ICC: Traveling to Italy

To get to my Italian destination, I first had to fly from Omaha to Chicago, then from Chicago to Madrid and finally from Madrid to Venice. I was a little bit nervous about traveling on a plane for nine hours from Chicago to Madrid, but it turned out not as bad as I thought it was going to be! It actually went by very quickly. The first major intercultural communication that I had occurred on that long international flight from Chicago to Madrid. The first thing I noticed was that all of the flight attendants were of Spanish descent. They greeted all of us in Spanish and, using my six years of Spanish classes, I was able to greet them back and communicate with them. I was excited to be able to utilize my Spanish knowledge.When the flight attendants came around with different drinks and food, I was able to understand them in Spanish ("cafe" and "te", for example).  All of the flight attendants were very friendly and helpful throughout the entire flight, even though they didn't speak much English. They knew a few words, but it was still a bit hard to understand them sometimes. Because I knew Spanish though, I was able to communicate with them just fine.

Also, all of us CIMBA students were split up on the flight, so we were sitting be people we didn't know. I was sitting by this sweet Spanish woman. Although she didn't speak English, we used nonverbal cues, such as smiling, to communicate. One thing I noticed is that all of the Spanish-speaking people that I came into contact with were so friendly! After about two hours on the flight a fellow CIMBA student who I had met at the Chicago airport, Chelsea, noticed something. She was sitting one row ahead of me and over to the left, and she was sitting by a Spanish man who kept looking back to talk to the Spanish woman I was sitting by. She realized they either must be related in some way, or dating, or close friends. She knew some Spanish so she asked him, in broken Spanish and with many hand gestures, if he would want his friend to switch seats with her so they could sit next to each other and Chelsea could sit next to me. I didn't hear or see this interaction take place as I was trying to figure out the best way to fall asleep in those godly-uncomfortable plane seats, but suddenly the Spanish man sitting next to Chelsea turned around toward me in his seat and asked something along the lines of "Do you want to switch seats with me?" I didn't fully understand what he was trying to say at first in my delusional, exhaused haze but then I caught on. I didn't really want to give up my window seat (I know, I know) so I told him that and he smiled and said that his friend could switch with Chelsea...I was grateful that he wasn't upset with me for wanting to stay by the window! So the Spanish woman that I was sitting by switched seats with Chelsea. It was nice to be next to someone I knew because it's hard to get comfortable on any flight, not to mention a nine-hour flight when you're sitting by someone you don't know. However, both the Spanish man and woman were so nice and willing to work out the situation and communicate the best they could with us. Neither of them spoke much English at all and Chelsea and I definitely aren't fluent in Spanish, but we were still able to get across what we wanted to say. It was a cool cultural experience and the major intercultural communication I experienced on my journey to Italy.