Eva Constantaras
todo el mundo
In my mind, there’s a fine line between being an accepted nomad and a perpetual tourist; I would prefer to be regarded as the former. For Spaniards, there’s a fine line between a real gypsy (or “gitano”) and an American tourist; they snub populations on both sides of the line with different degrees of fervor. Spaniards have an ambiguous hatred for the “gitano” population in Southern Madrid and more of a disgusted bafflement towards American visitors.
While they can easily afford to reject, conscience aside, the already-marginalized gypsies, tourism is the country’s main industry, so like with the immigrants, they need to watch their step.
That said, after living in Hawaii for five years, where tourism is also the largest industry, and having traveled through more countries as a tourist than any Grinnellian I can think of, I now stand from on high to proclaim “American tourists suck!”
Madrid is adorably compact. In its tiny apartments with tiny doors and tiny chairs and tiny beds and tiny showers live tiny people who drive tiny cars on tiny streets to tiny cafes to sip tiny “cafés con leche” and go to tiny parks where tiny old men walk tiny dogs and drink tiny beers in tiny bars. Everything is wonderfully shrunken and conserved.
I asked an American kid from Arkansas I met on a train to throw out some American stereotypes. The first thing he said was “Everything is bigger in Texas.”
America is big. Big Americans come with their big maps and engage in big struggles to tame said big maps to shove them into big bags with big snacks and big souvenirs that are too big for the big bag and create big fusses when they swing the big bags into big crowds. Then they cram their big suitcases into big tour buses with other big Americans who are also big chickens and hide in the big buses in big groups.
Now, if they would just be bold enough to ditch the tour, duck into a corner to fold their maps to the section they are looking at, chuck the American snacks, exchange the crappy souvenirs for postcards, bring less than half their wardrobes (really, they only ever wear the big khaki shorts with big floppy hats, anyway), pick up a smaller bag and suitcase, and start wandering around looking for a hostel or local restaurant or grocery store, they would be well on their way to being less despised, political affiliations aside.
Next big problem: Big Americans come with their big beach chairs and big towels to take photos with big cameras of their big selves in big sunglasses. They march their big butts over big sections of coral despite the big sign made for the big tourists saying they will be in big trouble if they walk on the coral reef.
They get big sunburns because they don’t use their big bottles of sunscreen that would be a big help protecting their big whiteness, which it says in their big guidebooks. So they get big red splotches with big sunglass tans and make a big fuss about their big sun blisters. Solution: bring a small towel, leave expensive cameras, wear sunscreen and don’t step on the freakin’ coral; the world is not your playground.
That attitude of big power leads to big issues with big Americans yelling in big voices to make big demands because of their big ambitions to see a all the big sites in a big variety of big cities in many big countries.
Although less and less true every day, “todo el mundo” does not speak English. And large sections of the globe cannot be seen in a week.
In a rush to see the world, many have forgotten how valuable it is just to buy an in-depth guidebook and phrasebook (and actually read them) and just chill in a place for a few weeks and see what happens.
After almost four months in Spain, I feel like that integration process has just begun and I know, just like always, I’ll be somewhere new in a few weeks, starting all over again.
Diana van Schilfgaarde ‘06, also on IES Madrid, commented, “If I could do something for the rest of my life, I’d be a tourist, but I hate being a tourist.”
And so I prefer to think of myself as nomadic, a citizen of “todo el mundo,” even though I do have a big jar of JIF peanut butter sitting on my bookshelf.
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