Fun Facts!

It's hard to believe that it's only been three days since I arrived here! We began orientation on our first full day, and recently began our mandatory culture class. This course is designed to teach us about the history of Spain before start our real classes, so that we have some contextual background about what we're seeing and learning about.

One of the activities we've been doing is going on walks around the historic parts of the city. This is from the Paseo Realejo. 

 I actually took a class very similar to this one during my first year at Willamette, and lo and behold, the textbook is the same! It's helpful that I've already read the text because it means I have a basic understand of the lectures and homework, and it's pretty fascinating to learn the content while in Spain rather than in a classroom in Salem. There are three teachers who alternate in leading the class, and it's nice to get different perspectives every day. During our first class yesterday, we went over some basic facts about Spain that, if you don't already know, might be fun to check out. 

- There are 47 million people living in Spain, but the country hosts at least 80 million tourists every year (I'm sure people from Newport can relate).

-  Spain is divided into 17 regions known as "autonomous communities." I'm living in Andalucía, which is the southernmost region on the peninsula. 

The 17 autonomous communities 

- Aside from the autonomous communities, there are three major regions in the country: Atlantic (the western side), Continental (the middle) and Mediterranean (the eastern and southern regions). The climate differs greatly between the three, with the Mediterranean experiencing little rain and high temperatures.

- Spain is an incredibly mountainous
country, and these peaks have a big influence in temperatures. Since Granada is right next to the Sierra Nevadas, we have the same dryness as the rest of Andalucía, but it gets much colder at night. 

-  The country has been a democratic constitutional monarchy since 1978, when its Constitution was first written. This means that there is a king (Felipe VI, who has symbolic power) and a president (Pedro Sanchez).

Felipe VI (left) and Pedro Sanchez (right) hanging out. 

-  Like the United States, the government has a separation of the judicial, executive and legislative powers, and citizens elect their representatives to Congress. Unlike the United States, Congress is responsible for electing the president. The president (who is more like a prime minister) is then known as the "president of the government."

- There are more women holding seats in Spain's government than in any other European country.

  

Felipe VI and Sanchez with the women who run the government.

- You only have to be 18 to run for president in Spain! Our teacher was surprised to hear that Trump is 73. 

- There are a LOT of political parties in Congress, and it actually causes a lot of issues. Some examples are PSOE (the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), PP (the People's Party), Podemos, Ciudadanos and Vox. 

- Along with the central government, each autonomous community also has its own parliament. At first I was confused by this, but then I realized it's basically what each state has in the U.S. The people living in the communities elect their representatives to the parliament (like the state senate/house) and then those representatives elect a president (like the governor). 

Andalucía's parliament building, in Sevilla.  

- There are four languages spoken in Spain: Castellano (what I speak and learned in school), Gallego (spoken in Galicia), Catalan (spoken in Cataluña) and Euskara (spoken in Basque Country). Castellano, Gallego and Catalan all originated from Latin, but Euskara is much older and is unrelated to any other European language. 

- There are also specific dialects according to region. In Andalucía, for example, people don't just replace "c" and "z" sounds with "th" as is stereotypical of Spain - they also drop the "s" sound.  "Tres" becomes "tre." "Entonces" becomes "en-tone-thay."

That's all I have for now! I'll be back soon with more updates and observations.