Spain: Sevilla to Salamanca

After a little more than a month in Spain, I am beginning to feel at home, at least as much as I can while still dressing like an American and speaking broken Spanish. Spaniards, it seems to me, are a generally welcoming, generous and spirited lot (not to mention sharp dressing). They are quick to offer advice, give directions, share their culture, and bombard you with far more rapidly spoken Spanish than you can easily comprehend. A quick anecdote to illustrate my point. My roommate Chris and a Japanese friend named Yoshinori and I ventured down to Sevilla this past weekend since we had Monday off of school for All Saints’ Day. Sunday night, as we stood in the oldest bar in Sevilla (which dates back to the 1600s) eating tapas and admiring the collection of centuries old bottles behind the bar, we randomly met an old Sevillan named Jesus, who promptly offered to show us some sort of cultural spectacle. Five minutes later, we were walking directly in front of a float of the Virgin Mary alongside some incense wielding monks as a giant crowd of people made its way slowly between the small church of Saint Something and the Convent of Saint Somethingelse. Along the way, we learned about the festival, how the men carried the float, how the floats for the fiestas during La Semana Santa are at least three times as big as the one we were running in front of (which was carried by upwards of 15 strong men), and that the big bouncers aroudn the float will kindly relocate you if the crowd is too packed and you are in danger of getting run over (this I learned not from Jesus but from the bouncers).
Or take, for example, the man who sat across from me on our long bus ride back from Sevilla. Not only did he rapidly pick up cribbage as I explained the game to Chris and Yoshinori, but he happily explained to me fragments of numerous Spanish card games (or maybe entire games, but I only caught fragments).

Another thing that I appreciate about Spain is that I can at least attempt to converse in the native language. I often forget how nice this is when I'm floundering to say anything beyond the most superficial pleasantries, or when I realize for the millionth time just how far from truly understanding Spanish I am. At those times speaking Spanish seems like an utterly impossilbe task, and I feel like I am forever trapped in my own little shell of Americanness. But after traveling for a month in countries where I spoke at most five phrases of the native language, I can appreciate that here I am at least trying to bridge the gap between me and the world. In Spain I am not entirely dependant on the worldlyness of the rest of the world to cater to my aloof monoculturedness.