oh yeah... it's STUDY abroad

I'm more than half-way into the semester, so it's probably about time I at least mention the school part of study abroad.

I'm taking five classes which are all in Spanish. On Monday and Tuesday I have Spanish Art History, Syntax, Social Changes in Spain, and Philosophy. Thursday and Friday are just Theater. There typically isn't class on Wednesdays, but for the art class we have to go to the Prado Museum every Wednesday morning for the practical portion.

Honestly, I'm having a lot of issues with the classes so far. First of all, there is nothing even remotely related to psychology that I can take. A huge reason I wanted to study abroad was to learn about my major from the perspective of another culture. Plus, since courses from my major aren't offered, almost none of the classes I'm taking count for credit back at Cal Poly. Don't get me wrong--I love having free electives and being able to take whatever the hell classes I want outside of my major, but I'm wasting them all here on classes that really don't interest me in the slightest. The minimum course load for a semester is four classes, but the CSU program requires us to take five. If these classes aren't even helping me graduate, why can't I just take four and have more free time to enjoy my short year here?

Another huge problem is the demographics of the class: 100% Americans. I was under the impression that some classes would be with Spaniards, and the others would be with other international students, but I was obviously mistaken. Our program director really only encouraged the native speakers in our group to take the "much more rigorous" classes with other Spaniards, so I chose to wait until the next semester, afraid I'd be overwhelmed (I regret that now). The other classes are with other study abroad students, but they are all from American universities. I still can't even fathom how ridiculous that is. If I wanted to be in school with Americans all day, I could've stayed in San Luis Obispo.

I'm trying to be a good student, but it's pretty hard to stay motivated when everything you're learning just feels irrelevant; then add on the infinite distractions from living in Spain and it's almost impossible to study. I'm pretty disenchanted by the academics of our specific program so far, but next semester I will for sure be enrolled in classes with Spaniards, so hopefully there will be an improvement. This is really the only complaint I have about my experience thus far, and despite these problems I'm still learning more here than I have anywhere else.

It just isn't happening in the classroom.

#OccupyMadrid

Watching all of the Occupy Movements flaring up all over the world is inspiring. Those few hundred who started with tents in Zuccotti Park have sparked a worldwide revolution, even though they are concentrated in Western nations. A large part of the Occupy movement was actually inspired by the protests here in Spain earlier this year. Los indignados, or the outraged, as they are called here, is the umbrella term for all of the protesters across the country and even in Portugal. It started with massive protests and people camping out (sound familiar?) in Plaza de Sol right here in Madrid, five minutes walking from where I live now. They are protesting a lot of the same things as those in America: wealth distribution, the bipartisan system, unemployment, and the general greed and corruption of the 1%.

But, there is one huge difference I've noticed. Whenever I read an American newspaper, I'm always reading about police breaking up the protests, and usually with force. Raiding Zuccotti Park in the middle of the night to move people out is one thing, but then to arrest a huge number of them too? Just to keep them away and scare others from coming. Then of course there's Oakland, which really speaks for itself. But now even in Davis, probably one of the happiest cities in California, students demonstrating peacefully in the quad were teargassed by University police brought out by their chancellor. It's shameful.

Just this past Friday, there was a huge demonstration outside of my house on the biggest street in the city.  The entire downtown area was functionally shut down by the protesters marching through the streets. Even though this was obviously much more disruptive than sitting in a park or taking over the campus quad, as far as I know there wasn't a single arrest. I definitely saw police there, but they weren't nearly as intimidating as police in the US. In fact, they seemed to be there only to clear the streets to allow the protesters to move on, not even to keep them under control.

This is all even more relevant now, as all of the protests here have been leading up to today: Elections. Voting is occurring all over the country, and it's been known for a while the current party in power, the left PSOE, is going to be crushed by the conservative party, PP. We'll have a new president here soon, and I'm sure the changes are going to be sweeping. These next few months will definitely be interesting.

Hopefully the protests don't lose their momentum. The message is important, and the point needs to be made clear. We're all indignado, and something needs to be done.

...often go awry

After our exhausting night in the streets of Barcelona, we didn't have much energy to do anything but sleep on Sunday. It was my first time staying in a hostel, and I absolutely loved it. There was another guy from California that we hung out with, and then there were others in our room from Costa Rica, Madagascar, and Poland. It was such a cosmopolitan atmosphere with students from all over the world, but we all had the similar interest of wanting to travel and see the world.

The food we ate was probably one of the highlights of the trip. I don't know if food in Catalunya is just better than in Madrid, or if we were just willing to spend more money because we were on vacation, but everything we ate was heavenly. Pesto pizza, seafood paella, enough tapas to last us the entire weekend. It was a never-ending feast.

Monday, Halloween, we had the brilliant idea to rent bicycles and ride around the city. Being able to explore on wheels made the city so much more accessible, plus it was a beautiful day and bike riding is just fun. We rode to the Sagrada Familia, a massive cathedral designed by Gaudi, which was the most beautifully malformed building I've ever seen. The outside was all twisted, and kind of looked like a massive termite mound erupting from the street, but the inside was pristine. His buildings, which would jump out at you on random streets, really added to the modern European ambience of the city.

Before I left, my roommates friend told me that Barcelona's atmosphere was more "European," while in Madrid it was more Spanish and Mediterranean. Now I can definitely see what she meant. Barcelona was more modern feeling, with big streets and contemporary architecture. The stores and restaurants seemed more posh also, and it was without a doubt more touristy. Natives would assume to speak English before even tempting Spanish or Catalan, and while a lot of madrileños are proficient in English too, they aren't nearly as eager to use it.

That night we planned to go out for Halloween, but at dinner my friends purse was stolen by one of the infamous Barcelona thieves. It kind of killed our mood, so we decided to just head back to the hostel and sleep. By the end of the next day, we were ready to just hop on the bus and be back in Madrid again. Strangely, there were people sitting in our seats, and we were devastated when we realized the tickets were for the next day. Instead of having to wait 24 hours, we only had to wait eight more for the midnight bus. We didn't get to Madrid until the morning, but we were all definitely glad to be back home.

the best laid schemes of mice and men...

Barcelona was just one disaster after another, to the point that it was comical how much shit we were forced to endure.

Amanda, Kimiko, and I arrived Saturday night with no place to stay, hoping we could get an extra night at the hostel. No luck. We dumped our bags and tried to kill time, seeing that we had no where to go until we could check in at noon the following day. We went out to a very delicious and very prolonged dinner in downtown Barça, sitting in the restaurant for a good three hours before we finally ventured out for the night. We walked around for a while and eventually found this little club that was playing a funk show. It was small inside and very intimate, with only about 20-25 people there. The crowd was a little bit older than us, and it almost seemed like they were one big group of friends. We joked that we felt like we were crashing someone's birthday party. After a good hour of dancing--with the three of us being by far the most enthusiastic--one of the women walked up and started talking to us.

Woman: You guys are the life of the party! Good thing you're here for the celebration!

Amanda: Yeah! But what are we celebrating?

Woman: ...You aren't here for the birthday party?

We had actually crashed someone's party. Luckily, they found it as funny as we thought it was awkward, and no one kicked us out. We even made some new friends. Unfortunately, none of them offered us a place to stay though, and when the party ended at 4am (which actually felt like 5am because of the time change here), we had no where to go.

When the night had started, we all had these notions that sleeping on the streets for one night would be an interesting experience, and it definitely was interesting, but not in the positive way we had imagined. We started out in the quintessential hobo location: a park bench, and lasted a little over an hour until the cold and the other park residents drove us away. We tried the metro station next, but they kicked us out real quick. We traveled back to the hostel, hours too early for check-in, and ended up sleeping on the floor and shelves of the luggage room until our room was available (couches were already taken, so we weren't the only destitute guests looking for a place to sleep that night). It was all terrible as it was happening, but we survived and came out with a newfound empathy for the homeless. Those few hours were hell and I can't imagine living like that every single night.

And all of this was only in the first twelve hours...