Cordoba

I have been living in Cordoba for a month now. I spend my days walking along the urban pathways to the edge of town where the university is. I avoid dog poo and squished oranges… Cordoba is covered in orange trees; they are on every block. They provide a citrus scent and asthetic coloring, but the oranges are inedibally sour. my classes are simple. My grammar teacher treats us like kindergartners and my history teacher is an apparition of all girls fantasies (he’s ridiculously attractive, intelligent, sweet…), and Spanish becomes a second language- all of a sudden I can understand mostly all of it. When I watch movies in my film class I find myself realizing that I am actually getting the details of the story without needed English subtitles, and then when I start thinking in English I have trouble understanding all over again. I dream in Spanish sometimes, even think it sometimes. And yet some days I’m still tongue tied and awkward, feeling like I’m not making any progress at all, and ridiculously frustrated with the strong accents of Cordoba.
No Pase Nada- I’m having a fucking good time. Staying out until 3 or 5 or 6 am, going to bars, clubs, boutallans- meeting the Spanish, joking with the Spanish, learning Spanish. It seems as if the more alcoholic drinks I’ve consumed, the better my Spanish gets. But that’s probably just because the Spaniards have gotten drunk and thus are speaking slower and simpler. I have had some awesome field trips- The Mezquita, a building that was made from a culture that existed before Christ. Ruins from muslim and Christian kings, roman conquerors. History that surpasses anything in the U.S. by thousands of years is pretty much everywhere. The Antigua part of town astounds me with it’s little streets and patios, untouched by modern culture. Pictures of the Mezquita and ruins can be found on my facebook website.
My host family is interesting. My Senora is a bit of a nutcase. She is generous, a mother hen, and open minded enough to accept my cultural differences most of the time and to let me go out and do whatever I want. Some days she is in her robe all day and she yells at me about random things like having milk and fruit in the same day, other days she is chipper and happy with jasmine perfume teaching me how to dance flamenco. I have a host sister who I suspect is just as crazy or assumes my Spanish is worse then it actually is. She talks to me really loudly and repeats everything three or four times. She is 41 and getting married to her husband in the Mezquita- which is epic.
Cordoba is a semi conservative city. There are hippies, I have been able to find the weed smokers here, and when the sun comes out they flock to the parks and hang on the lawns. But mostly it is conservative Spaniards, wealthy ones with families and traditions such as naming your first daughter after yourself and waiting until marriage to bone (or trying to- my host sisters fiancé has snuck into her room a couple of times in the middle of the night). The bars are full of aged pig legs- jam iberico- and tapas and flamenco dancers and guitar players and tuna bands. There is the modern world here, the malls, he constant need to shop, the fashion influence, and the partying students that go to the university here. But the old way of living is still very evident here and sometimes it makes us Americans stick out like a sore thumb.
Coming from Santa Cruz, it is definitely a different and perspective changing experience.