The board walk with part of the Alicante skyline and some guy in the picture!
Friday 5/20 to Sunday 5/22
Friday we got up to a beautiful spread of breakfast foods at the hotel. I took advantage of it because I know the usual breakfast in Spain is no more than a piece of sweet bread and some fruit, but I’ll talk more on meals later. We then met up with our directors and had some orientation sessions about stuff like the typical family environment and how to act appropriately. We also got our pay-as-you-go cell phones from the giant phone company here, Movistar. They said international incoming calls (and possibly texts) are free to me so you can call me if you have free international calling or something, but for me to call the US it’s really expensive.
The big part of the day was when we met our host families. My family is really just a host grandma. Her name is Pilar and she must be over 70 because her son is 50 something. She’s small and has a rough voice (prolly b/c she smokes). She lives alone because her husband passed 5 years ago, except recently when her son moved in with her because he just got divorced. However, he’s usually gone on work (diving to collect salt out of the sea I think? I didn’t really understand). She has two little birds, loves Barcelona soccer (where she grew up), Formula 1 racing, and watches a lot of tv.
The apartment is nice and pretty spacious for Spain. It’s got a real nice courtyard out front. The worst thing is how far it is from the other intern students and basically everywhere I need to go in the middle of town or by the beach. I have prolly gotten in more walking these past days than I did in a whole semester at Mizzou (mostly because I ride my bike everywhere). I doubt I’ll even need to run while here because I get so much exercise walking! At least once you get into the middle of the city everything is close.
The courtyard in front of my house. I'm on the 3rd floor straight ahead.
The street in front of my house
Honestly, at first I was a bit bummed because I was really hoping for my family to have kids who could show me around town, tell me the popular things to do, and introduce me to some locals. Having at least two people in the house would have been nice because when it’s just me and mamá it’s hard to keep up a conversation because there are only so many things to talk about and it’s harder to improve my Spanish by both listening and hearing people explain things several ways if I don’t understand them. The place really is much farther from everything (15 minutes to our typical meeting spot, 25-30 minute walk to the beach) than everyone else’s house and I’m the only one who doesn’t have a couple or kids close to our age or even other students at their house. Also, I was surprised to hear that the host families are paid fairly well for hosting us and mamá has had lots of students in and out. So we get catered to and serviced a lot more than I expected because the hosts consider it their job. I was expecting more of a personal homestay, but felt like I was just the next paycheck per se. Please don’t think that I’m a horrible person or that I think my home is horrible. First, I realize that this is important to Pilar not just because it’s her income, but because by hosting students she gets something much more valuable: relief from loneliness. Also, I think she really enjoys the chance to take care of someone and I’ve gotten the impression that she really does care for me and definitely wants me to be happy. I’m sure we will soon both grow a lot closer.
That first day was a little awkward, but we had some decent conversations and they have gotten better as we get more familiar and comfortable with each other. Mamá doesn’t speak any English so I’ve had to work hard to understand her and then explain around things when I don’t know a word. Surprisingly, I haven’t used a translation dictionary at all during any of my conversations. First we ate our lunch and met a neighbor who gave us the password to his wifi network (whiffee as they say). Then we walked to the Movistar shop to add some more Euros to my Movistar account, but we came back soon because Pilar can’t walk too far. Then I walked around and explored the central part of the city by myself. I love just reading all the Spanish signs. I visited the bullfighting arena and looked through the small museum. I’m definitely going to get a ticket for a bullfight during the season (June 18-July 5). I took a siesta and then mamá had dinner ready for me before I went out to meet my intern friends around 11:30 to go to the bar district. I have a pretty good sense of direction, so even though I’m far away in the middle of a residential district I found my way around well enough.
The bullfighting museum at La Plaza de Toros
Some bullfighters are very famous and everyone wants to go see them. There is even a bullfighting school for aspiring young ones.
La Plaza de Toros. It's in the center of a big roundabout. I'm glad I don't have to drive through those, I just hafta worry about crossing through them!
Cool graffiti. You might not be able to tell, but left picture is of a creature with a lamp shade hat and a gas mask riding a turtle!
This was an Alice in Wonderland themed wall complete w/ Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
This is more of the wall. You can see the caterpillar was adapted to look a lot more sinister, but it still has its hookah. The rabbit was depicted in the same way on the other side and had a gold tooth!
They have lots of graffiti. Most of it's trashy tags and comments, but some is really cool art!
Armando says Spaniards are very individualistic and they will clean their house spotless, but many have no problem spreading graffiti or littering.
The night was fun and the Spaniards love to party. We went to a pub with amusing paintings like Bush in a diaper playing with bombers and tanks (they don’t like him, but they like Obama apparently). Next came an American 80s themed bar named Joplin, and then a open-air Hawaiian type place. Although we found people spend much of the night just hanging in the streets/alleys (which are only for walking). There are so many people and you can run into so many people at once because everything happens in the same “barrio” district. They are all very touchy-feely (even the guys with each other). The guys are also very aggressive (usually in a polite way) towards girls and they kept flirting with the one girl with us who they called “rubia” (blond) and asked for “one kiss” (on the cheek). I think she was flattered.
Saturday
We had to wake up much too early for my liking to meet with Armando (one of our directors) at La Plaza de Toros to get acquainted with the city more. The schedule in Spain is totally different. People wake up later and start work/school around 9 they break for lunch and siesta around 2 and either have a very long lunch where they mainly socialize or eat and nap (my preference). Then they go back to work/school from 4 or five til 7. They eat 8-11 and nightlife starts at like 12 and goes easily until 4 am.
Mercado Central- The main market where everything is sold. Seafood, meat and fruit and vegetables are the best here. The fish smell pungent and there are so many varieties. It's huge!
Street signs are on the corners. La Rambla is the main street. It was built on top of a river
Armando loves walking so we did a lot of it. We went to the other main point in the city, La Plaza de Luceros and then ended up going to el Castillo de Santa Bárbara. The castle is huge and is the only thing on top of a huge rock outcropping so you can see it from anywhere in Alicante. You can climb like 30 flights of stairs to get to the top, but we took the elevator in the center of the mountain. At the top you could see for miles. We learned how it was built by the Christians in like 13th century after they conquered the Moors in the area. Cool stuff.
The crest on the floor of the castle said: Alicante, the best land in the world.
They had a cell phone tower on top of the castle!
The north view overlooks all sorts of city we haven't been to yet. I think they said it's actually another city right next to Alicante of the same size.
The beach on the left is very popular. The row of hotels is in the middle and the marina to the right of that.
This is the center of Alicante where we have walked around a lot. It's really hard to tell what stuff is when you aren't at street level.
The picture above the door of Jesus they claim is the real likeness of him. It's based off an image of Jesus' face people believe was left in a cloth that a lady wiped his face with as he carried the cross. Relics are very important to the people and especially churches in Spain.
This is the inland view of Alicante. The bullfighting ring is on the right. My house is up and a little to the right of that .5-.75 miles.
straight from the castle to the beach and ocean.
After lunch my friends and I met up at the playa (beach) and relaxed there for a while. The water was pretty chilly because it doesn’t really get hot here until July (they say June is a beautiful month). We found lots of interesting things at the beach: a huge intricate sand castle, men painted white standing as statues, people going around braiding hair and selling sunglasses Americans from several different places, and to our surprise multiple girls with their chests bare laying out in the sun.
When we had gotten our fill of the sun and sand I made the trek home (uphill all the way) for dinner and went right back out to catch the last Alicante soccer game of the year. Apparently the team isn’t great and everyone is bummed that they got moved down to the second tier league so the stadium wasn’t that full. It was definitely still a crazy European soccer environment though with chants, signs (people got furious at security for taking an inappropriate sign and the whole place started booing), and crazy traditions (like kids running a huge stuffed gorilla all the way around the stadium and even our favorite, the wave). Tragically, we accidentally got tickets in the visiting section complete with walls of bars and it’s own entrance. It was the one option of the 10 or so on the board that we didn’t want. Tickets were decent at 35 Euros. Although the visiting fans were prolly the most energetic with weird songs and dances, and they were all adorned with ridiculous stuff like rainbow wigs. Even more tragically the game ended in a 0-0 tie (typical soccer!), but we still joined in as the fans rushed field! Then they turned on the sprinklers to make us leave.
Our view from the corner visiting section at the Alicante v. Gijón game. You can see stands aren't full and the pink in the bottom left is some guys' long-haired wig.
The four guys: Allan, Quinten, Me, and Jack. Jack's holding his non-alcoholic beer they serve at games. He didn't know that until afterward!
People running around on the field, mostly kids trying to take pictures with the players and stuff.
I did a pull-up on the goal, but then hit my head, haha.
Afterwards we chilled on the roof of one of our guy’s house for a while drinking wine (pre-gaming or botellón in a sense) and then we went out to el barrio the bar/club district for another fun night. I don’t understand how the Spaniards do it though because both Friday and Saturday night we’ve been out until past 4 and I am dead tired now because I’m writing this instead of siesta-ing.
Sunday
It’s already weird having to write this in English because I have been talking, reading, listening, and thinking in Spanish so much. I started to write Domingo (Sunday).
Today is regional elections for Spain so that’s been interesting. People love to talk politics because they all have their own opinions and most believe Zapatera and the Socialist Party is doing a crappy job and they want to elect the Populist Party (the Republicans equivalent). I’ve even seen some Communist posters in my neighborhood, but they aren’t very popular. We met Armando again at the Plaza de Toros and walked around. Today he spoke to us all in Spanish to make sure we understood everything and he also had us explain our homes and how they were so far. It wasn’t very hard at all. As long as people don’t talk to fast and I really concentrate I can get what they say.I also find myself thinking about how I would say different thoughts or phrases in Spanish a lot. We visited the two biggest churches (San Nicolas and some other one that was very ornate and built on top of the grounds of a mosque). Then we went to the two free art museums. Armando teaches art at the University and knows a ton about it. We saw original works of Dali, Picasso, Miró, and so many more. It was hard to fully enjoy it because my legs were so tired and know the two others felt the same after a while. Armando is a great teacher with everything about the city and Spanish culture/lifestyle. I guess that’s good since it’s his job. Finally we went to the Ayuntamiento (city hall) and saw the small market they have there on Sundays. It had some great Spanish artifacts.
The church of San Nicolas. The most famous church in the city. It's huge and pretty plain on the outside, but it's right in the center of town.
The church of Santa Maria. It's baroque style and very pretty. You can see the section of glass in the middle of the aisle where you can look down at the old remains of a mosque.
Some cool painting of people praying to get into Heaven.
A neat organ on the wall.
The Ayuntamiento is the seat of the local government. This was one of their polling places as well.
La Plaza de Ayuntamiento. There is a grid of fountains that always change heughts and colors at night. The Sunday market is held here around the square in the walkway under the arches.
So many things are different here, but nothing is terribly shocking or challenging to deal with. I feel like after just a couple days I am pretty comfortable with the idea of living here for another 5 weeks. My intern friends are great, but I really hope we meet some Spanish friends and we can really get immersed further in the culture through them. Thanks for reading! Btw, you can always let me know if there’s something you want to know more about or would like me to explain. Now I’m gonna take a siesta!
Hasta Luego,
Cóle
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