Actually we had at one point five other people living with us: two French girls from an island in the Caribbean called Guadalupe--just east of Puerto Rico-- and three Italian guys from Milan.
With the French girls it was a little hard at points to communicate because they spoke French, Creole, just a little Spanish, and some English. There was a lot of translating going back and forth from Spanish to English as my host mom only speaks Spanish. We were able to work it out though.
The French girls left yesterday, and for the next week the Italian guys are staying with us. They all speak Spanish very well and one English fairly well too, so it is definitely much easier to communicate. I have also noticed, not just now but a couple times before, how truly important it is to learn another language. If I were not in the process of learning and practicing my Spanish, I would not be able to communicate at a sufficient level with anyone I am living with (besides my roommate Sanad). I would not be able to talk and share experiences with other Spanish students from Japan, China, Italy, France, or Cyprus (as there is a girl in one of my classes from there). I am nowhere near becoming fluent, but being able to work through a conversation with somebody who doesn't know English and in turn connect with that person on some level is something that I am definitely lucky to have been able to experience and shows me the importance of attempting to learn other languages.
I won't turn this into a rant, but there is definitely a lot of separation in our world today, and it could be one of the steps for everyone to reach out and learn another language in order to broaden their perspectives, as learning a language is not just the mechanics, but also the culture and mindset of a country or community.
Anyway, since this weekend I did not take so many pictures, I will post a couple of my favorites that I have taken:
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| Plaza de España in Seville |
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| Good ol' Swiffer on our hike to Los Cahorros |
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| Two of my favorite pictures from inside La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona |
Hope you enjoyed, more to come Thursday!
Cool reflections on the importance of learning languages to make connections with other people. Check out this group, Student Learning Exchange: http://www.studentlanguageexchange.org/. Founded by a girl who went to Brown (a friend of a friend actually) - all about learning languages that are NOT spoken widely across the globe, for the purposes of exploring and better understanding often underrepresented cultures. Good stuff!
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