Settling In

This week has been pretty low-key, but I feel like blogging, so if you get bored, well…whatever. Come back next week :-P

For the last few days, I’ve just been enjoying the routine and getting to know Pamplona a bit better. After the wonderful but exhausting Paris experience, I’ve been very content to chill out at home. Especially since, as I think I’ve said, I am not nor am I likely to ever be into the party scene. This week especially, going to a noisy, smoky bar to spend money on drinks and possibly get hit on by random guys sounded like the very last thing I wanted to do. And since that seems to be the only way to hang out with a group of friends, things have been quiet for me this week. And if you know me at all, you’ll know that that suits me just fine :-)

I have done quite a bit this week, though, all things considered. I finished the interview part of our project for Civilization and Culture class. I was sooo not looking forward to it because our prof kind of wanted us to survey random people on the street, which sounded way too scary to me. I mean, the people here are nice, but I’ve always hated interviewing with the passion of a thousand fiery suns…and the fact that I had to do it in Spanish with people I didn’t even know made it sound even worse. Thankfully, though, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be (that seems to be the way it always goes with me) – I just ended up handing out the typed-out surveys to some people in the cafetería, and they were quite willing to help me. Still made me nervous as heck, but I got over it. And I got my host sister to do the last one, so that was easy. I’m still glad that’s over with, though!

I’ve also done a little bit more exploring – I went shopping with a couple of the girls yesterday and found some fun little things. And today I was determined to find a pair of boots – both of my other pairs leak now (one pair is cheap suede, and I’ve walked approximately 12 million miles in the other pair so they’re not what you could call watertight anymore), and my host mom said, “You need to get some boots that won’t get your feet wet when it rains!” And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” Besides, what woman needs an excuse to buy another pair of cute shoes? Not this one. So anyway, this led me to look around Casco Antiguo a little bit. By myself. And I didn’t even get lost! Granted, I have been there a few times now, but if you knew how confusing and twisty those streets are, you’d know what an achievement this is for me. Didn’t find the boots there, but I did find some on another street. So, I’m pretty much a legit European now, with my leggings and my boots and my long shirts. Yep.

Also, lately I’ve been enjoying my current state of physical fitness. At home, I had to exercise several times a week to stay in reasonably good shape. But here, I can do that just by living. Like Lauren said, at home we ate because it’s fun; here, we eat to survive. What with the healthy diet, ridiculous amount of walking, and lack of snack times, I’m feeling pretty darn skinny! Although I probably have the beefiest calves this side of the Atlantic, from walking up and down all these hills. For real. But hey, it’s useful, I daresay.

Another thing I’ve been noticing is that my host mom and I have started to become more comfortable around each other (it’s taken me long enough…but then, I’ve never been a fast mover), which has been so nice. One day she said to me “You should talk some more! You’re always so quiet, and you need to practice to learn.” And she’s right – I do practice Spanish with friends and at school quite a bit, but she only sees the side of me that’s still struggling to conjugate verbs correctly and who makes really dumb mistakes, since I don’t talk a lot at home. For some reason, I find it way harder to talk to my host mom in Spanish than with other people. Maybe it’s because I’m trying not to make mistakes, or that I don’t know if it would be rude or too personal to ask this or that question, or that I just can’t think of a good topic. But anyway, after she said that, I started making a conscious effort to elaborate more when she asks me things and even (gasp!) volunteer information. And from that point, it seems like someone flipped a switch somewhere and we got a lot closer. She asks me a lot more details about what I’m up to, my classes, stuff about my family and home, etc. And I’ve been telling her a lot more. It’s been great – it makes me feel like I actually am learning how to speak at least a bit better in Spanish! And it’s made it more fun to hang out with my host mom. She was so cute today – we were eating dinner and watching TV, like we usually do, and the only thing we could really find to watch was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I like that movie well enough, but my host mom isn’t really into action movies and said it was “un rollo” – which basically means sucky. So funny! And then we were talking about Brad Pitt – she told me “You know, I don’t think Brad Pitt is so attractive. His face is too young-looking. Angelina Jolie looks like she’s older than him. I like George Clooney better; he seems more manly to me.” Loved that! And, as I told her, I agree with her :-D

Also today, I finally got to go to church! My friend Megan invited me to go with her to the Saturday service at an Evangelical church, which, to my delight, is a block from my house! I had no idea it was even there. It’s funny how many things you can find just by going down a new street here. Anyway, it was a cool experience. It was nice to go to a church that wasn’t Catholic – not that Catholic churches are bad, but it’s not what I grew up with so I’m really not familiar with how they work. It was still pretty different (a bit more on the charismatic side), but more like the traditions I’m used to. It felt so good to sing praise songs and listen to the sermon – I felt so at home! And it was really neat to sing in Spanish (and just to sing, period – it’s been quite some time)! Thank goodness they had the words playing on TV screens; otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue about any of them.

Another interesting moment was during the moments that were sort of like the “sharing the peace” times at a Lutheran church. The lady sitting next to Megan and I turned to us once and said to us “Nothing is impossible with God. God has saved you!” (in Spanish, of course) and kissed us on both cheeks. Another time, she said something to the effect of, “God has changed us, do you believe that?” and gave us a hug. It was definitely different, and we weren’t really sure how we were supposed to reply, but it was still kind of neat.

And I was pretty proud of myself – I managed to understand the majority of the sermon! Not as easy as it sounds, since I have to pay attention every second when I’m listening to a big chunk of Spanish. If I zone out for the smallest moment, I get lost. And since I have the attention span of a goldfish, I felt pretty accomplished for staying with it for so long. The service was a little longer than we would have liked – it was only supposed to go from 6:00-8:00, but it ended up going until ten to 9:00. We were ready to get out of there by the time it was over, but it was still a neat experience. I’m hoping to make it a habit to go there! I definitely need the spiritual refreshment, I know that much.

Well, I think the heat has gone off in the piso and I’m getting cold and sleepy. Time to go to bed and sleep late tomorrow morning! Hoping for another good week. I’m having a hard time believing that it’s nearly the end of February already!