Week 1 by Jason Johnson

The awakening

I guess it should be no surprise to me that being in Spain is different than being in the United States as I have already traveled to other countries in the past. In my first day I knew being here was going to be different than being in other countries as well because my arrival at the airport was chaos. I stepped through the last doors after gathering my luggage and it was much colder than I thought it was going to be. I was surprised and how much it rained, as me and my fellow students went back and forth to the university and our respective homes. I didn’t anticipate the overall friendly nature of the people here as I know from previous experiences that most countries don’t much like the United States these days. However, it seems that much like other countries a lot of Spaniards like American culture and ideals. I found this out during our week of going back and forth to classes and learning that a lot of words are adopted from American words in regards to technology and newer ideas.

I was really surprised during speed dating that everyone I asked if they wanted to go to America said yes and some of their eyes lit up as if it’s a dream vacation. The students whose eyes didn’t light up became animated as they talked about America. I could tell that they really want to experience America one day. Myself, along with other students immediately noticed that a good amount of students here like to learn English. I myself was astonished at how much they wanted to ask me questions in English without giving me a lot of time to ask my questions in Spanish lol. The first week gave us a chance to explore the University de Extemadura and see that much like college back home it is large and spread out. One thing to note that was different though is that they serve beer at school which would never happen in the United States. I also experienced Siestas again having experienced it before in other countries; I didn’t realize Spain did the same thing. Good luck getting anything done or going anywhere between the hours of dos a cinco y media (2-5:30) though lol, but that is part of going other countries…seeing how they do things. Not better or worse just different, of course some students think the siesta should be adopted in the U.S.