Katelyn's Semester in Spain: October 2014

So, I'm almost halfway through my stay here in Spain. It's crazy to think about, but my stay here is almost over. There's so much that I still want to do and I'm only just realizing all the things that I will not be able to accomplish. Oh well, that just means that I'll have to come and visit sometime :)
This blog was inspired by my ever so lovely friend, Sam Falsetta who is currently studying in Chile. She is also blogging for CMU (go check out her blog! Here's a link: http://bit.ly/1utgIE8) and she did a blog about the differences between bathrooms across countries. I don't really have anything to add there, except that I was surprised when I went to Belgium and I had to pay for the bathroom! It was a little strange.
What I do have to comment on is her ¿Dónde está el baño? This is great advice- for Central and South America. But in Spain? Not so much. Here, bathrooms are called aseos. There's a distinction between a bathroom that just has a toilet and a sink (like a public bathroom) and a bathroom that has a shower and/or a bathtub. A baño is the one that has a shower and/or a bathtub and it's called that because that is where you bathe yourself or, in Spanish, bañarse. That was something interesting to find out when we got here.
Something else that's different between Spain and the rest of the Spanish speaking world is the verb cojer. In Spain it is similar to the verb tomar which is "to take". Now, if you go around saying this verb in Central and South America, you'll get some strange looks to say the least. Without going into too much detail, cojer is a sexual reference in those parts of the world. So, just be aware.
To end on a better note than the last example, we're going back to food, my favorite subject. So here, there are two different terms for sandwich- bocadillo and sándwich. While these two words have the same meaning in English, they are two different things here in Spain, though the difference isn't too extreme. A bocadillo is a sandwich that is made with French bread (and it makes sandwiches 1,000x better) whereas a sándwich is just like a regular sandwich from the States. If you want to know more or if you need a refresher on bocadillos I definitely talked about them in my food blog :)
These are just a few things that I could think of that are specific to the Spanish of Spain. There are some more technical things like how they use the verb form vosotros when talking about a group of people instead of ellos/Ustedes, which is viewed as more formal. Bocadillos are a lot more fun to talk about, though.

Since it's hard to have pictures of grammar, here is a picture of French fries.
They might be my favorite French fries that I've tried in Spain.

From the train near Brussels

Belgium. I don't think I have enough words to describe Belgium. I went with fellow blogger Damaris (check out her blog if you haven't already!) to Belgium this past weekend. There was a festival on Thursday throughout the province of Valencia so we didn't have class. She used her long weekend to visit one of her friends from high school and she was kind enough to invite me along.

Kortrijk near where
we were staying

Wow. I didn't know what to expect when travelling there, I was just hoping to have a good time. I was a bit nervous when we were flying out because it was just me and her, we had put together the plan ourselves and we had to hope for the best. There wouldn't be anyone to meet us at the airport on the other side, we had to take a train and to get where we needed to go. It seemed like a lot, but we made it, no disasters of any kind. So we went to Kortrijk, which is kind of in the upper left hand corner of the country (I'd google a map to see where it is in relation to everything else). It's about two hours from Brussels by train. We go there at about 8 at night and let me tell you, it was refreshing. Belgium is a lot like Michigan this time of year, so it seemed, and I loved it. I never thought I would miss the cold crispness of fall, but I did. It was nice to feel the nip in the breeze. We didn't see that much of the town that night, but we wandered around and got to know the town more on Friday. I don't know how to describe it except that it was everything that I expected Europe to be, which might be cliché or stereotypical, but I loved it. The streets were cobblestoned, the houses were skinny and packed tightly together. Lots of little shops lined the streets. Lovely. It was interesting to compare it to Spain. Maybe it's because Alicante has a higher population density than where we were in Belgium, but it's very urban with apartments everywhere. There's also the fact that it's in the south of Spain so the climate is very different from Belgium which is in northern Europe.

Cathedral near the
train station in central Brussels

Friday was very relaxed, Damaris's friend had a class so we got to go adventuring. Yesterday, we went to Brussels for the day because our flight back to Alicante this morning was at 6:55 am, which was really early especially since we were staying two hours away and we found out that the trains didn't run all night. We decided the best plan was to go to Brussels early in the day and then camp out in the airport overnight, which is exactly what we did.
Brussels was awesome. There were beautiful buildings everywhere. I don't know a lot about architecture or anything, but the styles seemed to range greatly. I think the best thing that we saw is called Grand Place. It's this huge plaza that is surrounded by beautiful old buildings. Most of them also had gold leafing on the outside, it was incredible.
I really don't think I've done Belgium justice at all, but I can't think of anything to express how much I loved it there. I fell in love and I fell hard. Thank you, Belgium, for exceeding my expectations so greatly. I can only hope to be able to make it back there in the future to see more of the country. Two days was definitely not enough. I'll end with some of my favorite pictures from the trip to try and explain what I can't. Until next time :)