This past first week has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. So now let me start from the very very beginning. The plane ride to Europe!
I have to admit, planes are not my favorite things in the world even though I’ve been flying to South America since I was a very little girl to visit my family. A big difference with this flight to Europe was the thought that I was flying over water for most of the trip. For some reason when I have flown before, I felt a sense of security in the fact that I was flying over land and not water. Anyways, I flew out of State College airport, which was a different experience in and of itself because I had never flown out of that airport, or had ever been on such a small airplane. The flight was fast and went by smoothly. My seat was right near the airplane wing and I was able to see the airplane wheel come down right when we were about to land which was something I had never seen before.
I landed in the Philadelphia Airport and found another person who was headed to Madrid like I was and we ran like our lives depended on it to catch the Madrid flight out. The flight out of State College had been delayed by a few hours so we were able to make it right on time to board the plane. This plane could have been 3 or 4 times the size of the State College plane, it was really very nice, spacious and comfortable. It was interesting to me to hear the flight attendants speak Spanish out of Philadelphia. For some reason I thought that I would start to hear some form of the Spaniard accent from the flight attendants coming out of Philadelphia but all I heard was the regular Latin Spanish that I am used to hearing and the form that I am used to speaking. Every seat had it’s own touch screen monitor so everyone could choose what to watch and whatnot.
I did sort of feel a cultural shift when it came to the meal that was served on the plane. Every time I had flown to Colombia, I have always only been offered juice and or soda with my meal. On my flight to Madrid I was offered juice, water, white or red wine. I asked for a cup of white wine with pasta and offered to show the flight attendant my ID (I am 21) and she said that it was not necessary. That was a shock to me because there has never been a time when I have not been carded; even for simple things that require just being over 18. I must say that the best part of the plane ride had to have been the sky view. I saw the sun set shortly after departing Philadelphia at around 7:30 pm Eastern standard U.S time. At 1:40 am U.S time, I started to see the sun rise. It was almost like traveling forward in time, which is essentially what I was doing because of the 6 hour time change between the U.S and Spain. Looking at this late day and early morning skies was a really nice relaxing place to think about things. Being on a plane up high like that with no internet or any type of communication it feels like no one can get to you in a sense, and you can truly be with yourself. I don’t think people in this day and age have a lot of time for time that. With technology you’re never truly alone, and as a whole I think we’re becoming beings that don’t usually really like to be by ourselves and actually be with ourselves when given the opportunity to be. I thought about myself a little bit and about my future. Who do I want to be, or who do I want to try and work towards becoming? Not just academically, but as a person. I am human, flawed and have made many mistakes, but I’m at a point in my own self-exploration that I can recognize my faults and own up to them as much as I may not like them. I remember thinking, I have a lot of growing up to do as a person and a lot I need to figure out and learn about myself and my mind and this trip may help me not only learn more about language, the experimental process, and another culture but may also help me learn things about myself that I may not have been able to learn in U.S for a few more years. There’s a saying I remember hearing once that stated something like this:
When you travel alone, you may learn more about yourself than you ever could have imagined. Going to a different setting and not having to be around anyone you know gives you the opportunity to do everything you want, when and how you want to do it. It gives you a sense of complete freedom. It also give you the opportunity to be who you truly are, without having to fake yourself to someone else or please anyone around you.
I may not technically be traveling alone because there are people from PSU living with me in the same apartment and there are grad students that are always helping us undergrads out, but I do plan on doing a short 2 day trip to France by myself in June, taking advantage of the fact that I am in Europe and the countries are all near each other. While I am sure I will learn a lot about myself in Spain, I think it will be very interesting to see what I learn about myself when I am left completely on my own in a foreign country with a language that I am not completely fluent in. I can’t wait to find out! 
Sunset on May 9th at 7:30 pm U.S time zone
Sunrise on May 10th at 1:40 am U.S time zone
Anyways, the minute we landed in Madrid a flight attendant, or someone who was not on our flight started speaking on the plane intercom saying welcome to Madrid and thank you for flying U.S Airways. I could hear her thick Spaniard accent, or what to my ears is an accent. Perspective is a funny thing to think about. Since I am the one coming into Spain, that makes me the one with the accent. I do have to be honest though, I was a little bit ashamed of myself for sometimes feeling blanked out when I first spoke to the Spaniards in Madrid right after I landed there. I’d be lying if I said it was my being jet lagged that caused me to blank out. It honestly took me maybe 20 minutes to not have to mentally think wait what did this person just say. Take into account that I am a completely fluent bilingual and think, speak and write both languages at pretty much the same level if not the exact same level. It wasn’t just the thick accent that messed with my brain when I would talk to a Spaniard from Madrid, it was also a couple of words that I honestly had never heard before. I actually had to ask one of the people I was talking to, what does X word mean (I don’t remember the exact word anymore), I am not from here. Thankfully they were nice enough to tell me and did not seem very bothered in explaining a word for me.
Going off of the language, I have found that in Granada their accent isn’t as thick as in Madrid when it comes to the “th” sound that they add to words that have a “c”+ the vowels e or i and a “z”, or at least this is where I’m picking up that they are speaking the “th”sound. I have also noticed that the “th” sound that I call an accent actually makes sense. When I was a little girl and my mom was teaching me how to read and write Spanish, I remember being so frustrated because a lot of the letters sounded like each other. For example in words like “canción” the “c” in that word in the Latin American accent sounds like an s, so I would end up writing the word as “cansion.” The “th” sound that Spaniards put there emphasizes that there is a “c” there and not an “s” because and “s” actually sounds like an “s.” I don’t know if I am right with this but it made me think that learning how to write Spanish as a little kid would have been so much easier if I knew the Spaniard accent and would have been able to make a clear distinction when I spoke, between the “s” sound and a “c+ a vowel” sound.
Going back to the trip, the flight between Madrid and Granada was also delayed by almost 2 hours but either way, the actual flight went by really fast and really smoothly. When I got off the plane I bumped into 3 french ladies who sat next to me while we waited for our luggage to come out on the baggage claim. I haven’t had a chance to practice my speaking french with anyone in over a year so I decided to start a conversation with them. We talked for about 10 minutes and I was able to understand everything that they were saying and they were able to understand me as well. They said that my french was good. I told them that I planned on going to Paris, France sometime in June for a few days and if they thought that I could survive there by myself with my level of french. They said that with my level of French I would be more than fine. They asked me where I was from and I said that my parents are from Colombia and I was born and raised in the U.S. I found it interesting that they were surprised when I said that I was from the U.S. They said that the accent I had when I spoke French was a Spanish accent but not an American accent. I think that probably has to do with the fact that French is a romance language like Spanish is, so maybe my brain tries to pair those two together. Any other way and I should probably have an American accent when I speak French because I have learned french in an American school and speak english more of the day than not.
Well this is the beginning of my adventure, I’ll keep you guys posted.
This is all for now!
Chao!!!