american.

as part of the program (ESTO=espanol en Toledo) we have to do some form of community service. we go to the english school here in Toledo once a week for an hour and help the speak english with the students who are between the ages of 21-40. it is really interesting (and nice) to be on the other side-that is having more knowledge about a language than someone else. for once it is nice to continually stutter and say 'um...' the first week we learned all about aussies and did a worksheet on them. this week we did a sheet with a list of questions called "getting to know you" with basic questions like what is your favorite color, food, smell, ice cream, etc. but then there were some other random questions like if you were a gardening tool, what would you be? 

at first we all had some of the same answers but then it asked about our living situation and here i live with a host family but the three women that were in my group one was 22 and living with her parents and the other two were in their 40's and they still lived with their parents!! i couldn't believe it.  another major difference we talked about were cars. it asked what our first car was and i said a green passat and the one woman said, oh that's a big car. and i was like big? no. big is the kind of car i have now and compared it to the size of range rover because they don't have "SUV's" like we do and they didn't understand that term. and they also didn't understand the concept of peanut butter. especially in chocolate ice cream-they thought that was so strange. 

but there were some times like when i was answering these questions that i really did notice our differences more so than the similarities and really felt american, like i was not blending in with the spanish. but we have distinct cultures. it is just interesting when you really break it down, how many there are. and when we were talking about names for children they said pablo, alejandro, rosita...names that i would never think of! but that is what these intercambios are for-to share our cultures and i really do find it interesting.