*I will never forget you, Spain
SPAIN was not love at first sight. It was love at first word. Pablo Neruda’s “Tonight I Can Write”—originally “Puedo Escribir”—started an unfaithful affair that would lead me to Google images of Pablo Picasso’s paintings, discover the hype between football teams Barca and Real Madrid, and, last summer, embark on a trip that just about ruined and renewed every stereotype I had about bull fights, flamenco dancers, paella, and tomatoes.
A shock for the uncultured
The first stereotype broken, when 24 of us arrived in Madrid in April, was about the weather. I had been warned that it would be cold. I just did not imagine it would range from 9 to 13 degrees-cold—a far cry from my daydreams of glorious sunshine with wind blowing nicely in my hair.
At least, this was how I pictured Spain last December, when I went to the Modern Languages Department and signed up for the tour. I was enticed by the prospect of learning the language in its motherland. That Spain was the second most popular tourist spot in the world, after France, might have also been a factor in my decision to bargain—okay, plea—for my parents to allow me to go.
No amount of books or articles about Spain prepared me, however, for the realization that I was so shabbily cultured and clueless outside of the region I was born in. The alien customs, the Western gastronomy, and barely-understood language were suddenly not the stuff of the library’s books or my teacher’s stories. They were real and in my face.
It was this experience—that of liberation—that the tour tries to give students. “We are not confined to the classrooms,” says Spanish Assistant Professor Heide Aquino, who, together with Spanish and French Instructor Luisa Young, accompanied us to Spain. “We are really going to the places where the students are exposed and immersed not only to the language but the culture as well.”
Charades and the night
We were to stay with foster families on the tour’s first two weeks. At first, Camille Nierra, one of us who signed up, was anxious about this.
As it turned out, she did not need to worry. “[The families] really are warm and happy people who are very welcoming to extranjeros (foreigners) like us.”
Even the language barrier was a trivial problem overshadowed by the families’ hospitality. “Since I was always telling her how thin I was, and how I wanted to gain weight, our foster mother always encourages me to eat more,” says Argie Silvestre. “Sometimes, when we don’t understand each other, we resort to sign language—like charades.”
“Or sometimes, we just laugh, and say, ‘Si!’” adds Sam Yu, a fresh graduate and Argie’s batchmate.
Studying Spanish in its home country was vastly different from speaking it within the classroom walls, says Iggi Ibarrola, a senior minoring in Hispanic Studies. “Your classmates are also from different [parts of the world],” he says. “It’s funny how we are all studying one language yet our native tongues are different.”
In ISLA, our language school in Salamanca, the teachers required that you speak to them in Spanish—all the time. While classes were enjoyable, we took them seriously. The tour was worth six units and a diploma from the school.
Food, drinks, and the (night)life
For our foster parents, who did not impose strict curfews, going home at 5 am—after one is exhausted from bar-hopping in the streets nearby—is as normal as Filipinos going to work at 8 am.
A tour guide, Elena from ISLA, took us one night for a tour of the city’s best tapas. We started with the cold jamon iberico in the first bar. “It’s the best ham,” says Señora Aquino. “It’s really delicious, especially with red wine.”
Our ultimate destination was Camelot, which most travelogues in Salamanca list as the best place to dance. “One thing that I’d never do here in the Philippines, but did in Spain, was dance on the stage,” says Iggi. “It was okay to let yourself go because no one will recognize you.”
Sometimes, we’d also take a walk in the roads of Salamanca, which prides itself with the label La Ciudad Dorado (The Golden City). Most of the city’s edifices emit a warm golden glow during the day, and are lit softly at night. The Plaza Mayor, which is the best in all of Europe, is proof of that.
During the weekends, we visited neighboring provinces: the old villages by the Sierra de Francia in Salamanca, the Alcazar, the La Granja de San Ildefonso and the Aqueducto Romano in Segovia, the Las Murallas in Avila, and the Catedral and Alcazar de Toledo. By the end of two weeks, we packed our bags for Madrid.
Oh, we can die
In Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia, we waited for roughly 30 minutes in line before viewing Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, which depicted the German bombing of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish civil war. Similarly, we had to squeeze through many small crowds gathered around paintings in the Museo del Prado just to see Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas (Maids of Honor).
In contrast to Salamanca’s coziness, Madrid was more sophisticated but buzzing with urban activity.
“Each region in Spain has its own personality,” says Señora Aquino. “Down south, they have a mixture of Arab language, culture, even temperament. They are passionate—even the physical features are different.”
Granada, in southern Andalucia, was the climax of our trip. A climb atop the road from our hostal led us to the former fortress La Alhambra, and the charming gardens atop a hill overlooking the Alhambra, the Generalife.
“I loved the Andalusian places that we visited,” says Pauline Moscoso. “They reflected the real Spain in such a way that it is still very much reminiscent of the good old days.”
An old Spanish saying goes that if one has seen the Alhambra—its honeycombed golden ceilings, its doorways carved with arabesque patterns, its patios and pools and statues all reminiscent of Spain’s history under the Moors—then one can die. As it tried to absorb each detail of that golden palace, my eyes couldn’t agree more.
Back home
However beautiful Spain was, Iggi, Sam, and Argie say they are prouder of Filipino culture because of the experience. “The language, most obviously, makes you see the connection between Filipino and Spanish,” says Argie.
For Señora Aquino, who studied in Spain and visited it many times, her love for Spain is something that merely adds to her personality. “There is no dichotomy. There is no gap either,” she says. “I’m still glad I am a Filipino.”
I decided to take a minor in Hispanic Studies a week after my arrival. This was not just a matter of seriously learning the language, or building my dusty knowledge of its culture. Three weeks were simply not enough.
