What I am is what I am AND what YOU are...

In two of the level 4 classes I had a discussion about what Spanish people think of Americans and what Americans think of Spanish people.  I was really interested to hear another country's perspective on the US.  The first class was really into the discussion and had a lot of good questions and comments about the US.  The other class was less involved and will probably go down as one of my most painful teaching moments.  I have never wanted to leave a class so badly in my life.  I was sweating profusely and my flight or flight response was SCREAMING - "Fly, fly, fly!" because I was doing such a bad job of getting the students involved in the discussion and then of teaching them vocabulary words (and they were doing a bad job of pretending to be interested).  I might have to coax them with candy or money the next time I teach their class.  Anyway, between the two classes I did manage to get some insight into how the rest of the world views our country:

1.  Everyone in the US eats hamburgers.  I informed them that although I do not eat them, hamburgers are widely available in our country.

2.  Every US citizen owns a gun.  I said that was false. On average every US citizen owns TWO guns. (HA) They did bring up a good point, however:  if we do not all own guns why are there so many movies about the US where people do have guns? And if they visit Minnesota why will they see signs on almost every store, restaurant and other business' front door warning people that such-and-such business 'Bans guns on these premises'.  What kind of message is that sending?  To attempt to answer the question, I gave the class a short history lesson about our Constitution and the second Amendment that gives us the right to bear arms.  I cited it as a possible reason that guns are so prevalent in movies- we want to remind the world that we have the right to bear arms, even if the majority of us don't really do it.

3.  The US doesn't know about the world/geography beyond our country's borders.   While that might be true for the general population or what our high school students' geography scores tell us, I wonder if it's not the same for Spain as well.

4.  We are immature.  I asked for more clarification on this, but didn't receive it, so interpret it as you wish.

5.  We are afraid of all Arab/Middle Eastern people after 9/11.  I said that we probably are more quick to judge people from that particular culture after 9/11, but that we are also aware that you can't judge a book by its cover.

6.  Every little boy plays baseball.  I gave a lame answer that was something like, "Yes, a lot of little boys do play baseball and even some girls, but it's not a requirement that you must play baseball in order to be a male US citizen."

7.  We drink more than we study when we attend a University.  Once again I gave a lame answer about how some people do and some people don't, but in general I would say that your studies at a university will probably involve drinking too much at some point.

And apparently we are also well-known for Tennessee Whiskey because in the past week two Spanish people have commented about how good it is. (This was outside of the classroom though.)

And Spain wanted you to know this:
1.  They do not all love bull fights nor have all of them seen a bullfight.  Actually only one or two people in each class actually supported bullfighting as a sport or an art.

2.  They do like to drink wine, as Spain has some really good wines, but they also like to drink beer.  I witnessed this first hand last night when I was out with a group of about 30 Spaniards.  I was the only one who ordered wine.

3.  Siestas are only supposed to last for 30 minutes at the most.  And most Spaniards do not take a siesta, even though stores/banks close people do not sleep during this 'break' time.

4.  Spain ≠ Mexico.  You might eat this for dinner in Spain:

Random comment about Euros:

In the US, if you plan to pay for your dinner with the coins in your pocket, you are surely not going to make any friends at that restaurant. It may be best to stay home and defrost the mystery meat that has been in your freezer since you moved in.  This is what I my brain tells me here too; if you only have coins in your pocket, you should stay home.  However, Euro coins are:

1 cent
2 cents
5 cents
10 cents
20 cents
50 cents
1 Euro ($1.40)
2 Euro ($2.80)

No need to skip lunch just because your only option is to pay with coins.  Just be careful about what coins you use, as sometimes the same rule does apply (obviously):  I paid my (1.05 €) bus fare with .20, 10, .05, .02 and .01 coins and the bus driver swore.

Here are a few more photos of Alcalá:

 

 It's Sunday evening (about 6 PM) in these photos, so that's why the streets are empty.

Hard right view from our balcony.

Slight right view from the balcony.

Looking down at the street below from our balcony.

Woop, there it is- between the jewelry and shoe stores.

Melissa/Missy