Extra: Episode 1

I watched the Spanish Television show “Extra”.

The show starts off with the one girl (Lola) getting a letter from her pen pal (Sam) from 7 years ago that is from America. The letter he writes to her says that he wants to come and visit her and stay with her because he got good speaking Spanish.  Lola and her roommate Ana are so excited to meet Sam.

They use stereotypes about Americans and what how muscular and handsome an American boy must be. My favorite line was “an American boy coming here… that’s the same as Brad Pitt”. The girls imagine this American boy to be tall, handsome, and rich due to stereotypes. The girl’s friend Pablo even has a fantasy about what an American girl looks like.

 

 

When Sam actually arrives he has no idea how to speak English and he looks rather nerdy and not handsome and muscular at all.

Pablo has a crush on Lola so he is not happy that Sam is visiting so when the girls go out to get lunch Pablo teaches Sam how to say a lot of awful things in Spanish such as “Ana’s dog is in the oven”

Later, Pablo finds a newspaper written about Sam and his family that says his family is the richest family in all of America.

My Experiences

I felt like I could relate to Sam in this episode of Extra because I went abroad and lived in Spain for 4 months without knowing much Spanish.

One of the aspects of culture that stood out to me was that for lunch the girls went out to get ham. When I was abroad my host mom made me a ham sandwich every single day. Ham in Spain is not like ham in the United States, it is more like what we would think of as pepperoni and after eating it every single day for 4 months its something I never want to eat again.

In between scenes they briefly show the streets of Spain and the farmers markets. The streets in Spain are just like this. People are walking around everywhere and there are minimal cars driving around in the small towns. Farmers markets are a huge part of the culture in Spain. The only form of transportation that was shown or talked about was walking and airplane. Walking everywhere is very common in Europe and different small cities around Spain. All though it did not specify what part of Spain they were in the weather was very nice.

Spain

Spain is one of my favorite places to visit, people are always so nice. Everyone is always very understanding and helpful to people who do not speak fluent Spanish. When I was there it was very common that I had to ask people for help and count not communicate 100%. In the show, the characters show this to be true about them. They did not get frustrated with Sam that he was struggling they helped and was able to understand him even if sometimes.