By Alba Mastromatteo, am696@uakron.edu
My family is from Spain. My mom was born there and the rest of her side of the family still live there today. As a result of many factors, I have not been able to visit in about four years. Although the plane rides there and back were very rough, I am eternally grateful that I was able to go. The whole flight there, I felt a ball of anticipation caught in my chest. I remember the joy that I felt as we touched down in Spain. There was a sense of happiness that washed over me. I remember when we were planning the trip and packing our suitcases. It didn’t seem real. Even while we were on the plane flying over the ocean it still didn’t feel real. It felt real only when I saw my grandpa waiting outside of baggage claim for us. Hearing his voice in real life rather than through a phone speaker was surreal. Everything felt so familiar as if, in all the time that I had missed there, nothing had changed. I remembered the same smells and the sound of the suitcases rolling against the airport floor.
There was something so comforting about being surrounded, once again, by my language and my culture. I always notice that while I am in Spain I fall into the language more. However frustrating it can be when I am reaching for a word that is readily available to me in English but not in Spanish, the feeling of appreciation that there are people who speak my language outside of my family is overwhelming. In addition to just the language, it felt amazing to be a part of the culture once again, eating dinners at midnight and spending so much time talking. Also, because I am older, I think I was able to appreciate it much more than I was able to before.
One thing that is very comforting to me about the culture is that nothing is rushed. In Spain, they treat time differently than we do. It is almost as if they sit into it. They experience every moment in a way that I appreciate. One example of this is dinner. Dinner in Spain can last for hours and hours depending on who you are with. This long dinner is then followed by coffee and elongated further by more conversation. I remember being younger and wishing for those dinners to end, but on this trip I found myself wishing to just have one more minute with my friends and family.
On our trip, we started in Madrid. From there we went to Salamanca for a few days. Salamanca was an amazing experience, but my most memorable moment was when we took a tour where this woman spoke so fast that I think I understood about a quarter of what she was saying until I stopped trying to comprehend. After Salamanca, we made our way to San Vicente de la Sonsierra, which is where my grandmother is from. It is a small village of about a thousand people in the north of Spain in wine country known for its vineyards and intense amount of wind. It is my favorite place in Spain. It is a very calm and quiet town that was a welcome change in contrast with the bustling cities of Madrid and Salamanca. My cousins there have a winery that we always visit. Seeing them was honestly more than I could have imagined. I forgot how much I had missed them until they were sitting right there. We ate dinner with them one night and I laughed as I saw them and my grandpa get into one of their usual arguments. In those moments with my family, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
Since the moment we landed back in the US, I missed Spain already. I hope that I will be able to go back as soon as possible.
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