First Meeting with Aitana!

I finally had my first meeting with my conversation partner, Aitana. She hails from Madrid, Spain. She’s only been to the US once very briefly before deciding to study here. And she’s only 18 years old. Moving away to college was hard enough when I was 18 but relocating to a whole new country would have been overwhelming, especially if I didn’t know the language. Aitana hadn’t started learning English until she came to TCU.

Finding each other to actually meet up was a struggle. We decided to meet in Union Grounds but I didn’t even think about asking her what she looked like. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if she was a man or a woman. It probably would have been smart to ask in advance. So I just sat in Union Grounds for a while and tried to look for someone that may have also been looking for someone. Coincidentally my friend Maggie was also in Union. She happens to be a Spanish major so when Aitana and I finally found each other, Maggie helped with the conversation a little. I don’t know if that’s cheating or not but I think it made Aitana feel a little more comfortable. It helped keep the conversation from being uninteresting or awkward. Maggie could easily help Aitana understand what I was saying and vice versa by translating bits and pieces.

Some things just don’t really translate though. Aitana had never heard of fraternities or sororities. I’m almost positive Greek life is exclusive to American culture. At any other university around the world, students would probably think frat/srat life was insane and ridiculous. Maggie and I tried to explain the recruitment process to her but I’m pretty sure it went right over her head.

Don’t think that Maggie was there for the entire hour. She left after about fifteen minutes and then Aitana and I continued on just fine. We talked about some differences between American and Spanish culture, namely what it’s like to go out in Madrid as opposed to here. She said that we all go out at night on the weekends really early. I mean my friends and I don’t go out until like 10:45 but apparently that’s not late enough. Aitana said that they wouldn’t go out until maybe one o’clock in the morning. And then rather than coming back by maybe 3 am like we do here, her friends will stay out until 7 am and then go have breakfast together. So they wouldn’t even get to bed until maybe 8 in the morning! I don’t know how I would feel about that! I think I would waste the whole day sleeping rather than being productive and doing something with my life.

Another interesting thing that I discovered during our conversation was the fact that mainly American movies and TV shows are shown in Spain. Aitana said that only older people watch actual Spanish television shows. I asked her what shows that she watched and Lizzie McGuire and Friends were the two that came up. She also said that they would just have Spanish voiceovers with the normal American actors. She thought it was funny how the voices and the actors were mismatched.

I’m a little nervous for the next conversation. I sort of ran out of things to talk about and questions to ask. Hopefully I can come up with some stimulating topics before our next meeting.