BRRRrrr

It has been SO COLD HERE this past week. Over the weekend, a Siberian cold front literally froze all of Europe.  It finally feels like winter!

My new roommate arrived a week ago from Huston, Texas. Where it is over 80˚F  all year round. LUCKY GIRL. But that means adjusting to the cold, windy, sometimes sunless days of Salamanca might be an adjustment.

Except that the stores are starting to sell spring clothes...

So before it's too late, I want to write a blog post on WINTER FASHION! I couldn't help but notice the difference in outdoor apparel here compared to Vermont and Colorado. I come from places where people wear boots like Sorrel's, Timberline's and Uggs not necessarily for fashion but for practicality.  Places where ski jackets are essential for surviving the cold windy days, and hats and mittens are worn to protect your extremities from frost bite between walking from house to car to work.

In Salamanca, women also wear boots, but with 3 inch heels and decorated with faux fur. Puffy jackets are worn by most women, paired with a tight belt to go around the waist. Scarves are not only to keep your neck warm, but to look in fashion (one night, as I was saying goodbye to Felix, my host dad, he told me I better go put on a scarf before I leave if I wanted to look "más guapa!").  Long fur jackets are in fashion for all women over the age of 60, and men don't wear any other color than black or brown leather jackets (but they all wear scarves).  I no longer blink an eye when I see boys my age to wearing bright blue or red skinny jeans as they stroll across the plaza, and to rock tights and shorts in the dead of winter is completely normal.

So I have done some shopping.  I own my very own pair of black lace-up leather boots, an oversized, orange, knee length jacket, a huge grey knit scarf, and most recently, I bought my very own pair of pink skinny jeans (I still can't come to terms with shorts in winter). With my new haircut (I got bangs!) I would like to think that I fit right in....but I'm afraid my freckles are a dead giveaway.

But here's what else is a dead giveaway: last week I was shopping at H&M, and I noticed a girl a few feet away wearing a new pair of Tom's shoes, American Eagle jeans, and black North Face fleece matched with her North Face backpack.  Clearly, an American student on study abroad. I wanted to advise her, "It is okay to wear ONE of these things at a time---but all together? Honey, you are most certainly not going to blend it."

To illustrate my point, here are some creepy pictures from the Plaza Mayor:

FUR, so fabulous

See the tourists?

SO very Spanish

See the backpack? Clearly, America

Red jeans..totally normal, non-emo

Not to generalize or streotype....but here's how I have it figured:

• The French are obvious by their fancy (sometimes massive) scarves (girls and boys)
• The Spanish all wear leather jackets, and the girls have long, dark hair with thick bangs
• Germans stand the tallest, and have the most blonde, light colored hair
• Americans all wear name-brand clothes
• British just have the best accents...

Is it weird that I notice all these things? Perhaps.  Having been here for 5+ months, some days I feel like this is my city, and others I still feel like an outsider looking in, analyzing everything I am experiencing and seeing.  At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn't matter what you wear, what you look like, or how you are perceived; what is important is the experience you have and what you take away from it.  

So to my fellow American study-abroaders, proudly wear your North Face backpacks, American Eagle jeans, Patagonia jackets, and Ugg boots (I wear mine all the time!).  Be proud of where you come from.  Just remember: don't be surprised when Spaniards easily pinpoint you as American.