Submitted by Kailey Schissler on the 2019 summer session program in Granada, Spain sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures…
I don’t remember the last time I was as nervous as I was preparing to go to Spain. I knew my Spanish was not great, but I was excited to learn. My grandma is from Cuba, and my mother is fluent in Spanish, but never taught me. I thought since I was pretty good at understanding how my family speaks, I would be able to adapt well. I was wrong. I quickly learned the strength of the Granada accent. One of my professors had told me it would be tough, but I did not realize how difficult it would actually be for me to understand. Immediately after meeting Rosa, my host mom, I felt my confidence drop the more she spoke. Her accent and speed were truly going to be a struggle.
By day three, I was worried my Spanish would never improve. As hard as I was trying, when Rosa would speak, I could not understand her accent. I would miss simple words I knew because I was so focused on trying to understand the accent. Luckily, that night at dinner, I felt a breakthrough. My roommate and I were finally having an actual conversation with Rosa, instead of sitting quietly while we ate. She gave all kinds of recommendations for places to eat and visit. Every day since, we converse more and more. And when in doubt, a Spanish dictionary is always there to help us with a word we don’t know.
A major struggle for me has also been the time difference. Even though we talked about jet-lag before the program, this was my first time traveling more than a couple hour time difference. Even with the big bottle of melatonin I packed, I often laid in bed at night until past 2:00 am still trying to sleep. I hated being tired for class and throughout the day, which lead me to nap, which only made it harder to sleep at night. I decided I had to break the nasty cycle and face one extremely long and tiring day, and slowly, but surely, I am adapting.
The meal times and sizes also threw me a major curve ball. I knew exactly when and how much people ate in Spain, but again, my body was fighting the culture to stick with habit. I was starving by the time class was over, and starving again by 6:00 or 7:00 pm. Tapas seemed to be great for curving hunger before dinner, but it was hard to find a small enough snack to satisfy me before lunch without filling me up, as lunch is the biggest meal of the day here in Spain. This first week showed me how you never really know what another culture is like until you dive in. All the advice and warnings in the world don’t help, it’s hard to prepare for culture shock. I am happy to say most of my culture shock is biological, and I have loved the other aspects of culture I have seen in my time here so far.
