I had scheduled two intercambios, or language exchanges with native Spanish speakers to converse back and forth in English and Spanish. Why two, why the morning after that trip, I don’t know but if it didn’t break me it was going to make me a better Spanish-speaking person.
The first was with Juan Carlos, a 27 year old guy I’ve already met with once. He works with children in Madrid, he's working on his own masters and lives with his younger sister who is studying business at a University in Madrid. He’s such a nice guy and I thought our first meeting was really very interesting. We talked about the lifestyles of our cultures and social norms. This may not be as helpful to me to learn Spanish, but so fascinating. He said it’s really common for Spaniards not to marry until they are 35-40 because it hard to get a job, to be paid well for a job, everything is so expensive and people live at home for typically 30 years.
I told him that specifically in California it’s also really common for people to get married in their late 20’s or 30’s but because we’re trying to establish ourselves, we’re motivated, we're selfish, we have so many opportunities available to us and we don’t necessarily want to be accountable, responsible or settled-down. Juan Carlos told me he finally felt like he felt ready to get married and have a family. Sadly, my first thought was not ‘Oh good for you, congratulations!' But 'I’ll bet you are Juan Carlos…how convenient...’
I’d say the biggest difference between Juan Carlos and myself is that I think I am capable of doing or having anything that I want and work for, thank you dad for planting the first seed, and Juan Carlos feels settled in a job but not settled-satisfied, settled-complacent, it won't take him anywhere but he’s holding onto it so as not to lose it. That same sadness resonated to me in other things as well. Welcome to the current Spanish economy.
Yesterday, we went to a café and he pointed out that the beautiful building catty-cornered from our window was empty now and used to be business offices with a hotel above. I asked him if he had an unlimited about of money, what he would do with it. He didn’t understand. I said if you won the lottery, how would you spend your money. “Ah,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t have these thoughts. I have never once thought about these things. I won’t have a lot of money.” Ouch, I think about this all the time, like finally buying my perfect Jeep or building my home and putting (journal) tiles as my kitchen backdrop. Obviously I don’t need an absurd amount of money to have those two things but I want to buy/own/build/manage/sell business(es) one day too. Work hard, play hard!
Juan Carlos definitely has a work/life balance that I probably lack, and it’s clear that we define “success” differently. It is just so cool to sit across the table and listen to him, challenge him and learn from him.
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Many hours later, Juan Carlos dropped me back off at our meeting location, where I had arranged to meet with my next intercambio Noemi, a brand new exchange partner. We grabbed an outdoor spot at another café and she explained that she likes to do these exchanges first only in Spanish, then only in English. She was brutal, brutal in a good way. She must have corrected my "fue" (he went) with "fui" (I went)45 times, you think I'm kidding. During my turn, all I could think of was to tell her things I had done. I only learned the future tense four days earlier in the Friday class where even the teacher felt sorry for me and laid off the alcohol jokes.
I'm creative-writing-ed-out for the moment and that exchange hurts me to think about it. Let's just say by the end of a combined seven hours of intercambio-ing, my brain was melted.
I'm in a personal post-traumatic stress situation.
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