Another month done

Well, another month has gone by. It feels like it was just a week ago when I wrote the blog recapping the first month, but it has in fact been a whole month!

I’m still waiting for “culture shock”.  I have a feeling that if it’s been 2 months and I haven’t had any problems with it, then it probably just isn’t going to happen for me, and I am fine with that.  I know quite a few people have had problems with not adapting to the culture very well.  But I’ve always been a person who just adapts to different situations pretty fast.  Another thing I think helped me a lot in avoiding culture shock is that I already knew a lot about Spanish culture before I got here.  From talking to other people, I get the idea that my high school did a much better job teaching us about the culture of Spain and other Spanish speaking countries then a lot of other high schools did.  Most people only learned about Spanish artists, and I’m all for learning about art, but being able to list off 10 of Pablo Picasso’s most famous paintings isn’t going to help you when you are living in Spain.  What will help you is knowing typical foods, meal times and mannerisms. It surprises me a lot that other students didn’t know this kind of stuff before, because I spent so much time learning all that in high school.

After being here for 2 months, I am a much more active person.  We walk everywhere here.  Last year, I complained about having to walk 20 minutes, 2 times a week, for 1 class.  This year, all my classes are in the same building which is at least a 20 if not 30 minute walk from where I live and I usually walk to and from class 2 times a day.  That’s 2 hours of walking right there.  If I decide to go out later, that’s another hour or two. And on top of all that I’ve been running 3 times a week for 30 minutes and that would NEVER happen in Lexington.

Probably the biggest change I’ve made is my reliance on technology.  In the State, I could literally be on the internet for 1-4 hours.  Yes, hours.  Now, I can barely figure out what to do for 10 minutes.  Not having internet access at home has made me completely forget how to waste time on line, and that’s probably a good thing.  Now, when I do get internet access, I’m like sitting there with a stop watch like “Facebook, email, blog. TIME! New high score, fastest time yet!” I’ve also gotten a lot less attached to my cell phone.   In October, I only sent like 6 text messages. If I was in America, I probably would have sent 6 texts every day in October. The thing is, I’m paying the bill on this phone, and international text messages are expensive.  When I first got my phone, the way I would control how many texts I sent was to ask myself “Is this text message important enough that I am willing to spend the money it takes to send?” If the answer was yes, I would send it.  If the answer was no, and it pretty much always was no, I wouldn’t.  Now I don’t even think about texting, I just don’t do it.