This will be my last blog for the week as I leave for Portugal tomorrow morning. I’ll try and blog about it all on Sunday night but we’ll see if I get to it. Also, this post will be mainly about my experiences at the Red Cross the past two days because I have done nothing else besides that. I literally get back and spend the rest of the day in bed or talking to people and I end up falling asleep at like 10:30 or 11 and then wake up around 5:30 or 6ish. I guess the heat just exhausts me. I would work out in the morning before my 8 o’clock start at the Red Cross, but our building is closed from 6:30 to 8 am every day. So if I left I would not be able to get back in.
Yesterday at the Red Cross we filmed a promotional video. I think it is the video that will be shown to people when they want to know what the Red Cross does and for whatever purpose they need it for. I got to be a star for a little bit. The scenes I am in is drawing with little refugee kids and being in the office. One thing that was really cool was all the places I got to visit. We went to other offices at Red Cross, a food pantry, and El Museo del Ejercito (Museum of the Army). At the museum they filmed a scene where the ambulance pulls up and starts performing CPR on someone passed out in the middle of the street. After we filmed this scene, we got taken into the museum (which happened to be closed to the public that day) and got to see some of the neat stuff. We were then taken to the restaurant/bar and had some drinks. The director of ambulances/emergencies ended up buying me a Tinto de Verano because he wanted to make sure I try it. A Tinto de Verano is wine mixed with like lemon sparkling water. It is pretty delicious. After that, we went back to the Red Cross and I was dismissed for the day.
Today I did very little at the Red Cross. I spent a couple hours putting files in binders and what not, but after that I was done and bored. I got to go home an hour early after being told there was nothing else for me to do for an hour or two. I think my Spanish is improving, or at least I am starting to understand people better. I get a lot of listening (and a little talking time) when I join Pedro (the secretary) on his hourly smoke breaks. I feel like I’ll have some second-hand smoke damage after this summer, but it’s fine…. I’ll do a better job of including more of my thoughts in future blogs, but I was rushing through all these as I didn’t want to spend all evening writing old posts and getting the blogs finally posted. But my plans for tonight are pretty fun. Jack Toups is driving in from Pamplona (he rented a car, happens to be an Audi!!!) and we will eat and then party here tonight. Tomorrow morning we will drive to Lisbon, Portugal to enjoy the beach and party. Then on Saturday we will drive back to Madrid and stay the night in Madrid. Should be a fun weekend!
Well my first day of the internship was a bit strange. I was super nervous so I talked quietly and with stutters. I seem to be stuttering a lot whenever I speak Spanish. I also only understood like 30% of what was said to me. I spent a good amount of the day reading powerpoints about what is La Cruz Roja and then joining Pedro on his smoke breaks. He told me a lot about the history of the city which I found super interesting. Toledo was the capital of Spain in the 9th century and so there is a lot of history. He described the city being like a cake with many layers. Each layer representing a different part of history. The city is also known as the city of three cultures because it has had 3 religious influences. Toledo has been run by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. So it's super interesting. Nowadays there are a lot of abbeys and many nuns. One thing he told me was that every time they build a new building or destroy a building, they check the ground underneath it and find a new part of history. He showed me pictures of an ancient Muslim cemetery they found after tearing down one building. It's all just been super interesting.
By this point I've already gone out and had two sandwiches of jamon iberico, yum. Also became/was (it's been a few days) a regular at the local bar/cafe Virtudes. I've also gone out and explored the city a few times, I think I've walked the majority of it. I've also planned all my trips. Jack Toups is picking me up this weekend and is taking me to Lisbon and then Madrid. The following weekend I am going on he Andalucia trip which will take me to Galacia I think... and then I have a free weekend where I could go to London, Barcelona, or just hang out. Then I am going to Zamora. After that is finals weekend, but I won't have any finals so technically I could go on a trip. Hmm what else have I done... I've gone out and seen a free concert put on by the city, the music was probably better than the local small bars and clubs I've been to. I also went to one of the larger clubs and unfortunately I didn't ride in the same taxi as my closer friends so it wasn't quite as fun as it could have been, but hey, free entry is nice. There is like a carnival and the strip of like 2-3 clubs is behind it.
Also the whole workplace atmosphere seems way more relaxed. You can walk in a little past when you need to, you can talk on the phone or use your phone without a problem, and you can have side conversations and like listen to music. It seems super relaxed and chill. Also, it's a shorter workweek. At least here, they go from like 8-3 but I don't think they stop for lunch. Lunch is probably had after work. You can also go out and take smoke breaks whenever and for like however long you want it seems. The system is not abused which is why it works I guess. One example our teacher told us is that if you're going up to talk to like a receptionist or something, you could have to wait for her phone call with her kids to end and that's totally normal and acceptable. Also there is no personal space, no bubble. Sometimes this feels weird such as when I was signing up for a library card. When I was signing up there was one guy behind me, he got super close and was basically brushing against and touched my butt. Obviously unintentional but that just shows how close he got.
The day I arrived, Toledo was celebrating its biggest festival of the year, Corpus Christi. I was not prepared for the heat wave that Toledo was experiencing considering my jeans and thick polo. It was cool walking through the city and seeing all the buzz and excitement. When we got to the Fundacion, they immediately had us sign in to get our rooms. When I went up to my room, I found out that I had a single with like a locked door and then a small hallway connecting to a bathroom and my roommate’s room. Stoked to have a super nice dorm room and not have to share my room. I mean the lack of air conditioning in the 107 degree heat was rough but I had a fan and my own room, so it was okay at least. I ended up going to bed that night and actually sleeping a fair amount when I was expecting jetlag. I then woke up on Friday morning and had to take a placement exam which I did not do well on, but so be it. That night, we went out and explored the bar scene. It was a little bit dead. We ended up asking and someone told us it was because the big festival had just ended and people were resting. Saturday night we also went out and I went to my first club. It was outdoors and looked really cool.
After landing in Atlanta, I really wanted to get some food. I went ahead and found a place selling Mexican food. I think it was called like Mr. Taco or like King Tacos… something tacos. Took it back to my gate and saw that it was packed with young people. After boarding the flight, I found out that like 70 ish people were like 20 year olds from Norton, Ohio doing some class trip. Also, there were what looked like a few other youth groups who were going backpacking. Even with this amount of kids on the flight, it was a smooth ride. I ended up watching like two movies on the plane and slept in between 1.5 to 2 hours. After having picked up my suitcase in Madrid, I had no idea where to go. I was expecting someone with a sign to be waiting for me, but no one was there. After waiting for about half an hour, I connected to the Wi-Fi and emailed the assistant head of the Fundacion. She got back to me about 15 minutes after telling me that the ride will show up at 10:30, I had been there since 8:30. Once the time neared, I saw a small group of students form and I walked over and asked if they were all going to Toledo and it turns out they were. It was two Notre Dame girls and then two kids from the University of Minnesota. When the directors showed up to pick us up, one of them recognized my French jersey polo I was wearing and started talking to me. We ended up speaking in French and I found out his mother was from France and that he is like a director of the Fundacion.
This turned out to be a much more eventful plane ride than I thought it to be. When I was first boarding (end of the line, zone 3, wooh) the gate agents were making everyone check any carry on that would be put in the overhead compartment. I thought this was kind of strange, but they said that the plane was out of space. I then boarded and saw plenty of EMPTY overhead bins. Everyone entering after me who was forced to check their bag was very confused and one person even told the flight attendant that it was ridiculous. I then ask the stranger in 28C if she could let me through to my window seat, 28A. It was then that I realized I was blessed to have an empty seat next to me. Extra leg space, extra joy. As we took off, the lady on the aisle seat started to make small talk with me. Asked if I had a connecting flight or if my final destination was Atlanta. We continued on with this small talk until I found out that she was a Spanish teacher. It was then that I told her I was studying abroad and that my connecting flight was to Madrid. She then started speaking Spanish with me and I spent the rest of the flight talking in Spanish about random topics such as importance of learning another language and other cultures. It was overall an interesting flight where I wanted her to stop talking towards the end, but it’s fine. Oh yeah, at one point during the flight, the plane encountered some wild turbulence where we went from the wings being horizontal, to the wings being vertical.