Sept. 15th

From my orientation classes I found out a lot about Spain, the rules they abide by, cultural things, and a little bit about what they think about us, in ‘merica. 

The first interesting thing is that there is a Columbus Monument on the street, Las Ramblas, and he points towards the Sea, which so happens to be towards Italy. Well, he is supposed to be pointing towards ‘merica, but people did not understand why he was pointing towards the mountains, instead of the water...I thought that was a little silly. In my picture you could only see that he was facing the sea, but not him pointing. (Just hope ya believe me!)

Secondly, Cataluña wants to separate from Spain, because of their independence, but also because Catalan is really suppressed. If you are Catalan you cannot just go into a shop and expect the person to talk to you in Catalan, really because there is only about 18% that are still pure Catalan, and that stick to their traditions, along with their religion, and laws, which they had long before they joined Spain. There are a lot more details behind it of course, which we didn’t find out in two hours, but the teacher had an interesting story. She was born and went to school during the reign of Franco, and she was 17 years old when he died. When she was in Elementary school everything was controlled by Franco, so that nothing but Castellano was spoken. Although, her cooking class was used to teach the kids Catalan, to keep the culture and the Catalan people from dying out. They were told to keep it a secret from everyone that they were learning Catalan. That was a really sad, but interesting story. 

Thirdly, is what they think about us....all of what she said was about our Health System. Here, the more urgent your condition, the faster you get help. They have public hospitals and they also have clinics. Hospitals are for patients that need urgent care, or are getting treated for cancer, and it is free. Clinics you will also be seen according to urgency. If you broke your wrist or something like that you can go to your clinic because you have your personal doctor and it’s more comfortable for most people. It just made me think about the people that lose all their money to trying to cure cancer, when they have a pretty good healthcare system here. I know that not everything is perfect in any country, but it seems like an alright deal, because all doctors are qualified. The test they have to take, around 20,000 people take it (all ppl who are interested in medicine in Spain), and about 1,000 people get a slot for a job. So, it’s pretty competitive, and that is for all jobs, because they are also having an unemployment problem too, so the competition is going out the roof. 

Just thought those were some interesting things that I’ve learned so far...so much more to learn, I have to be like a sponge.  =)