My friend and I look towards each other unsure; waiting to see if the other has a plan. We are circling the bottom floor of a mall, which, according to google maps, houses a movie theater. Finally we see a sign and proceed up the steps where a concession stand waits. Though obviously American, and confused to say the least, everyone around us simple stared as we searched for the ticket counter. The young woman at the concession stand simply watched, as if we were the plot of a suspense movie, her eyes following, waiting for the drama to start. Ignoring our audience, we finally see the writing “tickets” on the top of a hut. The sign of the hut reads, “Tequila Bar”. We decide it is our best option and descend the stairs we had recently climbed. A-ha!! Movie times, we were in the right place. After collecting the exact change we would need from our purses we approached the counter. In Spanish we kindly asked for tickets to J. Edgar and paid. As the early twenty-year-old male went to hand us our recently printed tickets he says, in Spanish, “you know the movie is in Spanish right?” Thank you captain obvious I do know what country I am in. After politely assuring him we were well aware of the movie’s language we made our way to our theater. Standing at the back of the dark theater, using the light from my cell phone we searched our tickets for a seat position, having vaguely remembered being told we had seat assignments. We found our seats as the movie was about to begin. The opening scene is that of a landscape and a voice begins to narrate. Not more than 12 seconds pass before my friend and I look towards each other again, burst out laughing, and say, “We should have picked a different movie”. I couldn’t tell you much of what was said in that movie, but I did comprehend more than everyone we encountered thought we would.

Living in a world where you are learning the language is like being a little kid again. You can sense when people are happy, sad, or angry but you just don’t understand why. You will never be punished or scolded for saying something incorrect or offensive or impolite because they give you a pass for lacking the knowledge to understand the words true meanings. There is no need to have personal conversations in a separate room; instead, words are strung together like clothes on a clothesline, being spoken as if it were a competition of speed as to discourage you from picking out the few words of which you understand. I have flashbacks from when I was a child and my parents would spell the “bad words” that my older brothers proved to understand by falling into laughter. And there I was, sitting at the dinner table; left in the dark, praying for the day I could finally spell.

            That’s the thing with being visually different than the population of which you are surrounded. Here, people seem to expect us “Americans” to stand out and embarrass ourselves with frequency for their amusement. Yesterday, I stood in the dressing room of a department store, fixated on the reflection of the bright blue pants I was trying on. It was not the fit that I was contemplating; instead, it was if the “white pant” rule applied to other colors. It is a well-known “rule” that one must only wear white pants between Memorial Day and Labor Day. But is there a rule for bright blue pants, or the Santa Clause red pants neatly folded in my closet, patiently waiting for their unveiling? After polling my friend close by, we didn’t have an answer.

            Tuesday morning I decided to make my own rule! I pulled on my red pants, confidently walked out the apartment door, and strutted down the sidewalk of a main road as if I was walking the runway in Paris. It was complete with onlookers questioning my choice with their eyes as I passed, capturing the image to tell to their friends when they arrived at work.

            After appearing so obviously out of place, I find it humorous when Spaniards attempt to put us at ease with the few English words they know. Last weekend I was taking a tour of a cathedral with a group of students from my program. Our guide spoke some English but was instructed to only lecture to us in Spanish. However, every time we had stopped and she wanted us to relocate she would say, “one, two, three, vamanos(let’s go)”! She did this at least thirteen times throughout our half our tour and every single time it was just as funny as the first.

            The way other people view the World is very interesting to me. I am here, in Spain, because of a desire to learn. Though I never really enjoyed the structure of the schools I attended, it was this drive for knowledge that made be love learning. No point is enough for me, I am always going to want more out of life and to push myself and challenge my capacity to learn more. I cannot even fathom the idea that I may, one day, not want to learn anything new, but then again I’m not seventy-one years old.

            The other day a television program relayed the highlights from a recent soccer game in Spain. As my Se�ora walked to the tabled she said, “I don’t like to watch this game, I don’t understand it!” Having played for many years I would have been more than happy to explain the rules to her so I asked, “Do you want to understand it?” She threw her arms up as if it was the most absurd question I could have asked and responded, “I don’t want to learn anything else. I am at a point in life where I don’t want to learn anymore, with learning something else, just comes more work.”

            This is not the only interesting conversation encountered at the dinner table. Lunch today was interesting, to say the least. I ate potato and meat soup with my Se�ora and her grown son. Our conversation began with the topic of snow normally acquired by my home State of New Hampshire and managed to somehow segway into politics, gay rights, and abortion laws, with my Se�ora having strong opinions about all three. I tried to speak as much with my facial expressions as possible, but it was an uncoordinated combination of nodding in my understanding of the Spanish she was speaking and a sort of compassion for the topics she was discussing.  Her son realized I didn’t comprehend some of what she was saying so he would slowly provide background information to me as my Se�ora every so often would interject when he approached her most important points. My fun fact of the day, however, is that in Spain a democrat is equal to a republican in the United States, and vice versa.

            One of the main problems with trying to have in depth conversations when not fluent in a second language is that you can never let your personality shine. Today I realized that I couldn’t tell or understand a single joke because my understanding of the language is not in depth enough to do so. By not being able to have simple encounters of laughter or emotion in my words, it takes away from letting others know the person I really am. Instead, I rely solely on my actions to prove my worth to the people that were strangers mere weeks ago. 

Location: Sevilla, Spain