See Gale Go…

My Galician TV debut

Posted by litlfish18 on March 8, 2016 · 2 Comments 

So I told you that last time I would tell you how a few weeks ago, I tried to embrace new experiences and being outside my comfort zone.  Well here it is.  I wish I could say that I fully wanted to do it or that it wasn’t because I’m horrible at saying “No” to things and can get pressured into doing things fairly easily if I don’t have an actual reason to say no then “I don’t want to” (which I’ve been told is a valid reason but my brain has a hard time believing that.  Probably something else I need to work on this year but I’ll save that for the second half 😉  ).  However, it was exactly those reasons that led to my TV debut here in Galicia.

Its not a very well kept secret that all of us here at  Pilgrim House are Americans and it seems to attract more attention then you would think. Since being here we have all been interviewed for the paper multiple times, some have been interviewed for the radio and others (myself included now) have been interviewed for TV.  Most of the time it’s pilgrim related, or about the center and sometimes it’s because we are both pilgrims and Americans but this time they called solely because we are Americans and they were doing a special news show with experts to explain the political system in America, because it’s absurdly complicated and quite different to how they do things here and in the rest of Europe.  Plus lets face it, it an absolute circus and even us Americans don’t know or understand whats going on a lot of the time.

So what were my qualifications besides being an American and living here in Galicia to discuss politics in Spanish on TV, you ask? (Most people know I don’t really enjoy the topic in English).  Good question.  I’ll tell you.  I picked up the phone and said “Yes” because I panic on the phone in Spanish a lot of the times and because, like I said above, I am horrible at saying no.  So after hanging up and realizing that only me and my one co-worker were in the center all day the next day when they would be coming, anxiety definitely hit.  Mainly because I knew my friend would not do it and I could not pass off to anyone else on the team that is more well spoken and more natural at speaking in Spanish.  I’m not going to lie.  I definitely spent the next 24 hours freaking out and anxiously talking about it to everyone (that is what I do when I am stressed or anxious.  Not super helpful when trying to calm my nerves and super annoying I’m sure to those around me.  However, it’s the way God made me and after 33 years I doubt I’ll really change now.)

So the next morning they arrived around 11:30.  The girl who did the interviewing was very nice and I prefaced everything with “I really don’t know much about our political system” which didn’t seem to faze her but I thought it best to be honest.  The camera guy was nice and didn’t talk much.  They interviewed me for an hour.  First about politics and then about my life here, why I’m here and how I liked it compared to American etc. I think if they had said it was more of a piece about Americans living in Galicia then politics more people would have said yes.  But since they were hoping to interview more people then just me, I sent them to the American style bakery here in town that recently opened up because the owner is American but has lived in Spain for a lot longer then me and is married to a Spaniard so I figured she would do a lot better then I did.  So off they went and about 20 minutes later, I got a text from my teammate who knew I was going to be interviewed asking if I sent them to the bakery.  She happen to be there when they got there 🙂  She did not participate but said that luckily the bakery owner was not mad about the last minute referral and interview.  That’s good because we do not want to be blacklisted from Sat. morning cinnamon buns, thanksgiving pies and real bagels! That would be a terribly sad day.

All in all it was good Spanish practice and I’m glad I did it. It was only a 2-3 minute video with clips from both of us and mine are pretty short but I didn’t sound as bad as I thought I would have with being on the spot in my non native language.  I had been wanting to push my self this year and do things I wouldn’t normally do just because it would be uncomfortable or I was scared.  So this was a good start to that.  I have however decided to not answer the reception desk phone until I get better at saying no.  😉  If you are curious to see the video, click on the photo below.  Enjoy!