Podcast USA

I= Interviewer

D= David

E= Elias

Interviewers in order of presentation: Estefanía Benítez Sánchez, María Durán, Sandra Barranco, Sandra Romero, Francisco Manuel Alfonso, Patricia Domínguez, Elena Blanco.

I: Hello, welcome to “Thirteen Stripes and Fifty Stars”, a United States’ blog created by a Group of students in Seville. For more information, visit www.thirteenstripesandfiftystars.blogspot.com.es. Today, we have here a native speaker from USA and a Spanish speaker who has lived there for many years.

    For starters, David, where do you come from?

D: Well, I come from a, I mean, I was born in Spain but I live in California, in a small town close to San Francisco called Vacaville.

I: And you Elias?

E: I’m from Albuquerque, New Mexico in the United States.

I: What do you think about your culture? I mean, what main differences do you notice between American-Spanish cultures?

E: Spanish culture in comparison to The United States’ is a lot, to me, I think it’s a lot more relaxed. In the United States everything seems to be much more fast-passed and people constantly are at work working for the entire day and at school all day; here you seem that you have more free time and time yourself.

I: Could you maybe explain the differences on specific parts of life? How is the educational system different, for example?

D: Well, since I studied both schools in Spain and in The United States I can tell you that the main differences between the school systems is that, you know, in Spain it’s a little bit harder but they teach you to be good at a little bit of everything; in The United States it’s, you know, I think that school’s easier and, you know, they have probably more prepared teachers but they teach you to be good at one specific thing as well you know you do later in your job, so you know, I think that’s what I find to be the biggest differences.

I: And what about sports?

D: In sports, there’s more variety in what people like. Over here in Spain, most people just like Soccer and the usual, I mean, they like other kind of sports but over there, you know, basketball is really, baseball is supposed to be most a national pass time, you know, but really American football, you know, is for most people like; I like basketball, I like baseball, I like hockey, boxing, it is more variety, I think when one comes to it.

I: What do you think about Spanish parties?

E: Spanish parties, they start a lot later in the night in comparison to the United States. Most of bar-clubs are closed at 2 am and here that’s the time that most of Spanish students are going up to the clubs. I find it a lot more funny here and it seems like it never stops and there is many more chooses every night.

I: To finish David, could you tell us a funny story that occurred to you while living in The United States?

D: I don’t know if it’s a funny story but it’s the only thing I can think of off the top of my head right now.  The first few weeks I started going to school in California I didn’t know English too well so I was really nervous in the class and every day I would tell the teacher that I was sick so I could go home. And that, you know, then finally one day, my parents, you know, I went to the nurses’ office and my parents were there and they told me I had to stay in school that day, I couldn’t keep going home. And looking back now it’s funny, back then I was really nervous, but you know it’s good that they did that because I was able to stay that day and learn English good and I was able to make friends and it all got better eventually.

I: And what about you Elias?

E: A funny story  I had when I first arrived in Sevilla was just me trying to find my way around the city with all my luggage probably looked ridiculous and asking people with my terrible Spanish and lugging around all of my luggage but eventually it all worked out  and after many hostals and talking to a lot of people in terrible Spanish I found my way.

I: Thank you for your comments and that’s all for today.

D: Thanks for having us, that was a pleasure.

E: You’re welcome, that was a pleasure.