You Know You're in Spain If...

So I have now lived in Spain for four months (as of yesterday- scary!), and I’m in the mood for a bit of a humorous entry amid all of this studying (a.k.a. general misery and soul-sucking).  Because I’ve lived in Spain for so long, I feel like I’m entitled to make a few generalizations (which I would not at all have been entitled to make before coming here, never having experienced Spanish culture for a long period of time.  I’m entitling this entry “You Know You’re in Spain If…”, so here goes.  You know you’re in Spain if:

-       Sidewalks (and Plaza Mayor) are extensions of the road

-       Café con leche is not just a drink- it’s a culture

-       Nothing is ever open (yes, less so than in France- it’s because of the siesta)

-       Hair is seen as an artistic canvas…hence, there are a lot of “artistic” disasters ;)

-       Acid-wash jean jackets (and jeans on jeans- jeans with jean jackets, my biggest fashion pet peeve in the world) are apparently okay

-       There are more people wearing Chuck Taylors than you can shake a stick at

-       Aladdin pants (or “harem pants”, if you want to use the fashionably correct term) are in style-I’ll put up a picture, but basically, these hideous pants are so draped and flowy that they look like you’re growing a third appendage

-       It’s still okay to be a pirate

-       Fútbol=vida, ‘nough said, and you have to choose between Real Madrid and Barça

-       Franco is not dead (apparently), so therefore, you must practically have sex in public areas to scoff at sexual repression

-       Interrupting someone means they’re not completely boring you to death

-       Everything starts 15 minutes late

-       Spanish students must have a 10 to 15-minute smoking break for every hour worth of class

-       You suspect your professors may have once been either franquistas or opposition fighters

-       It’s okay to be whiney, because everyone else is too

-       “Conservative” is still liberal compared to American liberals

-       Bolonia is a big damn deal (a proposed, Europe-wide education reform that pretty much all Spaniards hate)

-       The Internet hasn’t quite caught on

-       Tasks that should be simple are suddenly difficult

-       All roads lead to Madrid…at least if you want to get anywhere else

-       Mullets, cornrows, dreads, partially-shaven heads and dirty hippies are perfectly normal (I'm not even joking, this is what they look like, bad dye jobs and all).  Additionally, these haircutting disasters can even be combined for even more horror (i.e. the combination mullet/dread look- see below)

-       Everyone hates Aznar, so if you mention you go to Georgetown, the fact that Aznar has some sort of post there is their only point of reference

-       Felipe González is God

-       You can be guaranteed a job for life…if you pass a test

-       The only things open all day are cafés, souvenir stores, H&M, Zara, The Phone House, and Carré Four (but of course, the last four are closed on Sundays)

-       If you DON’T smoke, you don’t fit in

-       “Vale” is used as frequently as an American teenager uses “like”

-       Bullfighting is a “sport”

-       Tortilla is NOT the same thing as a Mexican tortilla

-       Sunday is a true “lazy day”

-       You live at home until you get married

-       Rafa Nadal and Penélope Cruz are poster children for the country

-       No original films (except Almodóvar)- practically everything is dubbed

-       People know you’re an American at first glance- apparently we have a “je ne sais quoi”

-       Cataluña and País Vasco are NOT Spain

-       Whole grains do not exist

-       There is a magical place called Croisantería París (a.k.a. Fat Kid Camp)

-       You try to pick out where all of the tourists are from

-       You feel a sense of accomplishment if one of the Red Cross people pulls you over to ask you to give blood, because that means that they don’t automatically suspect that you’re foreign

-       Siesta time is more of a pain in the ass than anything else (in my personal opinion), because that means almost everything closes from 1:30 to 4:30 or so

-       You must get dressed up to go to class

-       You suspect that all of the Spanish teenagers have no idea what they’re saying when they sing American songs

-       You either get hit on by sketchy old men in the park, or they try to fix you up with their grandsons

-       People are short (especially, apparently, if they lived under Franco, and were therefore undernourished and had stunted growth)

-       No one talks about the Guerra Civil, 70 years later

-       A lot of what people know (or think they know) about the US is courtesy of Hollywood

-       No one is really ever in a rush- hence a three-week exam period- and plus, if you fail your exams, there is an entire retake period devoted to people like you

-       You should do all of your banking on a non-holiday weekday morning, because if the ATM eats your card during any other time, you’re royally screwed

-       When the post office tells you that it’s going to take the package you just sent by boat to the US 45 days to get there, you wonder if they’re planning on taking a paddleboat across the Atlantic…but then it gets there in 7 days and you wonder what on earth kind of boat that was.

-       Your host mother, who lives in what used to be one of the most heavily Catholic countries in the world, asks you when Lent starts and how many days it lasts.  Ummmmm…….

- Fanny packs.  They're not just for portly, middle-aged American tourists! They're for fashionable young Spaniards!

I hope all is well with all of you!  Tim graduates on Friday, which is a very exciting event in the Bautz household.  I wish I could be there!  But June 11th will come soon enough...I hope!

Sending you my love,

Kristen