Just a little over a year ago, I came home from France and decided I wanted to hang out at home for a while. Turns out, a year is "a while". Some time during last semester I realized that I had no internship, no job, and looking ahead I saw me sitting at home all summer. So, the day before the study abroad scholarship deadline, I decided to go to Spain. This past year in school I took Spanish because during last year's J-Term I realized I could kind of read and understand Spanish, so heck, why not take it. And then we had a presentation in Spanish class by someone from the study abroad program and I decided to go for it.
So tomorrow afternoon I will board a plane and be on my way to Spain.
Catharine, do you know Spanish now?
Nope.
Like I said, I took a year of Spanish, so these four weeks are going to be a crash course in Spain Spanish (what even is vosotros?), Spanish accents, the speed of real speech, and not accidentally using French. I've been trying to tell myself that I have to go easier on myself with regards to my language abilities. I was about, oh, a thousand times more advanced in French than I am in Spanish. I should expect to make a lot more mistakes and make a fool of myself many more times. (Good blogging material though, am I right?)
I'll be staying with a host family again with another girl from CMU. I'm going to be studying at Estudio Sampere in the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid (I think?) I've been told I'll have class for about 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. While I'm there I'll also be doing some casual research on my topic for my Senior Honors Thesis (blog to come!). The topic of that, to put it simply, is food and identity in France and Spain.
I'm strangely nervous, considering I've gone abroad before and for a much longer period of time. But this time, I have very little idea what I'm doing. I'll have to rely on my small knowledge of Spanish and general knowledge of romance languages. Along with my charm and stunning people skills. (Obviously.) My suitcase is finally packed (and I somehow feel like I've packed too much for four weeks) and the final night has finally come. Now I'm off to lay in bed anxiously trying to figure out how to say things in Spanish.
No puedo manger gluten? No puedo comer gluten? Je ne peux pas? No sé, c'est la vie.
So tomorrow afternoon I will board a plane and be on my way to Spain.
Catharine, do you know Spanish now?
Nope.
Like I said, I took a year of Spanish, so these four weeks are going to be a crash course in Spain Spanish (what even is vosotros?), Spanish accents, the speed of real speech, and not accidentally using French. I've been trying to tell myself that I have to go easier on myself with regards to my language abilities. I was about, oh, a thousand times more advanced in French than I am in Spanish. I should expect to make a lot more mistakes and make a fool of myself many more times. (Good blogging material though, am I right?)
I'll be staying with a host family again with another girl from CMU. I'm going to be studying at Estudio Sampere in the Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid (I think?) I've been told I'll have class for about 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. While I'm there I'll also be doing some casual research on my topic for my Senior Honors Thesis (blog to come!). The topic of that, to put it simply, is food and identity in France and Spain.
I'm strangely nervous, considering I've gone abroad before and for a much longer period of time. But this time, I have very little idea what I'm doing. I'll have to rely on my small knowledge of Spanish and general knowledge of romance languages. Along with my charm and stunning people skills. (Obviously.) My suitcase is finally packed (and I somehow feel like I've packed too much for four weeks) and the final night has finally come. Now I'm off to lay in bed anxiously trying to figure out how to say things in Spanish.
No puedo manger gluten? No puedo comer gluten? Je ne peux pas? No sé, c'est la vie.
safe trip, ma belle!
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