The beginnings of Segovia!

Okay family and friends, again I apologize for the lack of posts but hopefully this post will satisfy your Spanish hunger!

I’m currently in San Rafael, Spain which is about a 40 minute bus ride from Segovia, the home base of our program for these past two weeks. San Rafael is a pueblito (little town) with fewer than 3,000 people living here. So I’ve been here for about two weeks and I leave for Madrid on Tuesday and boy has it been crazy! So much as happened and changed since the first day it’s hard to believe that it has only been two weeks.

Our group arrived in Segovia at the bus station together and slowly we all departed from the station as our respective busses came or as our families came to pick us up. Naturally my bus was the last to leave and was the farthest away and so I had just enough time to really get myself worked up and nervous to meet my family for the first time. It’s funny because in retrospect a lot of this seems so silly but I remember I was wearing my bright green summer dress as I stepped off the bus which, along with my blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin helped mark me clearly as an outsider. My host father, Antonio, picked me up at the bus station and drove me up the hill to their house, my home for the next two weeks. The house is situated just at the base of the mountains providing a breathtaking view that I get to enjoy every day (pictures very soon, I promise!)

The first day was extremely difficult. I think a lot of it had to do with drastic change from being on such a high leaving Salamanca, feeling so confident in my Spanish, surrounded by other Americans and then suddenly I found myself in the mountains of Spain almost 100 kilometers from anyone I knew. It was so hard to communicate that first day. I specifically remember meeting everyone in my family and not even being able to communicate what my name was. I couldn’t come up with simple words and phrases that anyone who took any high school Spanish would easily know. The family let me rest when I first got there (my lack of sleep from my last night in Salamanca was not exactly helping my Spanish lexicon either) and when I woke up I felt like I was six years old. I was scared to leave my room- correction terrified. I’m such an extroverted person and for the first time in a very long time I didn’t know how to act like myself. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I literally stayed in my room by myself, with the door closed for hours until they came and asked me to come outside to talk.

The first night we went to an Atletico Madrid soccer game and it was totally awesome. The game reminded me how much I love sports and the universal language that it provides. My family seeing me cheering when Atletico scored and tormented when they missed a goal allowed them to see that I wasn’t actually a robot and it also gave me a unique platform to be instantly a part of their culture. The whole family supports Atletico Madrid (don’t even think about mentioning anything about Real Madrid) but the father is truly a fanatic. His Atleti collection puts my father’s baseball room to shame. He has a uniform shirt that he wears to every single game (because obviously he goes to every game) that is signed by almost everyone on the team. He also has a jersey that the goalie threw to him after winning some cup game, (just imagine how bad it smells!). My family explained to me in great detail how Atleti has the best fans in the league. Of course, I thought. What kind of superfan wouldn’t say that about their team? This game brought a whole new meaning to the term, “seeing is believing”. The echoing chants left my ears ringing worse than the time I had to bring Emily to a Jonas Brother’s concert. There is not a single person who is not sporting Atleti gear; luckily I was given advance notice that my simple white t-shirt would not suffice and was given an Atleti t-shirt to wear to the game avoiding all sorts of embarrassment. I’ll see if I can post a video of some cheers after Atleti scored but I’m not sure whether or not it will work on the blog.  For now though I'll just post a picture of me and my host sister Nerea at the game. 

The game ended at close to 1am (at the time I didn’t realize this is an early hour for Spaniards) and they won 4-0 but I was amazed to see that practically every single person remained in the stadium until the game was over. No avoiding traffic or any other logistical thinking of the sort… just fútbol. And even when the game was over the fanfare still didn’t end. It continued all down the stairwells, everyone chanting in unison and even still in the streets, echoing throughout the city the thunderous cry of the atleti fans.

Alright so I’m running low on time so I’ll try to wrap this post up.

The first few days in Segovia were really hard, in more ways than I could have imagined but I’m so happy to have had this experience. My Spanish is getting better every day and I’ve come to absolutely love this family. More stories to come soon but for now just know that I’m so happy and feel so blessed to be having this amazing experience. Madrid in THREE DAYS!!!! I’ll make sure I post before then though with more details about my experiences in Segovia!!

Love you all!!!