I havnt posted a blog in a while so I thought I would devote this one to the weird/ strange experiences Ive found myself in over the past month.
Starting in Barcelona! While the Barcelona trip went fairly normal and I enjoyed all the beautiful architecture of Gaudi and running into one of my residents from Michigan, the most memorable part was the questionable/mysterious Italian man that slept below me in hostel. The rather burly and bearded looking man who didnt smell the freshest (being an understatement) spoke only italian and a little bit of broken english. He never seemed to know what to do with his time and relied on us to tell him what to do with his day. Eventually he saw me looking at his garbage bag full of his belongings and started to explain to me his current terrible/ near death situation in the most nonchalant way possible. He told me in broken english that he arrived to Barcelona on his motorcycle, but as he was riding, his backpack that he was wearing caught on fire and burned all of his belongings and clothing. He then told me that it started to burn the clothes he was wearing started to catch on fire and burnt his wallet with all of his money in it. He proceeded to pull out of the garbage bag a large wad of 50's that had the top half burnt off. I find this story so amusing because this man almost had a near death experience and all of his belongings are burnt, but yet he still tells this story with no emotion and acting like nothing happened. The next day as me and one of my friends are napping in the room, the mysterious Italian enters with a bottle of wine and wakes us up to tell us that he bought us a bottle of wine to share. Being exhausted and just wanted to sleep we kindly rejected but he persisted that we share the warm cheap bottle of wine with him at 2 in the afternoon.
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The next strange situation I have found myself in has been a continuous problem over the past month. There is a large gay population living in Madrid, so that combined with the natural forwardness of Spanish males, Im sure you can guess where this story is going. On a daily basis I get cat-called by men on the streets. One example happened today at the park where a very flamboyant elderly man sporting a very small speedo came up to me and asked if he could rub tanning oil on my back, after I respectfully declined he tried to sweeten the offer by saying that he is a masseuse. I declined again. Also I learned after a couple of weeks that when a man asks me "Where are you going?" this does not mean that they are concerned for whether I am lost or not. Also, the Pride week in Madrid was interesting for me to say the least. I asked my Spanish friend Juan why this happens to me so much and his explanation was very interesting. He told me that in Spain most males have a "natural body" meaning they dont lift weights to look like a body builder, and that the gay males are more concerned for appearing muscular. Juan then told me that when they see a 'young muscular male like myself' they are more forward with them. This is very different from American culture where lifting weights to gain this 'artificial muscle' is a very masculine thing to do.
This next situation was a bit more fun for me. I went to McDonalds (yes I still sometimes crave the fastfood American food) late at night and right in front of me was the cast of the show "The Lion King" which has been playing in Madrid for the past few months. The cast still was covered in strange animal makeup and exotic hairstyles and while in line I got to enjoy a late night serenade of the Lion King while in McDonalds. One would think this is enough excitement for one food run, but not for me. A group of rather drunk teenagers came up to and were convinced I was Toni Kroos of the German national soccer team, I tried to tell them I wasnt, but given their state it was too hard to reason with them, so I went along with it. They began making announcements to everyone in the restaurant that I was Toni Kroos and they even started hugging me and taking pictures with me. What an eventful food run.
My mom and brothers came to visit to me in Madrid, and we also made a trip to Southern France for the weekend. We stayed at Carcassonne, a beautiful town with an incredible middle ages castle. The trip was great, but no one in my family can speak French. For some reason I would always get stuck speaking Spanish thinking that they all know Spanish as well. Even when a French man tried to ask me a question in English, I responded to him in Spanish. The conversation did not go well. I assume it was because I am so used to speaking in Spanish when I hear a foreign language that I just did it out of habit.
I also found myself stuck in the middle of a Spanish music video. A spanish singer decided to use my street to film a music video for one of his songs. As I was leaving my apartment I walked into the street right as they were filming. Of course I got yelled at by one of the directors to get out of the way so a red truck with 5 women dressed as angels surrounding the singer could pass. Just another normal day for me.
This past weekend I went with my friend Juan to his family's house in Sevilla. It was a great experience seeing what life is like within a Spanish household. This included watching Juan get his armpits waxed by his mother... cultural customs.
Realizing how long this post is, Ill stop there, hope you all find these short stories somewhat entertaining!
