Hey everyone! It is difficult for me to fathom that after this week I will be halfway down with my program here in Madrid. Time here has flown by and I am not yet ready to say goodbye to Spain nor the people I have met here. My last seven days of the program have been difficult. From last Tuesday until now I have been sick, which has severely affected what I can do in my free time from my internship. My typical day last week consisted of going to work and then coming home and resting because I was so tired and did not feel well. Although I work five days a week in person, on Friday I worked from home because I did not feel well enough to be in the office and this entire weekend I stayed home in my homestay so that I could get lots of rest and feel better so I could go back to work today. Luckily, I woke up and felt great today, so I am very thankful to say I returned to the office, where I prefer to be over working from home.
Although I was not able to do too much outside of work last week, I had the opportunity to take photos for two tours. The first tour I went on was to The Matadero, or slaughterhouse in English. This complex used to be where they killed animals and processed meat during the 1900s, but today it has different uses. Now they use it as a museum, a flea market on the weekends, and a venue where local artists, ranging from live music to dancing, perform shows and events. The second tour I took photos of explored the neighborhood of La Latina, which is what I got to do at my internship today. This was my favorite tour that I have done so far in Madrid, as we saw the famous Almudena Cathedral and the beautiful garden behind the Royal Palace, where the public can walk for free! The Cathedral was gorgeous and the tour guide also included some fascinating facts about the building, along with showing us a beautiful area of the church dedicated to Pope John Paul II, who consecrated it. The garden behind the Royal Palace was an impressive way to end the tour today, as there was a beautiful fountain in the middle and perfect paths for the group to walk around and explore all the greenery and shade it offered after a hot afternoon. I am thankful that one of the tasks I have been doing for Expanish has been to take photos of these groups on their tours because they are ways for me to do fun activities during the week and also to explore and find areas of the city that I had not found and probably would not have discovered.
During these past three weeks, I have found parts of Spain’s culture that are difficult to assimilate with in general and in the workplace. One of these parts is small talk. When I was preparing for the program, I learned that Spaniards love to have conversations with each other and be social not just in regular life, but also in the workplace, as it leads to better trust and smoother communication. Although I have found it easy and natural to have these types of conversations with my host mom when I come home from work or we are eating dinner together, I struggle to replicate this when I am in the workplace. One of the reasons I think I have struggled with this is because I am a reserved person and like to work alone. I tend to be a quiet person and often only communicate with people when I need to because I do not like to bother people when they are working, as when I am working I have difficulty focusing if a lot of people are talking and distracting me away from what I am doing. Another part of Spain’s culture that I find difficult to assimilate with is physical contact. In Spain, their uses of physical contact often show engagement in the conversation, trust between the two individuals, or intimacy to show that two individuals have been friends for a long time. I struggle with this because I learned here in America to keep your hands to yourself and to give people personal space. Because their culture is so different when it comes to physical contact, I sometimes feel uncomfortable in these situations because I am not familiar with them.
