Branch, white-out and social butterfly. The three new words my English student learned in our two hours of conversation.
I’m amazed at how well she can speak English, along with Spanish, French and I’m pretty sure German (and write Latin and Greek). And, she dresses well.
It seems like the kids in Spain eat better, speak ten billion languages better, dress better than most kids in the U.S. Can I raise my kids here please? And yes, she does go out with her friends and watches movies like many high-school students. But this girl watches French movies like Amelie and Delicattesen. Can you say culture?
My friend lives on the fifth floor. When he looks out his window, he sees socks that have fallen into the trees below!
Cultural Differences
Speaking of culture, life in Spain is different than anything I have experienced in the states. After living in Spain for just over two weeks, I’m pretty sure that I am now more comfortable with making mistakes and forgetting words (in Spanish and English) than I have ever been in my life. Some people talk about big “C” culture and little “c” culture. Here are a few of the smaller “c” things that make Spain, well, different.
Underwear on Clotheslines.
You’ve seen it in the movies. Laura Ingals Wilder hangs her petticoats on a clothesline to dry while the tumbleweed blows accross the prarie. Well, here in Alcalá there is a clothesline hanging outside the window from the first floor to the tenth, complete with underwear, bras and socks..minus the tumbleweed. And if you’re on the first floor, let’s just say the fact that you wear “granny panties” will never be a secret again.
Our tour guide advises us to steer clear of the gypsies.
Everywhere you turn, there’s a Chiuwuiwa.
So many small dogs. Seriously. Because all of Alcalá is like one giant apartment, there’s nowhere to fit the Golden Retriever. It seems like everyone owns at least one small dog. It’s SO difficult to walk by these little Poodles without stopping to pet them. Sometimes I pretend to say, “hi” to the owner just so I can whisper, “Hola, perro,” really fast as the puppy tags along behind.
Don’t look at the gypsies.
That little sprig of rosemary the kind lady gives you? Not a present. It’s a way to find out how much money you have. So far, I think I have been advised five different times to just keep walking whenever a gypsy tries to give me a “present.” They seem completely harmless, but when our tour guide, Roshan said, “Yesterday, I was accosted by two of them,” I’m pretty sure they mean business.
Do people in Spain ever get the munchies?
Three meals a day. But what about the fourth, fifth and sixth? I definitely eat less often then I did in the states. If you don’t count raiding the kitchen in the middle of the night. Just remember, when it’s dark you can’t really tell that those cookies are really digestive bisquits.
Even the graffiti is pretty here..
Graffiti as a form of artwork. Graffiti probably covers about half of Madrid’s building space, and bridges, signs, streets, trees. Slight exageration, but I have never seen so much graffiti in my life. I guess the old, deserted buildings in the parks and around the city make for a really good canvas.
But not everything’s different. There are startling similarities that I never realized would exist. There are still health nuts, like me, living in Spain who eat weird things like seaweed and waaay too many apples. (My host mom for example loves making us soup: lentil soup, garbanzo soup, pea soup, tapioca soup…) But that’s a topic for another blog post.
In the meantime, what do you think? I want to hear your stories about cultural adjustments. Have you ever experienced a cultural difference? What did you do to adjust? Any and all survival tips are welcome.
life in alcalá 