The Top 3 Ethnicities I’m Mistaken for in Europe

I realize I have not updated in an incredibly long time, mostly because I have been too lazy to turn first drafts in to final ones. I’ll get there eventually.

Anyone who knows me usually figures out with relative ease that I am Indian. I just thought it was almost a given. But I have since discovered since coming to Europe that since Indians are not in every part of it, people sometimes just don’t know what to make of me. I can seriously count the number of Indian people I have seen in Madrid. Here’s a look at the top 3 ethnicities I’m mistaken for across Europe (but most especially in Madrid).

3. Arabic 

I have many people ask me particularly if I am Moroccan. I suppose I might be able to pass since some natives in Marrakech also thought I was when I visited.

2. Mexican 

This one is not entirely surprising to me since I feel like many Punjabis and Mexicans look very similar.

1. Brazilian

I am actually kind of surprised that this is the ethnicity that I am most commonly mistaken for, but I’ve come to a couple of conclusions of my own as to why this may be true.

For one, I believe that my Spanish (at least for now) is fairly good but still doesn’t  sound like a native speaker. So I think it is easier for people to justify me being from a place where Spanish is prevalent without it being the native language.

The second reason has to do with my hair. Becuase my straightener has stopped working coupled with the fact that I hate carrying it around while traveling since I have limited space in my Ryanair carryon, I have let my hair go au naturally curly. Apparently in Europe there is a widely held belief that Brazilians have this kind of hair. I guess I’ll just have to visit sometime soon to find out if this is true or not.

The Amazing (Apartment) Race

Up until this point in time, I don’t think I’ve really ever had to look for an apartment. Yes technically I did live in one this past year in college, but that “hunt” seems trivial now in comparison to the adventure I recently embarked upon. Keep in mind that I’ve never looked for an apartment myself in a real city, so maybe things are like this in other big cities and I just have no idea

The best thing I can think to compare the process of finding an apartment in Madrid thus far is to an episode of the Amazing Race; it entails running around the city trying to beat other (foreign) students to a decently priced place you like that will let you stay for less than 10 months. Oh, and did I mention that there’s only about 2 weeks to get it done?

Here, the challenge is not finding AN apartment, but rather finding THE apartment. Of course some people were luckier or more proactive than I was. In the end I think it all worked out though.

Allow me to indulge you in an account of how things work around here. The first couple of days when I was here, we were taken on a tour of the Complutense campus. It was nice enough, but one of the things that stuck out to me was this one bulletin board with fliers covering every possible free centimeter. You know the kind; it tells you how many bedrooms and bathrooms there are and gives you a little strip to tear off with a phone number. These are not inherently common in Westwood. You’ll see the occasional flier tacked on to a lamp post or in a bathroom on campus as summer approaches. But most of them have some element of fanciness to them with a minimum of one grainy black and white picture. I have yet to see a flier with a picture.

As I became more desperate in my apartment hunt, I actually got to a point where I would walk around the neighborhoods where I wanted to live and pray to stumble upon one of these fliers or signs.

The first week I started looking for apartments, I think I ended up giving myself the impression that I was accomplishing much more than I was. By that, I mean that I scoured easypiso.com and idealista.com day and night and sent emails to every one that looked like it might have potential.

Basically I was trying to avoid having to pick up the phone, call random strangers, and have a coherent conversation with them about renting an apartment in a language that is not my native one. Needless to say, this strategy did not last long as I soon discovered how most people here are not as attached to the hip with their technology as are people in Silicon Valley.

But in the end, I am thankful for the experience. After the first ten calls, I finally had a basic “script” down and could generally conduct my business in under a minute. I got very used to hearing “no” as most of the people I called had already rented out the room I was looking at or were looking for renters to stay at least 9 months. And in the rare cases where someone said “yes,” I was able to set up an appointment to see their place with relative ease. In a span of three days, I saw about 12 apartments.

Admittedly none of them had blown me away, but I think my expectations began to lower with each one. Each one had its pros and cons. For example, I could either have a big living room and kitchen and live with a innocuous batty old lady. Or I could live in my favorite neighborhood and live in a loft that isn’t tall enough to stand up in.

Then one fine Saturday morning after a good amount of apartment fatigue, it dawned on me. One of the apartments I had seen a few days before actually could be “the one.” I had only overlooked it because it was the last of many apartments visited on a day when I had nearly given up hope.

I finally moved in last weekend and met one of the apartmentmates. She is also American, but what is funnier is that we live 5 minutes away from each other at home. We are still waiting for the others to move in, but it sounds like we are an international bunch with two Americans, two Spaniards, and one French.

The Dining Hall is a Bit Like Oliver Twist

The first month in Spain, our program puts us up in what’s known as a “Colegio Mayor,” which is kind of like a mix between a frat and a dorm. It’s set up like a dorm with a cafeteria (more on this later), rooms, common areas, and guaranteed housing for first years. But it’s like a frat in the sense that you have to apply to live in a Colegio Mayor and the freshman go through a little bit of hazing. From what I can tell it seems largely innocuous so it’s really more amusing than harmful.

But the bulk of this entry is dedicated to the dining hall here in the Colegio Mayor. Let me just start off by saying that I will never again complain about the dorm food at UCLA again; it is heavenly by comparison. Take this entry in a humorous light, not a whining one.

Breakfast is a flurry of amusements. The coffee and cups are ensconced behind the trays so everyone is crowded in to a tiny space to compete for the espresso machine. There is hot milk to go with it, but the “cold” milk is luke warm since it’s right next to the thermos. But I think my favorite part is that the “main course” everyday is a palmier wrapped in plastic. But don’t worry, it’s fancy since they serve it on a plate.  The only other thing you get to eat is cereal. The two choices are slightly stale cornflakes and some chocolaty cereal. But there are no bowls to be found. But it’s ok, you have a choice of eating it in a cup or plate. The irony of all of this is that there are actually bowls in the Colegio Mayor, but they only come out to play at lunch and dinner.

Lunch and dinner are the only times when the lunch ladies check our meal cards. The meal cards are really just a piece of  paper where they mark off each meal with a pen. The first day I was here I forgot to put a piece of paper on my tray and was reprimanded. And forgot about getting seconds; it’s just not going to happen. For the most part this really isn’t a tragedy though. One of the kids did try to get away with getting seconds and lunch lady come over, took the plate away, and said she would report him to the program director if he tried to do it again.

The Frequent French Fry Club Member Card

No lunch or dinner is complete without the following 2 items: French fries and bread. Unfortunately, the only accouterment you get to go with your fries is salt. Pepper and ketchup are not options. In general the lack of hot sauce is going to drive me to Taco Bell (yes it exists here) to nix some from there. The good news is that there is only 2 more weeks left of this before I go back to cooking my speciality, stir fry.

The Journey Before the Journey

As I sit in a café in Madrid typing this blog, I think back to a year ago when I began dreaming about coming here. I had just come back from studying in London for 6 weeks and when I announced to my parents that I wanted to go for a second round of study abroad; they weren’t nearly as enthused about the idea as I was.

This was the coffee I was drinking while blogging.

During my summer in London (for which I unfortunately did not write a blog), I became friends with a number of Spaniards. I found them to be extremely gregarious and cultured and needless to say it left a great impression on me. But it wasn’t merely the fact that I clicked with them so well that propelled my ultimate decision to go to Spain. I had a bit of an “aha” moment towards the end of my time in London. When in the company of other hispanohablantes, my Spanish friends would (logically) talk to each other in Spanish. I came to realize that my comprehension wasn’t entirely terrible, especially considering that I hadn’t studied the language since my senior year in high school. And then I got to thinking that if I actually applied myself to re-learn it, I might actually be good at Spanish.

Of course when I entered college, at first I was happy that I passed my AP Spanish test and would be rid of further language classes. But the more I thought about it, the it just seemed like such as waste that I had spent so many years “learning” Spanish without actually utilizing it in any real capacity. At the same time, I didn’t want to go back to learning Spanish without some sort of way to guarantee that I could actually get better and retain it. So of course the logical thing was to immerse myself in the language. Lo and behold, I now find myself embarking on a semester at Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Admittedly, I am mildly terrified at the prospect of classes conducted entirely in Spanish as “just another student” in Spain’s largest university, but it’s been a long time since I’ve forced myself to step outside of my comfort zone. A constant fear I have is sounding like an idiot when I open my mouth by making an innumerable amount of mistakes. But what I learned from my summer in London at such an international summer school was that it’s okay. I’d like to think that people will find my mistakes in Spanish endearing much as the reverse is true. The other thing I’ve learned is that it’s actually extremely helpful to listen to native Spanish speakers (or speakers of any language you’re trying to learn, really) speak English for the simple reason that it helps you understand how you would likely say something in Spanish since people often use literal translations when speaking in something other than their native language.

In the end my parents came to embrace my logic for the need to go for study abroad round 2 and for that I am extremely thankful to them. More on “la vida madrileña” later.