Welshman

Last night as I was walking to an internet café for my routine afternoon chat with Bethany I witnessed a prime example of the public ability of Spaniards to be inconsiderate - at an intersection, one of the roads leading north into it was an alleyway passing through buildings onto a bigger road - more specifically Avenida de Portugal, the largest road in Salamanca stretching West to East across the whole mid north of the city. Well, there was a line of cars waiting in that alleyway to turn into the Ave., but a guy on a motorbike approached from the West of the intersection light and apparantly saw some of his friends and pulled over to talk to them... right in front of the waiting cars. And he proceeded to take his time talking to his friends blocking the cars until he was very good and done talking to them - completely blocking the path of the cars and even putting himself in danger if the cars decided to not care and go when the light turned green. Likewise Spaniards are content to take up as much space as possible on sidewalks and walkways, walking perhaps as slow as they can without shuffling their feet, completely oblivious to anyone who may actually have somewhere to go and might need to get around them. Usually they are more than happy to move if you ask them to, but it seems to me rude to have continued blocking the path in the first place with full knowledge that others are traversing the same path most likely at a quicker pace.

Katie sweetly pointed out that my legs are in fact longer than most everyone here - very notably the army of old ladies in huge fur coats, none of which can possibly be over 4 feet tall. This is indeed true, purely by physiology I walk a lot faster than the average Salmantino. While that is true, I know many Americans under 6'2" who manage to leave space for others to walk on any given pathway. There is of course the factor that I´m not at all used to city life - it is still a foreign thing to walk everywhere I need to go all the time (although it is similar on campus at JMU). I am used to the luxury of wide open spaces and cars to transport here and there. It would be incredible to have a bike here... it would make everything twice as fast! I could go home for things if I needed to and not take 45 minutes, and getting to class in the morning would be worry free - 5 minutes and I´m there! Yes, but an issue that comes up there is the amount of space allotted in city streets and again the attitude of its inhabitants... I would be unable to get past hardly anyone and some places there really isn´t enough space for a bike and people to move through. There is also of course no subway system, but then again there´s not anything of interest outside the city itself which isn´t terribly big. Lots of people routinely go across the bridge to get to a running track there, but then there´s the pure interest in excercise, so a subway would defeat the purpose. Apparantly there is a bus system, perhaps I should explore that, although it would mean some extent of laziness since people living much farther away from classes than I (20minutes more - Katie) do actually need the bus system. Yeah, I guess it really does come down to an extent of laziness and impatience to having everything within a 'comfortable' range. A simple solution for this would be having my own space to live. Now you might say to yourself - 'Well Kip you have a mother cooking meals for you and cleaning up after you, hot showers and lots of clean space whenever you want it in your house.' This is true. This is entirely sufficient for someone perhaps in middle school, in high school however lots of parents notice their kids getting edgy about the restrictions of the household - curfew, limits on who can come and go, meals at specific times, arguments about household things that tend to not matter and impositions of personal feelings and propriety by the supervisors of said household. Unless one has a good relationship with the 'rent(s)' and a reasonable level of independence and trust about friends and coming and going (which luckily I had in abundance during high school, wonderful trust in the kitchen and with friends and always good trust on where I might be - thanks mom and dad!), with the growing independence of a teenager and the increasing feeling of wanting to spend time with their friends doing whatever it is they do, the household experience can be demeaning and a sort of encroachment on feelings of self-determination, making one feel (incorrectly, one might assume) as if an oppressive force is intentionally preventing enjoyment or liberty. A deliciously and perhaps sadly ironic and perfect example of this is Liberty University. With its rules and strict enforcement, it is in fact decreasing their students' liberty to act of their own accord and therefore take responsibility for their own decisions.

Finally getting to the point, it would just be easier to have my own space that I could bring people over to if I needed to instead of just having to come and go from this surrogate house. I would very much prefer to live in my own space, to be able to prepare my own meals, to be able to have friends over to hang out whenever to watch a movie or play games or just for a chill night of hanging out with drinks instead of the expensive and potentially dangerous bar hopping. And so I will certainly have that when I return to the United States for next semester at JMU and for however long afterwards as well. For now I suppose I can take while I can the home-made Spanish food and cleaned living space.

And really, these are just nit-picky details that I can point at and say 'this bothers me!'. What is more difficult to point at is what isn't here. As I just mentioned to Bethany, everything would be lovely and easy to enjoy if she were here, or indeed if any of my friends from home were here to spend time with and relate to. As it is that all of our classes are with JMU kids and all our activities are with JMU kids and we all live with JMU kids and spend time in the office with JMU kids and do projects and study with JMU kids - practically all our time is with each other. This would be wonderful given that we were all fantastic friends. Unfortunately the nature of this group of JMU kids is that of 'click'-iness. That is to say that certain people hang out with the same people all the time and are reluctant to intermingle - though of course noone would refuse a straight 'may I join you?'. They probably just won't ask you. SO if one does not really have a 'click' to mingle with, too bad... I don´t particularly have a 'click' although there are surely lots of people I enjoy spending time with, so I guess there´s just a certain feeling of 'belonging' missing. Back to the point, everything would be that much more interesting and fun if I just had some friends from home, or even one specific young lady to help me feel less like a foreigner. 'But you are a foreigner,' you might say. Foreigner is a state of mind - you can become part of the landscape easily just by making friends and social routines, from whoever happens to be around you be that JMU people or Spaniards. Being outside of any such specific group of friends or social routines is what makes someone feel like a foreigner. Everyone else doesn´t matter, the place you happen to live in doesn´t matter as long as you have a society to participate in and laugh with.

What do these conclusions tell me? I suppose it tells me that I´m a social creature and however independent I like to think I am, I do need to have a group of people to participate with in whatever it might be. Good people and beautiful surroundings make life more comfortable and pleasant, a purpose and job make life worth it, friends and a society make life enjoyable.

Since that was reasonably heavy - and I´d like to add that this blog is my outlet to express what I´m experiencing... I experience pleasant and interesting things as well as not so good feeling things and I think it´s only fair to express everything without watering down the homesickness for the sake of people who just want to hear the good news - how about a joke?

One night a good friend of Bethany and I - Sarah Tarrant (excellent horn player, brass band soloist - my current facebook picture was taken of Bethany and I at her sister's wedding last summer) was not feeling so good, so we decided to try to make her feel better by telling jokes. Sarah and her family are proudly of Welsh descent, which makes for entertaining banter between her and I - Welshman! Scotsman! Effing English!! Well I found this joke and it still makes us laugh uncontrollably -

A Welshman walking through a field sees a man drinking water from a pool with his hand. The Welshman shouts,
"Paid a yfed y dwr mae'r gwartheg yn cachi yn y dwr" (Don't drink that water, its extremely poisonous as all the cattle and sheep poo in it !)

The man shouts back in a very proper victorian English accent,
"I'm English! Do speak English, I don't understand you."

The Welsh man considers for a second and then shouts back,
"Use both hands, you'll get more in!"