Valencia: Week 3

Trip Start Jun 24, 2008
1
9
17
Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Spain and Canary Islands  , Valencian Country,
Friday, July 18, 2008

This felt more like an "ordinary" week.  I went to class and then to the LEA program for lunch and dinner.  I had some interesting conversations with the Spaniards.  The most common answer I got when i asked about the United States was that they had the perception that Americans didn't know much about the rest of the world.  I couldn't really deny that.  On the whole, I've gotten the impression that Spaniards know more about what's going on outside of their own country.  I gave several reasons for this, most importantly being the location of the U.S.  Spain is surrounded by several different countries and what happens in each country could greatly effect Spain becasue they countries were so close and small.  But, in the US, we are only surrounded by 2 countries, and only one is considered 1st world.  Therefore, like countries in Europe, we don't pay much attention to the poorer countries whose situations don't effect us immediately or strongly.  That is my opinion at least.

For the one of the guys, one of the most interesting things I taught him was that it was more accepted in the US to date more than one person at a time.  I said that it seemed to me that Spanish couples got serious quicker than American couples.  He got so excited and said that he needed to go to America.  Lol, but I made it clear that my opinion is only one of many many Americans and it's not the same everywhere.  This is something that I've learned over and over, you cannot ever generalize a country because there are just so many different opinions.  One of the girls from my group doesn't agree that it's common to date more than one person at a time in the US.  Among the people I know, it's more common.  In addition, not all the Spaniards agreed that Spanish couples moved fast to be exclusive.  There's no way to find one topic or issue that everyone agrees on.

On Thursday night, I went to the beach with other students from my program and the Spanish students from LEA.  They were really exicted that we wanted to practice our Spanish then because they were tired of speaking in English, lol.  We took part in botellón that night.  This is basically a part of Spanish nightlife among people my age where they go, in big groups, to open areas, like Plazas or beaches, and drink.  Public drinking is against the law in Valencia (and I think all of Spain), but the police drove by at least twice and didn't do anything.  So, it's one of those laws where the police turn their heads.  Basically, it's like a party, you drink and then jump from group to group chit-chatting.

Oh, and another interersting conversation I had this week.  One of the girls in my group told me that she supported the draft (for both men and women).  She said that implementing the draft would force people to pay closer attention to what was going on Iraq.  She made reference to how the many protests helped forced the President to pull out of Vietnam (or something like that).  I had never heard that argument before, I've also never met anyone that was for the draft (to my knowledge at least). 
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