Under A Cloud In Sunny Sevilla

Caveat dear readers: I’m in a shitty mood.

Frankly, it is nothing short of amazing that after years of trying to get my act together and get over to Europe, I have finally made it. Here I am, living in Sevilla. I should be jumping up and clicking my heels together in joy, right?

Make no mistake about it – I am certainly appreciating the miracle. I am also extremely grateful that the family I am living with (something between roommates and a host family) is AMAZING and I am so happy to be living with them.

Other things to be grateful for: this apartment is comfortable and close to the metro, my bedroom is adorable, I am already understanding Spanish better than I anticipated, the sun is shining and the birds are chirping, and I generally have everything I need.

Plus, I’ve lost three kilos (however much that is) in the one week I have been here. Talk about frosting on the cake!

So why the shitty mood? I guess it just happens when you find yourself adrift in a foreign city, that you’re going to have a few moments of “What the bleep am I doing here?”…

Today’s bleep moment was precipitated by a trip to the bank, where I tried to exchange dollars for euros. I was treated so rudely by the bank tellers, it actually blew my mind.

I approached the first teller, and said in what I thought was relatively clear Spanish, “Buenas dias, necessito cambiar dinero.” Maybe someone who speaks Spanish fluently can tell me if I made some glaring grammatical error?

I am not sure if it was my botched Spanish, or maybe I had lipstick smeared all over my teeth or a giant booger hanging out of my nose, but the response I received somewhat floored me.

First the teller spoke back to me in a mocking baby voice, telling me to speak to a woman at another counter. I walked over to the woman, who was on the phone, and waited for what seemed like ages at the counter, while the first teller and every other teller in the bank broke out in laughter.

At first the laughs were stifled snickers, then whatever was so hilarious became impossible to contain, with all the tellers glancing furtively at me, and then looking significantly at each other, and laughing some more, barely bothering to hide it. Meanwhile the one woman I was waiting for yacked away on the phone, and I stood there trying to remain as dignified as possible.

Incredibly immature, unprofessional and downright rude behavior, right? Well, it’s not the first time it has happened to me here in Sevilla in the last week.

This kind of “laughing in your face” behavior happened somewhat frequently when I lived in Kiev, Ukraine in 1997, and I attributed it to the fact that the country was so recently post-Soviet that no one knew how to handle themselves around foreigners, so I just considered it bit of forgivable nervousness.

To my surprise it happened again when I lived in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2002, and I wasn’t sure in that somewhat more cosmopolitan circumstance whether I should attribute it to the same nervousness around foreigners, or if people were just being rude.

Call me naïve, but I never, never expected to experience this in Western Europe, especially in Spain, a country with an incredible number of foreign visitors, and especially not when I was doing my level best to be polite, assimilate and speak the language.

Of course, I am making assumptions here that I was being laughed at for being foreign or for not speaking Spanish well – but maybe there was some other explanation. Whatever the reason, it is mean spirited to laugh in someone’s face, and with no good excuses I can think of, I am inclined to blame it on, well, just plain rudeness.

Again, I am so grateful to be living abroad at all, and to be living with my particular roommates/host family, but I am second guessing my decision to come to Sevilla. I guess I should have done my homework better, or thought things through a little more.

I came to Sevilla knowing that there would not be a large expat community here, specifically because I wanted to immerse myself in Spanish culture. I have no interest in being the typical obnoxious foreigner coming to Spain to get drunk on the beach.

Still, I am doubting the wisdom of that choice now. My plan when I came here was to go on craigslist.org or meetup.com and connect with foreigners who might want to “see the sights” together, and also to look for locals who might want to practice English in exchange for helping me practice Spanish. I had dreamed up a fantasy of meeting a nice mix of locals and fellow travelers who would all pal around together, eat delicious foods and enjoy the local happenings – “Eat, Pray, Love” meets “L’Auberge Espagnole”.

As it turns out, there is absolutely no activity on Sevilla’s craigslist, no meetup groups of any kind, and I’ve gotten no replies from any of the posts I’ve made on the expat message boards. Oh, there’s plenty happening in Madrid and Barcelona and on the coast, but Sevilla? Nada. Sevilla is apparently a city where foreigners come to see the sights and then promptly leave.

So, my two plans of action are this: for one, I need to keep trying to go out and meet people, find a local hot spot, read a book in a cafe, something… and hope that I will meet some interesting people who don’t want to laugh in my face. It seems awkward and lonely to go out to tapas by yourself, but what’s a girl to do, stay home and read a book while in Spain?

Secondly, I need to lose my attachment to what this trip ends up looking like. If I just spend the next three months seeing the sites by myself, then so be it. Whatever this adventure ends up being, I am glad for the opportunity to see more of the world. I know I would go to my grave with regrets if I didn’t take this trip and make the best of things while I was here.