Varias Cosas 1-4

Before I forget to write them down, I've got a few things floating around in my mind.

1. On the news today, about halfway in, there was a story titled "El espárragus más grande de España," or, "Spain's biggest asparagus." I thought this was great, especially as the asparagus in question was a good 20+ meters long.

2. People, especially young ones, in Spain are curiously fixated on the US. In my University of Granada course (War and Modern Society), the US is a topic of conversation every single day, generally with tenuous connections to the topic being discussed. Questions from students are framed as: "Why do some countries, like the US, not have child soldiers, and why do others have them?", or discussions of war propaganda turn into conversations about how the US media works, unrelated to its portrayal of the war. It's frustrating that I keep hearing about the US, especially as I generally lack enough confidence/language skills to answer students in class. and correct their misconceptions (though I'm not always sure what those misconceptions are, since it's really, really, really hard to follow Spanish 20 years olds speed talking with a Granada accent). My professor had to almost force the class to start thinking about Spanish media at one point...I keep wondering why they don't show curiosity about their own country, or why they seem to avoid talking about any topic in relation to where they live. Of course, that's just in one modern history class, so my perceptions are a bit skewed.

3. I'm increasingly aware of the danger of returning home after having adopted the Spanish way of asking for things. As in, you demand them. So just a warning before I go back- if I command you to do something without adding a please, or forget to say excuse me if I bump into you, I'm not being rude! I think I've said please maybe 3 times in the past 3 months...it's just not done here. You tell people what you want, obviously in a nice tone of voice. People are just very blunt (sometimes to the point of being rude), but they get to the point and cut out all the flowery language we sometimes use.

4. And most fantastic of all, I saw a turtle on the sidewalk today on my way to school. A little river turtle, at least a half mile and several major roads between the river and my apartment, but there he was, chilling on the sidewalk looking a bit nervous. He had disappeared by the time I came home.