An International Affair

As I sit here in this internet cafe up the street from my apartment, using the free "weeefeee," sipping on a perfect cafe con leche, with the strange Spanish discovery-channel-like-show playing in the background, I'm becoming a little sentimental thinking about leaving Santander. I only have a week before I leave this place that has become more of home than I would have expected. Last weekend we all took a trip to Barcelona (pictures to come!) and it was strange to feel relieved about coming "home" to Santander after such an exhausting weekend. Funny how that happens.

On an entirely different note...

One of the best parts of being in an international school getting to meet people from all over the world. As I said in an earlier post, my class is made of up students from the U.S. and around Europe.

Our professor Raquel (back row, far right), bought us these crazy antenna things as a joke and so we took some weird pictures with them. This is our embarrassed photo. Editing is brought to you by Azra from Bosnia!

From what I've experienced here at the UIMP, teachers and students are basically at the same level when it comes to "la vida social." My class in particular has had Friday night dinner-fiestas to celebrate and send off the students who leave at the end of each week...which are coordinated by none other than our professor Raquel. For example, two weeks ago we all went out to a restaurant downtown from 9:30pm-12am and then headed over the infamous Plaza de Cariño until about 2:30am. The Plaza needs some sort explanation before I can go any further. Basically, it's a lovely little plaza about the size of a basketball court in the middle of downtown surrounded by bars and clubs. Although it's a great place for kids to run around and families to munch on ice cream during the day, around midnight it becomes one of the most unbelievable places I've seen. Hundreds of college-age kids pack into this tiny space with scents of cheap alcohol, sweat, cigarettes, and urine until about 4:30 in the morning every night. Anyways, I don't know if I've ever heard of professors wanting to hang out downtown with their students, smoking, and chatting in a smelly plaza full of 20-something-year-olds until the wee hours of the morning at the University of Denver. Only in Spain. Gotta love this country!  

Azra from Bosnia and Monica from Italy. Such sweet girls!

Azra, Me, Warren from Alabama, Niki from DU, Marko from Italy, and some random French girl from UIMP.

Hangin' out with our professor Raquel at the International Festival

El Cura: the priest. 

For our "Proyecto Final" in our culture class we had to write a 5 page research paper (in Spanish of course) about something interesting we have observed in Spain that pertains to an aspect of history or culture that we had learned about in our Iberian history book. Not only did we have to do research, but we also had to interview at least 3 Spaniards about our topic. I chose to write about Catholicism in Spain and how history has played a role in the way the country views Christianity. For centuries, Spain has been a Catholic nation. This is mainly due to their various religious-based governments during the reign of the Catholic Kings and then much later during Franco's dictatorship. Spaniards have been attending mass for years simply because they had no other choice (it was actually illegal not to). Basically, almost everyone identifies as Catholic except for some of the younger generations. It's more of a cultural identity rather than a form of spirituality. 

I decided to do one of my interviews with a Catholic priest at one of the churches downtown. It was really weird experience walking into a random Catholic church in the middle of the day with my blonde hair and American self. It's a lot different than walking into a Protestant church in America. I was kind of nervous to be honest. After explaining myself to two different people at the church, they eventually introduced me to one of the priests who spoke ENGLISH! It was such an encouraging experience to listen to man, who clearly loves the Lord, speak of his concerns for his country in relation to their apathy and lack of knowledge of the Gospel. I wish I could fully explain how life-giving it was for me to just sit and listen to him. I love being reminded that there are people pursuing the Lord in other parts of the country.