1.) Roommates: So I have realized that I never introduced the people who I live with. I do not currently have any pictures of my host family, but I will work on that. In summary I live with a middle-aged woman, Ana, with her 25-year old daughter, Marta, and 30-year old son, Guillermo, along with two other American girls and their golden retriever named Zar. Patty Sullivan is my actual roommate in that we share a bedroom. One of my first blogs has pictures of our adorable room and bathroom. She is a 22-year old senior studying geology at Oregon State University although she is from Chicago. Before I got very sick, her and I would often explore together as we both live so isolated from everyone else. Her school is on the quarter system (instead of semesters) and so she will be leaving during spring break. She goes to Complutense University here in Madrid, which is a giant public university. The other girl who lives with us is Ronni Marinez. She arrived in February, a month after Patty and me. She is a sophomore at Long Beach State University in California. She goes to Nebrija University here with me and likes to take lots of photos, so we often times "photo-shoot". Its great.
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2.) Beautiful people: Okay, when people say that Spaniards are gorgeous, they are not kidding. To an extent my perception is skewed by living in Madrid, one of the major fashion capitals of the world and a huge city where everyone walks to stay skinny, but even in smaller parts of Spain people are gorgeous. Heck, even their babies and toddlers are cuter. Honestly a huge portion of this can be attributed to a culture of tending to one's appearances. Americans can look gorgeous too if we put more effort into our appearances everyday all day, but that's just not our culture to do so. We might look go to go out at night, but our level of "going out" is the Madrid level of "go to work/school." All around, Madrid specifically contains an abnormally high percentage of beautiful people.
3.) Talk on top of one another: Nothing seems to be louder than a room full of Spaniards all carrying on different conversations. Its much more normal here to talk over the television, or even on top of your friends. They are just very social people. At times in the US I have to stop myself from talking over others as its a bad habit, but here it seems fairly acceptable. I hope I do not make it too habitual. The main issue is if Spanish is not your first language then not only are you expected to decipher what one person is saying but what someone else is saying at the same time. Mental overload.
4.) Wedding band hand: Yep. They wear their wedding band on their RIGHT ring finger. Ladies: if you're looking for a Spanish man, be sure to check the right hand ;) I guess that advice goes for men too. This is confusing because throughout Europe it changes. People from Cataluna, a region in Spain, for example, tend to wear their rings on their right hands. All around you are just kept on your guard.
5.) Engagement rings: Men sometimes wear engagement rings. It is not all of them. Sometimes the woman will gift the man a fancy wrist-watch following her acceptance of his ring. Other times, engagement rings are not exchanged at all. It is not as popular as in the US when every woman receives some sort of ring. Also, diamonds are not near as popular, though they are growing as a trend probably due to American movies. The concept of spending that much money on an engagement ring is not as excepted.
6.) Older parents: Parents are noticeably older. The average is probably around mid-thirties with babies. Partly this is skewed by my life in a major city, but also I think its a trait that Spain in general possesses. There are several possible reasons for this. A lot of it can most likely be attributed to the economy. No one has money to have a kid meanwhile birth control and abortions are subsidized with their public health-care system. Another issue is that people do not get married until they are around 30 as they are living with their parents unable to become independent up till this point. Obviously it is not everyone, but it is incredibly common to live with your parents until you are well past college and there is also over 50% unemployment for those under 30. No one can afford a baby until they are much older. I haven't seen a single young couple with a baby. In the US, it would not be all that uncommon to find a high school student with a baby, but here I have yet to see a parent younger than 25 perhaps. Another oddity, is that there are noticeably more men out around the city pushing the baby stroller and holding hands with young kids. With the economy many men (who traditionally had higher end jobs) have lost their jobs and must fall back on their wife. I also wonder if men are just more willing to work nights and let their wives have the normal shift.
7.) Siesta: Reality or legend? That's still debatable. Some Spaniards tell me that its a myth as they themselves do not go home and nap, nor does anyone in their family. Siesta, which literally means "nap time," is more a break in their day for lunch nowadays, at least from my point-of-view. In the US, you would NEVER get a 2-3 hour lunch break.
8.) Smoking: a very large percentage of their young population smokes. Just about every college student in Madrid smokes. I would say that the percentage is the reverse of that in the US, where only very few students smoke cigarettes. Some people roll their own to be cheaper, but it is still an expensive habit during such bad economic times. As I am allergic to smoke it annoys me a lot that people around me are smoking. At least you cannot smoke in restaurants, schools, bars, etc. Its a breath of fresh-air, but seriously.
9.) Metro: The metro (subway) is amazing. It is so fast, so easy to use, and so efficient. The train always comes from the your right as you stand on the platform, the metro map is clearly labeled as are the stations, and the timers announcing the next train are accurate. It is the 6th longest metro in the world, but the way the set it up, all the lines cross one another so you rarely every change trains more than once to get somewhere. The first line opened in 1919 and the stations served as air-raid shelters during the Spanish Civil War. With urban sprawl and such a rapidly growing population, the metro is changing significantly itself in recent decades. I live off of line 9 (the purple line) which was built in the early '80s. The metro itself is a game during rush hours. Everyone lines on the platform in the location that will directly lead them out to the exit that they wish to take when they get off the train. When your stop is next, people approach the door ready to jolt as soon as it opens. The escalators that navigate the system (thank goodness because my stop has 3 escalators worth of stairs journeying into the center of the Earth) have a set system: right side= standing, left side = walking/booking it. I'm in love with the metro system. I have never once felt threatened like you do in American subway systems.
10.) Girl's purse stuck in door: One of the craziest things that I've witnessed was when I young woman stepped out of the metro car and the doors closed on her purse, which was still inside. Immediately her face changed to panic. I froze but fortunately there were several men who jumped in to the rescue and started prying open the doors as soon as it happened. They were successful is opening the doors but it was a stressful minute. I'm sure it was worse for her.
11.) Milk: Okay, their milk is weird. It lacks flavor, comes in a box, and it's concerning that it lasts for 9 months if you don't open it. Turns out that Europe uses Ultra-high-temperature processing: "1–2 seconds, at a temperature exceeding 135°C (275°F)" whereas the US uses High-temperature-short-time processing: "temperatures of 71.5 °C (160 °F) to 74 °C (165 °F), for about 15 to 30 seconds." The downside of the European way is that you lose flavor, but the pro is that it lasts for a lot longer without spoiling. It is used in the US in McFlurries and airplane milk, but when it was introduced about 15 years ago, Americans did not take to the idea of boxed milk that lasts so many months.
13.) Ham obsession: Spaniards are literally OBSESSED with ham. They have many meat shops where the walls are completely covered with ham legs. Whenever you go out to eat, you can always order something with ham: may it be a ham sandwich or anything else with ham mixed in. If you are Jewish, it would be atrocious. They have two big types of ham: Iberian ham (jamon iberico), which is the more expensive type of pig and requires more care to raise the pig and then there is Serrano ham (jamon serrrano) which has more white to it and is less flavorful from what I can tell. Its very common to go into a bar and see a ham leg sitting ON the bar so that when they make your ham sandwich, they shave off some meat right in front of you. They are even so obsessed with ham that I saw an ad in a store window where you could buy a mattress and get a few ham leg.
14.) Tipping: It can be done, but most often times it is not. Waiters and waitresses receive a normal wage and taxi drivers the same. They probably just charge extra to pay their employees more.
15.) Taxes: When something says 5 euro, it is literally 5 euro. Taxes are included in every price so you never add on a percentage. This makes things easy when you go to a restaurant and the price on the menu is what you pay as you do not tip either.
16.) Separate checks: Restaurants oftentimes refuse to allow payment with separate checks. Perhaps its easier mental math as there is no need to include tax or tips, but if everyone has a 20 euro bill for their 9 euro meal things get tricky. For this reason I always try to break my bills down so that I can always pay my share exactly and be done.
17.) Salad during meal: Salads are treated differently here. They are not as commonly eaten as an appetizer but more as a supplement to one's meal. For our dinner, which I think is fairly common in most Spanish households, we eat salad during or after our meal. The idea is that if your meal doesn't fill you up then you can supplement with salad. I suppose that's one way to avoid over-eating. I'll eat salads more often here, but I'm still not the biggest fan.
18.) Very black Africans: As Spain is located just 8 miles across the sea from Morocco, Africa is close. This means that there are true Sahara-desert Africans in Spain. Oftentimes they do not speak great Spanish and are selling bootlegged merchandise for cheap prices. The Madrid police seem indifferent, but in other parts of Spain the police will chase after these vendors. What is incredible is how incredibly black their skin is. I have never seen anything like it in person. They are a very good-looking people but also a very LARGE race of people. Many of the men tower over me with their jacked muscles. Many of these immigrants are from Senegal and surrounding countries. As it is dangerous to immigrate into the US, boatloads of people drown attempting to reach Spain.
19.) Italian novelist Tamaro: I have attended a language interchange (intercambio) several times where people from all around the world go to practice either English or Spanish. For some reasons, the intercambio that I have been attending has a lot of [beautiful] Italians. I asked them how to pronounce my last name and I'm saying it more or less correctly, but they make it sound better. What was interesting is that they pointed out that there is a famous novelist named Susanna Tamaro. Maybe we are related? She is from Trieste, Italy, so maybe one day I'll journey there to question about my last name.
20.) South Korea Mono: As I obviously was quite sick with mononucleosis when I first arrived here, it would be casually mentioned in conversations. One thing I learned while speaking to a girl from South Korea is that almost everyone gets mono as a small child because everyone shares plates. What is great is that they never get it again. To her it was hilarious that at 20 years old, a normal age in the States, I had this childhood illness. But it is not uncommon for visitors to South Korea to develop mono.
21.) Work day: Compared to the hardworking people of China or Japan, Spain is on the other end of the spectrum. It is not so much that they are not hardworking, it is more that they enjoy more social gatherings and breaks during the day. For this, Spaniards are in the office each day longer than the other European countries, but are also known to be some of the least productive. They oftentimes have a 2-hour lunch break and smoking breaks are incredibly common. This is nice. People enjoy life. They are not stressed and are never rushing because they took on too much work like Americans are known. They can have more time with their families and develop more friends. Who's to say that one way of life is better than another?
23.) Soccer (futbol) mania: Much like the excitement that accompanies American football, futbol here is a HUGE deal. I live in Madrid: home of FOUR professional teams. From what I can tell, men are much more enthused by futbol than women, just because its only ever been mentioned to me by Spanish men, not women who oftentimes roll their eyes. Bars are packed on game nights, particularly those important games. People are so manic for futbol that when Real Madrid beat Barcelona a few weeks ago, I could her cheers and screams throughout the neighborhood, and surely it was the same throughout the entire city. Its a nice dose of excitement. I still have not been to a game, but I would like to try and find some cheap tickets just to witness the craziness one day. Men oftentimes base their styles off of those of professional players. They are the superheros and celebrities of Spain.
22.) Woman's tragic suicide: As I have mentioned in previous posts, the economy of Spain is VERY bad right now and the banks are only further screwing everyone over worse. Things were so bad for one woman in Madrid that she went into the Bank of Spain downtown, doused herself in gasoline, and set herself on fire: in the bank! She surely wanted to make a statement and she did it in a very tragic manner.
23.) Building floors: You would not think that this would be difficult, but it is. And actually their logic, for the most part, makes better sense. When you walk in from the street, you are on level 0. If you go down a level you are on level -1, etc. If you go up a level you are on level 1. The only exception to this is that some older buildings have an "anteplano" level, which is between 0 and 1. I'm not sure why its called that but it makes counting floors difficult if you are unsure if you are on level 2 or 1, etc. If you are on an elevator and you want to leave, you need to press 0, not 1 as Americans are used to.
24.) Elevators: They are very small here. Oftentimes they will be around 3ft by 3ft in floor space. To be honest I am unsure how anyone moves into a building because I have been told they must either use a crane or carry the furniture up the stairs. I live on the 11th floor.
25.) Graph paper: I am unsure why, but it is customary here to take notes on graph paper instead of the horizontal-lined paper that we use in the US. I am not used to this and so I write very small to fit in the graph paper. Its an odd size gap because I feel like one square tall is too small, but two squares is too big.
26.) Robberies: Everyone is well aware that you need to watch your stuff while in Europe due to pick-pocketers. This is their full-time job and they are good. My roommate, Patty, got her wallet stolen on night and we have no idea how it was possibly stolen as we were walking along the street and no one seemed to approach us. Fortunately for her, it was found the next day on the street with only the money gone. Most pick-pocketers are only after your cash or passport. They could care less about your credit cards for some reason. I got my metro pass stolen at a dance club one night and that was a wake-up experience that I cannot get lax and must always be aware of my stuff. Fortunately that was something I was able to replace the next day. I love putting my wallet in the zipper of my purse that lays against my leg and when I carry my ipod I always tuck it into the inner zipper inside my purse. When I'm in big crowds I keep my hand on my purse. Iphones are probably the #1 biggest theft among the Americans I know. Honestly, you should never, ever, bring one to a club, but I could list 8 names off the top of my head of people who's iphones have been stolen, most of them in clubs but not all. The one thing I've noticed is that I hear less and less about robberies which probably means that the other Americans, myself included, are starting to blend in as well as get smart. The problem I'm trying to convince myself is to never let down my guard because as soon as you do that is when it'll happen.
27.) German Shepard: I adore German Shepards ever since growing up with one. It always makes me so happy to see them around Madrid. I would say that they are one of the most popular breeds of dogs and I see them quite often. It makes me want to go buy a German Shepard puppy right now.
28.) Lunch: This is minor, but in Spain they say "comida" instead of "almuerzo." To them, "almuerzo," as it is called in Latin America, is something that their grandparents would say and is no longer used. This led me to find out that a lot of Latin American Spanish is older than the Spanish that they speak in Spain. Honestly, I would have guessed the opposite.
29.) Formalisms: In Spanish there are two ways to address "you." You can speak to someone formally (an older person, someone you just met, or a superior) or you can speak to them informally (like a friend). In Latin America it is very disrespectful to misuse the form of you, especially to someone older than you. In Spain, however, this concept of formality is rapidly losing its popularity and almost everyone solely uses the informal version. Children refer to their parents as "tu" which is unheard of in some Latin American homes. In fact, in Spain, it is almost rude to call someone "Ud" because it makes them feel old. I would have expected Spain to be more formal all around, but apparently not.
30.) Exit/enter signs: When I first arrived in the airport of Madrid, I remember seeing these little green, running-man signs and having no idea what they could signify. The few Americans that I met up with were equally clueless. Come to find out, that unlike in the US where exit signs are red, the exit signs here are green (as in green means go). So when there is red above a door it means that you cannot use it, but when there is green above it you can use it. I'm now accustomed to this and wonder if I will be slightly confused in the States. I don't look at the signs any longer than to differentiate the color.
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