What truly defines a culture or a group of people? How do we classify other people, by their

nationality, their physical appearance, the traditions that they follow, the language that they

speak or by the religion that they practice? What really distinguishes one group from another,

what makes an american an american and a spaniard a spaniard. Its difficult to define specifically

a culture using words, because we usually end up making generalizations or stereotypes of a

group of people as a whole.

When we first arrived here, Professor McKinney asked us all to define what it means to be

spanish. Without even thinking too hard, we all were able to give him an answer.

We described the Spanish culture as much more laid back and slow in comparison with the hustle and bustle lifestyle that is typically used to describe a day in the United Stes. In addition here, they have a siesta in the middle of the day, further emphasizing the “laid-backness” that Spanish people have. Furthermore, Spain beats to its own clock/schedule. Everyone here, from the really old to the very young, are always enjoying the social life in the streets and plazas until the early hours of the morning. Its literally one giant social scene with people simply enjoying each other’s company over a small tapa and a drink or two. This is something that I think we should do more often, instead of spending eight hours in front of the television, watching a favorite show. Its soo much more healthy. In addition, unlike us, who eat the largest meal at dinner time and then let it sit in our stomachs all night long, the Spanish eat their largest meal in the middle of the day normally around two oclock.

To add, the Spanish people are very educated about fashion. They are always rocking the hottest styles and the newest trends of clothes. Regardless the day, the week, or the hour, everyone dresses to impress and would be caught de wearing sweatpants or a sweatshirt out in public. They are always elegant, simple, sophisticated, and in style.

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For example, they can wear a pair of jeans, a button down shirt, and leather shoes and look like a million bucks. It looks like they don’t try hard at all but regardless they look amazing. Also, what makes their outfits even better, is the little accessories that they wear that make subtle changes that draw even more attention to an already stunning outfit. Im so jealous at the way everyone looks here. Literally everyone is drop-dead-gorgeous!! So far my two favorite stores here are “Zara” and “Massimo Dutti.” Both sell pretty sophisticated looking clothes that don’t hurt your wallet too too bad. Haha!!.

Para ser español, también tiene que encantar comer y beber. De la paella hasta la tortilla española, cualquier cosa que se apruebe aquí es fantástico, y sin una duda la mejora comida del mundo. Toda es fresco y preparado con una atención a los detalles.

Igualmente la gente aquí le gusta beber, pero nadie está emborrachas. A casi cada hora de comer, mi señora bebe una cerveza o un vino tinto. “Es bueno para el corazón y la salud,” es lo que ella me dice y lo creo. A casa nosotros decimos, “hay algo en el agua,” pero aquí quizás “hay algo en el vino” que hace toda la gente tan bonita. Si esto es la verdad, tengo que empecer beber más sangrías o tinto veranos para obtener la belleza de Cristiano Ronaldo o alguien como así. ¡Ja ja

Conjuntamente, hay una cosa que la gente española le fascina mucho y no puede vivir sin… fútbol. Algunas pueden describe este deporte como una religión aquí en España, porque todos están obsesionados. Cada minuto del día hay niños que están jugando fútbol o sin duda, hay algún partido en el tele. Es algo que los españoles están orgullosos de, y ellos deben ser porque tienen los mejores equipos del mundo, por ejemplo Real Madrid y Barcelona.

Además, yo recuerdo una frase que he leído en un articulo del periódico “El País” que dijo, “en España todos fuman: los que fuman y los que no.” Pensaba que este línea era cómico, y aunque no es la verdad que todos los españoles fuman, el olor del humo siempre no están muy lejos. Es un parte de la cultura española que puede molestar algunas turistas, pero con tiempo todos llegan a ser acostumbrados al olor.

Al final, no hay una lista concreta que define lo que es español. Aunque, las cosas mencionaran arriba, describen una parte grande de la cultura española, hay todavía más. La cultura española es rica, compleja y llena de historia asombrosa. Es una cultura que merece más que las pocas generalizaciones que he mencionado antes. Aunque, podemos describir la cultura española por los estereotipos, que nos permiten pensar de algo con mas facilidad, es necesario que tomemos cada oportunidad para viajar, explorar y aprender la verdad de las culturas del mundo, especialmente, la cultura española.

"Spanish food.. an experience in itself!”

When we arrived here in Granada, in addition to the beauty that this city offers, another thing that, well always, seems to grab my attention is the food. Here the food is very simple but has a incomparable flavor. It is simple delicious no matter what or how something is prepared. There are a great variety of flavors that each complement the other, from the sweet melon for example to the salty ham that drapes it. At times I feel that everything I eat is prepared with love..haha because every single bite explodes in your mouth.

With every change in life or every new experience there is always a nervous feeling that exists with that event and the food is no exception.I was anxious to try my first spanish dish y I hope it would be everything that I had imagined it would be, and more! The first night here in Granada we went to a cute little restaurant called Bordeaux. There we ordered various tapas, all of which I loved. We order calamares which were out of this world, cooked to perfection. They were fried and placed on top of sauteed potatoes and drizzled with some olive oil and some lemon. They were soo light and tender, and I'm pretty sure that I ate the entire plate. They were definitely the best calamares I have ever had in my life!

From that point on, I tried a whole bunch of new dishes and at times dishes that I already knew but they were prepared differently (spanish style). haha. I can think back to one of the dishes that my senora served me that I didn't like. Normally I would never describe myself as someone who was too picky with their food, but these two dishes were not appetizing, "gazpacho" and "shrimp."

First, if you don't know what gazpacho is, it's a kind of like cold soup that can be prepared many different ways. My senora makes it with tomates, little pieces of ham, and at times pieces of hard boiled eggs on top. This cold soup is mostly eaten in the summer as a way to enjoy soup at the same time not sweating your balls of in the summer, regardless I would rather sweat my balls off than have to deal with that shit again. I think my friends and I would agree that this stuff was hard to swallow, but the people here don't seem bothered by it at all, while they drink this stuff by the glass. How disgusting!!

In addition to the gazpacho, I'm not a big fan of the shrimp here. One day my friends and I went to a beach town called Salobreña to go to the beach and enjoy the summer weather. When we arrived, we were all pretty hungry for lunch so we decided to eat to stop and this cute little restaurant along the street right next to the beach. I chose a salad that had grilled shrimp on top which I thought would be absolutely delicious considering shrimp are normally one of my favorite seafood. Perfect!! i thought. But no.

Here I nearly vomited when I saw what was on my plate when the waitress put it in front of me. I literally was scared of this creatures that laid across my salad. These shrimp literally looked like they were caught from the ocean to my left, placed on the grilled and placed on my plate. The shrimp were whole, with the heads intact, eyes, antennas, and all 50 of their legs! What the hell is this!! I'm saying. Where the hell is the preparation. How disgusting!! Where do I even begin to eat these things. After trying to better the situation and make the shrimp look a little more appetizing, I became frustrated when the shrimps brains were falling all over my salad, so I dropped the folk and simply ordered a cheese pizza instead. At this still can't be screwed up that much.. or at least I hoped.....

The first day of Class

Nervous, but ready for my first day of class, I took my first walk across Granada, using my map to guide me to the university, which ended up not being to hard to find. I walked into class and took a seat by the window just in case I ever got bored, I could always look out to enjoy myself. I met my professors, they were extremely nice and very enthusiastic about teaching us spanish grammar and colloquial phrases. This class was technically an intensive spanish language course that we took for 4 hours a day, 5 days a week, for a month to help prepare us for the classes which would start at the university in october. At first, for the first couple of days, the 4 hour long classes were dreadful, but eventually with time, they got easier, because we developed a more personable relationship with the professors. Susana taught the first 2 hours and then we got like a 15 min break between the next class which Pilar taught. I cannot rave anymore about these two women. They are great!! They are funny, and truly made learning so fun and interesting, always making me look forward to the next class. I mean when they taught us stuff, they taught us stuff!! We learned everything for common local greetings and different ways to ask for the bill depending on the type of restaurant, all the way to every possible slang and bad words in the book. "Joder", "de puta madre", "que te den" and "que te folle un pez" just to name a couple of them. To decide where to place all the students we first had to take an entrance examen of spanish grammar to see what classes in which we should enroll. Being a quite rusty on my spanish, I first placed into an intermediate level and stayed there because i loved Susana and Pilar so much. But at the end of the course with the excellent grade I received, of course.... haha... I tested out and skipped to levels. Now Im in the upper advanced class. Although my speaking ability has only improved slightly, my ability to comprehend spanish, especially Andalusian spanish, has sky rocketed.

Meeting our Señoras for the 1st time

This morning (Sunday Aug 31) we woke up, eat breakfast, and brought our suitcases down from our rooms and placed them in the hotel lobby. Today we were suppose to meet our host families at 2:00 in the lobby, because they were al coming to pick us up. I can't say I wasn't nervous for this moment, because I was. I kind of liked living with all my friends, who I already knew, especially in a nice hotel. So to be honest I was kind of nervous wondering if she was going to like me or whether or not I was going to be able to understand what she was saying to me. Also, I was trying to picture what she was going to look like. So many thoughts were running through my head but I think I finally decided that she was probably this cute, little, old, spanish women, 5' 1', stylish clothes and nicely done hair.......But of course I was wrong.....

At 2:00 they arrived one by one in the lobby of the hotel and each señora was introduced to one of us. My señora's name was Carmen. She was a bigger lady, dark hair, cute style (I knew that would be the case...we are in Europe...haha) extremely nice and a great personality. After greeting one another and performing the European double kiss, Carmen tried to ask me a question in her broken english. This is literally how it sounded "Jew likey everyting?.. jew know da food?" haha. I was cracking up. I smiled and told her that I love all kinds of food and way willing to try everything. She smiled, nodded and looked relieved. Now more relaxed considering we had just broken the ice Carmen and I went outside the hotel to grab a taxi to her house. I said goodbye to all my friends and we decided to meet up the following day to figure out where everyone was living.

We arrived 5 minutes later at 100 Camino de Ronda apartment 5C. We walked into the lobby, squeezed ourselves and the luggage in the elevator and went up to the fifth floor. I entered into the living room, to which I first caught glimpse of Carmen's son Javier sleeping on the couch with no shirt and his pot belly sticking out...Lovely...just my luck!!! After waking him up and saying "hi" carmen showed me to my room. It was simple, but cute. I had a large window that looked out to the street, a small desk, an armoire, a bookshelf and a nightstand. The decorations in the room were kind of lacking. Above my bed were 3 figures, 2 of cows and the other of a moon. They were the kind of decorations used to decorate a baby's room. It was soo funny. But, hey what more could I ask for...right?

I immediately began to unpack both my suitcases putting everything away and trying to make myself at home. When I finished Carmen called me to dinner. I walked into the living room, and sat down where she told me to sit. Dinner was of course amazing. It could best be described as stew bull little medallions of beef, and a whole bunch of potatoes. It was full of flavor. Right away I knew she was an amazing cook and with the portions she was serving me and the way I like to eat, I knew that I would have to do a lot of walking throughout the city to prevent blowing up and gaining 15 lbs. haha.

Life Across the Atlantic

Well I just recently decided to start this blog because I know a couple years from now , when I'm looking back on my semester abroad I will not be able to remember every exciting and cool moment that I experience here in Granada. So by writing in this blog I hope to create a kind of electric journal that I wont be able to lose and will have to remind me of what is most likely going to be the best time of my life.

Well from the beginning.... Friday August 29th 2009, after a whole summer of packing the suitcases and making sure everything I was bring was at least decently fashionable, Mom and Dad drove me to JFK airport where I boarded a 7 hour flight with 7 other fellow Bucknell friends to Madrid Spain to begin our 4 month long stay in the south of Spain. The plane ride was relatively quick, or at least it felt like the time went by a lot sooner than most flights. Maybe it was because of the on demand movies and music that each seat was given. So while listening to a Rascal Flatts album, I sat back, relaxed and began to think of the one the once in a lifetime oportunity that I was about to undertake.

Well before I knew it, we arrived in Madrid Barajas International Airport, where the supposed-to-be-jet-lagged group appeared excited to begin the adventure. After picking up our luggage... no problems..Thank God!.. at leaving the airport, we went outside to find Professor McKinney. There we greeted each other, spoke our first words of Spanish, and boarded our 5 hour bus ride to our final destination city... Granada.! Although I tried to stay up to catch a glimpse of beautiful Spain, the bumps in the road and the lack of sleep on the plane, soon put me to sleep.

We arrived in Granada around 5 pm and first checked into a hotel to for the first 2 nights there, to get some rest and settle in. The hotel was gorgeous! Hotel Basilios was once a convent and was now turned into a modern hotel, which still kept its original charm and historic character. That night we had a group dinner with Professor McKinney, his wife and kids, and Fatima our Bucknell en Espana director. I was at first taken back when I met Fatima for the first time. She wasn't what I expected her to look like. I pictured a older, heavier, short women, but instead i was proven wrong. Fatima is young, pretty, in her upper thirties and literally one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She is easy to talk with and truly cares about all of us, making sure we feel comfortable, teaching us a whole bunch about Spanish culture and traditions, and helping us each step along the way.

The first two nights we ate a restaurant called Bordeaux. It was amazing. I couldn't wait to eat authentic spanish cuisine. For those of you who all know me... I love to eat!!!

We had calamari over roasted potatoes which were amazing. The calamari was so tender and light, probably the best calamari I have ever eaten. To wash it all down, we had some sangria. Literally my favorite drink. For those who don't know what it is, its red wine and Fanta limon (like sprite) and various pieces of fruit, normally peaches or oranges are tossed in as well. The drink is not strong at all and is just all-around enjoyable to eat.

Following dinner, Fatima and professor McKinney, took us to the center of Granada, to "la fuente de las batallas" to see the night life. I could walk around without a smile on my face. The city was gorgeous at night and at that moment I couldn't believe that I would be studying here for a whole week. After about an hour of exploring we returned to the hotel and went to bed.