page one of their newly
purchased beginner grammar books, because hey, you gotta start somewhere. We
had gotten to page two when the girls walked in, and after a few minutes of
conversation, I think Justin and Matt realized how hard speaking Spanish will be. Thankfully, two of the girls had spent some time in Britain and spoke
passable English, or I doubt we would have gotten past “¿Cómo estás?/How
are you?” Matt did have the quote of the day, however: (to be read in a heavy
Australian accent): “Yeah mate, you know, I’m gettin’ pretty serious about
learning the language- I changed the language settings on my Facebook to Spanish.”
Boy, now if he’d only stop pronouncing that pesky silent “H”, he’d be well on his
way to proficiency!
Last
night, a bunch of international students met up at an Irish pub in the heart of
the city. Of the 15 or so of us there from Carlos III, I was the only American. There were
students from Poland, Bulgaria, Holland, Brazil, Germany, among others, and all
of them spoke proficient English. While talking to a girl from Rio de Janeiro, we
made the hilarious realization that songs from Brazil that I love (“Danza
Kuduro,” “Tchê Tcherere Tchê Tchê”), she considers to be totally lame, and her favorite American songs (“Call Me Maybe,” “Party in the USA”) are songs
that I feel the need to plug my ears to. Regardless, my voice is hoarse from yelling over all
of these songs anyways. There were tons of Americans at the
pub, including at least 20 girls from St. Louis University. In observing how
closely they stuck together and the fact that, by my survey, all of them
were from either Indianapolis, Chicago or St. Louis, I appreciated the
diversity of the students at my school more.
Tonight, it’s on to the most famous nightclub in Madrid, Kapital!
 |
| NIGHT OUT: Waiting at the train station with Matt (center) and Justin (right) |
No comments:
Post a Comment