I Know More Spanish Than I Thought

After Christmas I headed to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic with my dad and sister to get away from the bitter New England cold for a while and enjoy the tropical sunshine. This trip was unlike any other I've taken in the past year...laying on the beach and doing nothing all day isn't really my idea of fun. It was especially hard for me knowing what kind of life people in the Dominican were living outside of our all-inclusive resort and how they probably could never afford even a day in the place we were staying. I tried to twist it around in my head and thought of it as us helping their tourism economy thus increasing their GDP, but I dunno...still felt guilty.

Anyway, I digress. As you probably know, in middle school when we had to fill out the forms in 6th grade saying which language we would start learning the next year, instead of choosing Spanish like everyone else, I marked German. Why? I have no idea. But I can safely that that decision I made as a 12 year old completely changed the course of the rest of my life. But I am digressing again! Jeez I guess this is what happens when you don't write for a while. Even though I have been speaking German for the past 10 years, I still knew a LOT more Spanish in the Dominican Republic than I thought I would (and I've never even watched Dora the Explorer!) I knew how to count to 10, which was useful when telling hostesses how many people would be eating dinner, or how many bottles of water you wanted (I knew the word for water too!). I knew "please" and "thank you." I knew how to ask someone how they were, and I knew how to respond. I knew how to say my name. When the guy who was driving us from the airport to the resort came across a huge puddle in the middle of the road, he said to my dad, "mucha agua amigo!" and all of us laughed. Totally understood that. One waiter told another waiter that my sister was "loco" thinking that we wouldn't be able to understand. Oh, we understood and it was probably the funniest moment of my life.

The first few days in a new country it's always hard for me to use the language because I get nervous, but after a while, it's just fun. The only scary part was when the people thought you ACTUALLY spoke Spanish and would say a whole big thing and you'd have no idea what was going on! It was fun though, I miss communicating in a different language on a daily basis!

Culture Shock in the Midwest

Ok so maybe I haven't updated this in a while, but I feel like it just keeps going on and on, and I'm not in Germany any more (which was the main purpose of this blog anyhow) and my day to day life back in the US just isn't as exciting. But since so many people have asked me about this recently, I thought I'd write something up.

I've been so lucky to have been able to see my Freiburg friends on an almost regular basis, considering we're in 5 different states in 3 different time zones. Since the majority of my friends are now from the midwest, I have traveled there twice; first to Madison, Wisconsin for Halloween and then I split my time between Crown Point, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois for Christmas.

I was completely shocked by the culture in the midwest, I had no idea that life could be so different a thousand miles away (ok, that's a lie. I just traveled all over the world. Of COURSE I knew that life could be totally different a thousand miles away). The first thing I noticed was generally how much nicer people were. People were calmer, in less of a rush to do things, and always greeted you with a smile (especially in airports, who knew?). Everything there is FLAT! Flat flat flat! I didn't know that anything could be that flat until I saw it for myself! Many ATMs were advertised as fee free! You can buy alcohol in grocery stores. There are billboards for adult superstores everywhere. Cracker Barrel to the Midwest is like Dunkin Donuts to Boston, they are EVERYWHERE!

A huge shocker about the midwest for me and Jon (who's from California) in Madison was that every time we went out to dinner, they would ask us beforehand if we wanted the check separate or together. This was such a foreign concept to us coasties (a midwest term for someone that lives on the coast!) that we almost didn't believe it the first time it happened. If you ask for separate checks around here, you will be met with an evil eye, and your food will probably be tampered with. There, it's just common practice. Imagine how many awkward dates that would eliminate if you knew right off the bat whether the guy was going to pay for you or not? Sometimes, when we went out to eat with a large group, we wouldn't even be asked if the checks were together or separate, they would just bring them out separately! I dunno how many hours of my life I've wasted in restaurants trying to itemize every last Coke and french fry to the appropriate person, and arguing over who is going to pay with their $20 and who gets how much change from where, but I kind of like the midwest style a lot better.

I thought I saw it all during my first trip to the Midwest, but I was wrong! For Christmas I spent time with my friend Katie's family in Indiana, and after she picked me up from the airport with Emily, we went to the grocery store to get dinner for that night. As we were checking out, a guy started loading the groceries onto a weird cart and then began pushing him away. "Hey," I whispered, "where is he going with our stuff??" Katie and Emily laughed. "He's bringing it out to the car for us," they replied.
"Whaaaat??" I said, "they do that here??"
"Yes of course!" they were laughing even harder now, "Usually you have to tell them when you don't want your stuff brought out to the car, because if they do bring it out, you gotta tip them." It was the craziest thing I ever saw!