Something Different

Since my week days are all pretty much the same, I decided for this blog post to kind of show you how different life is over here in Spain than in the United States, as in what spaniards think of us and their customs. Some I have already mentioned, but I will go into better detail. Here we go!

• In the United States, I wear nike shorts and a t-shirt to class. In Spain, you better not even step outside in that attire or you will get laughed at, literally it happened to me when I went to the beach. The girls my age usually have on a skirt or nice shorts, a floral design top or those new shirts where it flows but it's short and you can see your stomach, and gladiator style sandals (Lindsay Botwinick, I need you here to tell me what all this is really called ha)
• Here, breakfast is very simple for the Spaniards. Usually a muffin, toast, or fruit with coffee, water, or milk. My teacher was telling us they are disgusted by us Americans who order bacon, pancakes/waffles, eggs, and hash browns that take up the entire table.
• My teachers are also disgusted at the long amount of time we usually take naps if we ever do. Here people nap for 30 minutes AT THE MOST! They don't see why we take 2-3 hour naps.
• Fast food is rarely found here in Spain. My teacher can't stand Burger King, he thinks if you eat it you will have 3 heads because it is so fattening.
• Water is never free here in Spain. They find it so odd when we try and ask for tap water out of the sink. There is no such thing as sitting down at a restaurant and asking for water and getting it for free. It comes with a bottle and a glass of ice.
• Spaniards are not big on having ice in their drinks, they put about 3 cubes at the most in there to keep the drink some what cool. Mom: you would not be able to handle that since you love tons of ice in your drinks.
• Tea is huge where I live in Mississippi. Here in Spain, I have not even seen it served at a restaurant ONCE
• Public Transportation is major here in Spain, my host mom Eli does not own a car. Forms of public transportation are usually bus, metro, or taxi. If you have a car it is a small European compact usually or a vespa!
• Yield for pedestrians... does not exist what so ever here. If you are in the road and a car is coming, you better RUN! I have almost been run over, oh, about 4 times now. We always laugh because at Miss State if you get hit by a Miss State vehicle on the cross walks, your tuition gets paid for. Here, I heard a story that a girl got hit by a vespa and broke her leg so she was sent back to the United States since it would be too difficult to walk around on crutches all the time.
• Lunch is the biggest meal of the day, served between 2:00 and 3:00. Most Spaniards have their glass of wine then as well.
• Air Conditioning is rarely used. Every night since I have been living with Eli, I have slept with the sheet and comforter at the end of my bed and still woken up in a sweat, thank you Dad for the St. John sweating genes. Eli is in control of our air conditioning in our room and we won't ask for her to put it on, it is just rude.
• Although Eli does not care how long we take our showers, I have heard a lot of families will only give 5 to 7 minutes in the shower because Granada is in a drought.
• Electricity, we have never been told to unplug things but we definitely don't leave a phone or computer charging over night, it is pretty expensive here so we don't keep our things plugged in for too long.
• Granada, or at least Eli, enjoys giving us all the major carb foods, which now I don't think I will be loosing the weight I thought I would. We have had pizza 3 times in a week and half. Bread is on the table EVERY lunch and dinner, and it is very good bread which is my weakness. Eli fixes pasta a lot! and she has fixed mostly everything with chicken.
• The classes are VERY small. My class has 11 students and that is how most classes are, give or take a couple. I like it though because I feel I can interact more and learn more.
• The desks in the classes are not aligned in rows, they are all pushed against the walls and the teacher is at the front of the classroom.
• Saying excuse me or in spanish "pardon" is not usually said. Now, this is big for me because coming from the south we are always like "oh sorry" or "excuse me". Here, if you like accidentally run someone over and they fall down on the streets, then you would say "pardon".
• Walking around in public and looking up and making eye contact with someone else on the street and then maybe giving a friendly nod or smile.... nope! don't do that either! My teacher was actually making fun of how we do that in the United States, today in class.
• Staying out till 6:00 in the morning and not showing up to a club till 2:00, is acceptable and normal for my age.
• Seeing excessive PDA... normal here. I am still getting use to seeing that, eww.
• Vespas and motorcycles, passing in the opposite lane and even passing a police car illegally, is seen a lot here in Spain

That is all that I can really think of, school has been going good and I am continuing to learn a lot from my classes, more than I would, being taught in the United States. If you have facebook or twitter, you might have seen where we were going out to Salsa dance, well... we walked for 30 minutes and waited for 30 minutes for the instructor to show up and she never did. So, instead, we found a pretty cool club and just hung out there. We are going to try and find one before we leave because we all want to learn! I think a group of us have also come to the decision for our free weekend July 15-17 we are going to Lagos, Portugal and stay on the beach. We found a package deal where it includes our hotel, breakfasts, wristbands to get into good clubs, and two boat excursions. It should be fun! Too bad I leave the day that Sting in playing in Granada, that would have made my entire trip seeing him in concert, but I will just have to wait and see him with my dad since we both love his music! But tomorrow afternoon, my roommate and I signed up with ISA to go on a good walking tour of Granada to keep us busy. Will keep all of y'all posted on my weekend in Sevilla, I am leaving Saturday morning with our entire group.