Sí, soy estudiante española… (Yes, I Am a Spanish Student...)

I just had my first day of class. Or I thought I had my first day of class. There were enough sufficiently awkward encounters in the past 45 minutes to last me for quite some time.

Have I complained yet about how there is no word for "awkward" in the Spanish language? The closest thing they have is "torpe," but it doesn't have the same feel. Torpe means physically awkward, like clumsy or spatially inept. There's no good word for a specifically awkward AND uncomfortable social situation. The closest they have is "incómodo" (uncomfortable), which doesn't get the same vibe across.

So. My classes. Or, my one class that turns out didn't exist today.
I left the house with plenty of time to spare and got to the main building at the university that houses all of the Geografía e historía classes. I had 17 minutes to find my classroom. That was step one. I thought that was plenty of time, but I cut it close. The main Universidad de Sevilla building is the old Tobacco factory building--pretty historic and beautiful--but also huge. Patios, hallways that go in odd directions and make no sense, and classrooms in odd locations. I wandered around for a good 15 minutes. I'm sure I had the classic look that the freshmen have the first day of college, but times 1,000 because, heh, everything was completely in Spanish. Actually, that part turned out not to be that bad.
I finally found the classroom, Aula XXI, but it was locked. There were three other students waiting outside, but I couldn't tell what language they spoke (they weren't Spanish), so I didn't say anything to them. Then another girl, Marene, came and started talking to me. She said something, I said something back, and she looked at me for a second and said "you're not from here, are you?" It wasn't insulting really; it just confirmed that yes, my Spanish does not yet pass as my native tongue. How shocking.
Marene was really nice and we talked for a few minutes. She's from France, but this is her second year studying in Sevilla. I think the fact that she's also an exchange student (although much more Spanish in every way than I am) is part of why she was so nice with me and so patient.
Then the awkward moment came. I'm still replaying it in my mind. She said something, and I thought she said her name, so then I said my name and stuck my hand out to form a shake. She just looked at it. And then I remembered that duh, people don't do that here (it's all about the cheek-kissing), but by that time she had already awkwardly (the word is going to get overused in this paragraph, deal with it) taken my hand with her wrong hand, was holding it, and leaned in to kiss me while I was stuttering something about how I was sorry and handshaking was a very American thing to do.
But it doesn't end there. After that, she asked me what my name was. I thought we had already gone over that, but I said my name again. Then she said her name and that was when I realized that she hadn't said her name before. She had said something about France. So that means that the handshake/kiss fiasco was even more awkward than I thought because it was totally misplaced in conversation. I had basically randomly stuck out my hand in a totally inappropriate place in conversation.
The good news is that we kept talking and she was really friendly. There were times I think she was a bit confused with my Spanish, but oh well. That doesn't bother me...
So we were waiting and waiting for the class to start outside of the room. There were maybe only 5 of us by this time. Three of the others left. At 10:20 (Marene told me that most classes here start 15/20 min late and end 15/20 min early) we decided to head over to the secretary's office and ask about the class. And do you know what we found? Turns out classes in our department don't start until Wednesday. The funnier part? We asked in el centro, and the official day the department says they're starting is today.
Spain's organization, at it's finest.
Anyway, when Marene and I parted, we did the kiss-kiss again, and overall I feel really good with the interactions I had with her. That awkward moment will probably make me cringe for awhile, but overall I held my own in Spanish conversation much better than I ever could have in the past. I still have a ways to go, but that is to be expected (of course).

I had to get all of that off my chest.
Now on to a bit of a recap from the weekend...

Friday night was the flamenco concert, which is unbelievable. The inside of the theater felt like a bigger, grander version of Hill (Ann Arbor). It was packed, and the majority of the people in attendance where 50+ years old and very dressed up. It felt very stereotypically high-brow (I think it's fair to say that I can detect a high-brow equivalent in Spain, even if I'm foreign and don't know the cultural patterns so well).

The flamenco itself was incredible. There was one very famous woman who did the majority of the dancing, but there were also 8 others who accompanied her sometimes. When they danced in unison, I was blown away. The patterns and rhythms of their feet were in very tight synchronization. The guitar and singing were also phenomenal.

After the concert, we went tapas hopping, which was fun. Tapas hopping involves going from tapas place to tapas place, ordering a drink and a few little plates of food, often standing at a bar or high tables without seats, talking, eating, paying, and moving on to the next location.

Saturday I went with Liliana, Kristin, and Audrey to Italíca, which is in Santiponce, a town over from Sevilla. It was a cheap, 30 min bus ride away, but it felt good to try going on a mini-trip and leave Sevilla using the main bus terminal.
When we got there, I realized I had been to the ruins before when I visited Spain in high school, but had forgotten a lot about it. Now I know much more! The ruins are the largest Roman ruins in Andalucía. The Italíca ruins are pretty spectacular (especially the theater), and its where both Trajan and Hadrian were born. The day was gross and rainy, but we had a great time.

There are a lot of silly pictures like this that we took. Some are deep and philosophical (someone under an umbrella, looking off into the distance), but others are like this. The jumping pictures are always fun because it takes a good 5 or so to get one that fully captures the moment of the actual jump. That's the theater behind me.

You can walk up into the theater--there's more access than just looking at it from the ground. This picture was taken from about halfway up (you can't go all the way up).

Detail on the benches.

Sunday was pretty relaxed. Well, except for the fact that this weekend all of Mayte and Fernando's family (literally everyone) were here, staying in the apartment, because one of Mayte's daughters got married a week ago (or so) and there was a big celebration this weekend. I didn't know that ahead of time and only found out after the fact, but that still provided some entertainment and more sufficiently awkward situations trying to talk to the other members of the family. I'm starting to make friends with Mayte's granddaugther, Candela, who is 3 (she lives in Granada and comes to visit with Mayte's daughter fairly often). One of these days, Candela is going to realize that she can arguably speak Spanish better than I can. We'll see how that goes.

Anyway, on Sunday the coolest thing I did was I went to Feria de las naciones (Fair of the Nations, more or less), which is a month-long Fair that's held in a park that I pass everyday to get to the center of Sevilla. It was awesome. The area of the world that they focus on changes every week or so. There are tons of booths selling all kinds of things native to whatever region the focus of the week is (and most things are very reasonably priced) and all kinds of food stands and performances. I had fun by myself, but I want to go back with some people and get lunch or dinner there. The food looked spectacular. It was like a smaller, quainter, more affordable version of the Ann Arbor Art Fair. More or less.

That's all the updates for now. I'm sure I'll write soon and overuse the word "awkward" even more than I managed to in this entry! But the awkwardness is good. It's part of the experience and it means that I'm putting myself out there. Sort of. At least a little. And, on the plus side, pretty much nothing is going to be awkward when I get back to the US!