My name is Emma Decker, and I am an English and Global and International Studies major with minors in History and Spanish.  I am going to be spending the Spring 2013 semester in Seville, Spain with the CIEE Liberal Arts program, while simultaneously traveling Europe whenever I possibly can.  I cannot even begin to describe how excited I am for the experience!  With a little over a month left before I leave, I figured now would be a good time to begin the blogging process.
    When I land in Madrid in January, before I depart for Seville, it will not be my first experience in Spain.  It will, however, be the first experience I can say I will remember.  I lived in Madrid for a short period of time at a very young age, and some of my first words were in Spanish.  While this is an interesting fun fact to use in annoying ice-breaker games, it is not enough of an “experience” for me to have confidently formed any of my own personal opinions about the Spanish.  The majority of my understanding of the Spanish culture comes from stories told by my parents.
    Coming from a family who has previously lived in Madrid, I’ve been told things for as long as I can remember about what the Spaniards are like.  All of my favorite baby-Emma stories involve one or another of the memories my parents have from Spain.  And they are what contribute to my own pre-conceived notions of the Spanish.
    For example, my parents claim that they would constantly be stopped in the street so that a stranger walking by could tell them how beautiful I was.  “Que bonita!  Bella rubia!”  Additionally, it was commonplace in Spanish restaurants for a waitress or a chef to ask my parents if it was okay to take me back to the kitchen and introduce me to the staff.  I would be gone for fifteen or twenty minutes, and come back with handfuls of food.  Once, another patron in a restaurant asked my mother if she could hold me, and brought me back to her table and passed me around to everyone else in their party.  It was disconcerting to my parents at first, but once they were used to it, it was apparently actually rather convenient for them to be able to eat dinner in peace not have to deal with their fussy infant.  They came to enjoy passing me off to admiring fans.  From stories like this, I have drawn the conclusion that Spaniards, in general, are incredibly friendly and accepting of children.
    I should also mention that my first few months back in the States were pretty rough.  I’d become fairly used to the attention, and I’d grown rather fond of it.  However, riding in a grocery cart waving like a pageant queen is much less fun as a three year old when no one is paying attention.  According to my father, it took a few months before I realized that a child screaming “HELLO!  I’M OVER HERE!!” in public places, which is cute and adorable in Madrid, is considered somewhat less socially acceptable in the United States.
    Beyond that, I don’t really have any idea what I should be expecting from the next few months.  I just hope to enjoy myself and learn a lot.  As long as I come back at the end of the semester fluent in spanish, I will feel like I accomplished something.  The traveling, meeting new people, and having new experiences will all just be additional benefits to what is sure to be an amazing experience overall!!

Location: State College, Pennsylvania