What If?

Walking home today I happened to look up and see a truck with the letters GUZMAN written across the side.  I stopped for a second, and did a double take.  The prefix "Guz" is not common in Spain.  Nor in America, for that matter. That happens to be the first three letters to my last name, so when I see the letters "Guz," I get excited.

It made me start to think: what if I was from Spain.  What if my ancestors had immigrated to Spain, and not the United States?  (No likely, I know, but hypothetically speaking...) I would speak fluent Spanish, and all my friends would be from Spain.  Everything I am experiencing this year would be, well, normal.

As a Spaniard, would I have any desire to learn English, like so many young people here do? At the age of 21, would I still live at home with my parents in a small 3 bedroom apartment, as most Salmantino students do?

Who knows, who knows...which led me to a moment of reflection: Why am I here, in Spain?

Well, here's my story in a nutshell: around age 16, about the same time I learned the word "Globalization" in Mr. Long's AP World History class my junior year, and when I finally started paying attention in my Spanish class, I decided that someday, I wanted to be fluent in a second language.  I didn't think that American culture was "cool" anymore.  It was too materialistic and isolated, when the rest of the world just seemed so much more interesting and dynamic. Fast forward 5 years later and here I am, I'm doing it; I am learning Spanish and living in Spain.  Why do I want to learn Spanish? I mean, arguably, most of the world speaks English.  According to most Spaniards I have met, all the best movies and music come from America.  When is the last time you said, "geeze, I reallllly want to see that new Spanish/French/Chinese movie that just came out."

Yea...never.

Reasons why I want to become fluent at Spanish:

Ah! I am not really sure, to be quiet honest. It is just something I have always been interested it. Is that reason enough?


All I know is that today, when I was in the elevator coming up to my apartment, a Juanes song started playing on my ipod.  A song that I have probably heard one hundred times; I know the words, more or less.....but today, TODAY, I actually understood what he was saying and the meaning behind the lyrics.

And that, my friends, was THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD!!

The fountains on my walk home along Gran Via