Five months in Granada
By Evan Unger
Advertising Manager
“Dale limosna, mujer, que no hay en la vida nada como la pena de ser ciego en Granada.”(Give him alms, there is no more awful fate than to be blind in Granada.)
I boarded a plane in Newark, N.J., Jan. 5, and did not set foot back in the United States until May 22.
I spent five months of my junior year in beautiful Granada, Spain, waking up every morning to the view of the scenic Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Granada is a unique city with a rich and long history. Located in Andalucía in the southeastern corner of Spain, Granada was the last city occupied by the Muslim Moors of North Africa, falling to the Crusaders in 1492. The city has a rich mix of both Spanish and Muslim culture and architecture. The famous Muslim palace and fortress, the Alhambra, is located in the hills overlooking the city.
My program was organized through Bucknell En España. I lived in an apartment with a “señora,” her 16-year-old son and Danny Schultz ’09. My señora, Isa, cooked our meals and did our laundry once a week. (I wish I had someone still doing my laundry.)
The food in Spain, especially Southern Spain, is quite different from typical food in the United States.
Breakfast is always a light meal, typically toast with a tomato spread, jam or olive oil. Lunch, served at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, is the largest meal of the day with two courses, the first of which is soup and the second, a meat dish. Dinner is served late in the evening at about 10 and is smaller than lunch.
My señora served us a lot of pork, a little bit of chicken and almost no beef. Beef is rather expensive in Southern Spain, where it rains infrequently, affecting the amount of grass on which cows can graze. The region has historically been dependent on seafood and pork. After a month, I missed beef so much I had to eat a cheeseburger at McDonalds.
At home, we only spoke Spanish with our señora, as she knew a limited amount of English. Through our señora, we learned about the Spanish culture firsthand. Isa gave us advice about grocery shopping, tapas bars and public transportation.
In some instances, the language barrier created problems. One morning I found my señora about to pour coffee in my cereal instead of milk after I asked her for milk in my coffee and something got lost in translation. That day I learned the Spanish word for “stop.”
All of my classes were in Spanish and with other international students at a satellite campus of the Universidad de Granada. Most of the other students were American, and English was most commonly spoken in the hall.
That probably did not help my Spanish immersion, but at the same time, provided a break from speaking Spanish for a while.
Spanish is spoken differently in every country. In most regions of Spain, like in the United States, people have specific accents. In Granada, they speak with a sort of lisp, or a “th” sound in their words. They also drop their “s”s. For example, “Adios” (goodbye) is pronounced as “Adio,” with a long “o.”
In Northern and Central Spain, this accent is almost nonexistent, making it easier to understand people in Madrid than Granada, especially in the beginning. My Spanish improved over the course of the five months and I hope I can keep it up in the future.
Besides offering thousands of years of culture, Granada is also home to thousands of bars. Spaniards tend to socialize in bars and cafés instead of the home. Many of the bars serve “tapas,” small snacks to go along with a beverage. My friends and I liked dining at numerous tapas bars, sampling local cuisine and conversing with Granada citizens.
One of my goals I made before I left the United States was to travel as much as possible, and I think I did a pretty good job. Through the University program, we traveled all over Spain and saw almost all major cities, including Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Cordoba, Salamanca and Segovia.
We saw cathedrals, castles, beaches and bull rings. Our coordinator in Spain did a great job making sure we toured the most important locales. I could write for hours on my travels, but to sum it up, I visited Portugal, Morocco, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Germany.
My experience in Granada was life-changing; it opened my perspective of my world. “El mundo es un pañuelo.” It’s a small world.
