A Long But Successful Day?

So, firstly the Spainish are completely nuts.

As today was the first day of school, naturally there would be some kind of hazing of the freshmen. This for whatever reason seems to be fairly universal across cultures as far as I have encountered though always to varying degrees of severity, and for that matter legality. Nothing that I could have possibly imagined could have prepared me for what I saw today.

As the bus pulled up to the school's campus the first thing that was very noticeable was the large groups of students gathered in front of all the individual facultades (subject specific universities within the greater university). As I looked closer it was clear that many of them were in matching T-shirts that seemed to have something to do with their respective facultades, but the other half that was not in uniform had something else on them. In addition to the normal clothes that one might wear, was a colorful trashbag, neatly placed over their shirts. though this seemed strange at first I was sure it was just a part of the procedure. In each group the leaders in uniform seemed to have megaphones so as to yell orders at the "novatadas" (freshmen), and they were seemingly a very obedient bunch.

As the bus finally reached our stop, and we encountered the group in front of our facultad it became clear to me what the system really was. All of the freshmen still adorned with their trashbags had writing in marker over every visible part of their bodies and many of them appeared to have white powder all over them as well. As I walked past the group one of the leaders was yelling at one of the freshmen, and it appeared that this particular freshmen was being ever so slightly insolent, so the leader turned to one of his compatriots and promptly an egg was tossed to him and he proceeded with no hesitation to smash said egg over the freshmen's head. This then was followed by a coating of flour in his hair and down onto his face as well. It was at this point that I realized the true purpose of the trashbags as a means to protect the clothing of the novatadas.

I went on to my class, glad not to have been a part of the celebration out front, and it flew by with introductions and handouts and syllybi just like any other first day of school. It was however exciting to have gotten through my first official class in Spain. Afterwards I went down to the gym to inquire about the existence of a tennis team, but was disappointed and was also dissapointed by my first real encounter with Spanish beurocracy. The gym said that I need a pay per time card so they sent me and Drew (another K student) to find this other building where they could help us get them. When we went to the building that we thought was the right one, and after being yelled at by the hazers outside we managed to make our way inside. There three girls approached us and asked us where we were from and after a two minute conversation decided that they were going to write their names on our arms. They told us where to go and we were on our way again not however without stopping and talking again to the hazers outside, who turned out to be really nice, but did want to sell us shirts and drink tickets for the party tomorrow. Anyways we finally found the building we were looking for and after waiting 5 minutes for the secretary to finish his phone call, were told that they can't give us what we needed without us first getting something from the place where we started and then going to the bank and paying for the thing that we weren't going to get until we brought the receipt back to the place where we were currently standing. We gave up for the day and I proceeded back to our building for my first real open to the university class.

This was a very terrifying experience for several reasons. First of all, the class had apparently started on time which I was expressly told by program directors never ever happens here, and hence I was essentially late. Secondly, I missed the professor's introduction and therefore had no idea what his name was and or what the instructions were as to the questions that we were supposed to answer as he went around the room pointing to each person all of whom knew perfectly what was going on. Fourthly, as it turned out Chris (another K student) never showed up so I was the only foreign student in the class and as I struggled to keep afloat with my spanish the professor kept on pointing at me any time the USA came up (which was frequently and by no means always in a good light) as we began to talk about the ecosistemas y paisaje.

I struggled through the hour and a half lecture and felt ok about it but am not sure I'm gonna be able to stay in it as I get the feeling I may be in way over my head. Regardless for a first day of class it could have been worse I think. So I made my way home for the siesta, all the while being reminded of the hazing going on as the back of the bus filled with freshmen and hazers jumped up and down while drinking their very alcoholic mixed drinks and screaming songs and rhymes at the top of all 40 of their lungs.

I needed to be back at school at 5 for class so I didn't really get the siesta that I wanted but it would have to do. And so I managed to struggle through my final class of the day and finally get through what seemed an unending story of twists and turns. It was certainly a lot more excitement than I would have expected out of just one day, but it seemed to be a success in the end so I suppose I can't complain.