A Couple Cultural Differences

Basement/Pool of the Alcazar.

This is the Alcazar, a sort of Royal Fortress, Garden, little Eden in central Sevilla.

Pretty awesome

That's the Quadalquivier River (Arabic for Rio Grande) and Calle Betis, the beginning of my neighborhood.

Mine and Concha's Little Bungalow

So after only two weeks in Spain, I’ve already been able to see quite a few differences. Some expected, some not so much. I figured I’d take this opportunity to talk about some of those.

I’ll start with a question. Have you ever seen 7 dogs hangin in a bar on a Wednesday night? How about a 3 year old passed out in his mom’s lap at 12:15am at a bar? Cause I have.

In terms of dogs, they are everywhere here. They’re hangin in front of malls, sittin with their owners in restaurants, and just exploring on their own. I like dogs, so no prob with me. Just kinda funny to see the different rules. One problem, though, is they poop all over the sidewalk and no one ever picks it up. There’s a street cleaning team that comes around at night and hoses all the sidewalks off so I guess no one ever really feels a need to do so. There tends to be some trouble on Monday, however, because the street cleaners get Sundays off. Basically, you’re looking at a minefield on Monday mornings.

*On a side note, my friend Jack here will be posting a Dog Blog in the near future with a sort of Best Of … for the dogs he’s seen here. I’ll throw up the link when it’s ready. It’ll blow your mind.

In terms of kids, there are a lot more relaxed rules here and a lot less discipline. They are kind of like dogs in that they are sort of free to do what they want and no one else seems to mind. I’ll be heading out for the night at say 10:30 or 11 and will be walking by dads talking a stroll with their friends and little kids. Kinda funny/neat to see.

Cervicieras/Tapas Bars: Like the US, Spain is in the middle of an economics crisis now, but from what I’ve been able to gather it’s worse over here. The official unemployment rate is sky high, and the real unemployment rate sounds like it’s out of this world. Now having said that, you would think most people are skimping where they can and saving up money. Nope. At least it doesn’t seem like it. No matter when or where you are walking, the bars and restaurants here are packed. Literally, every time of day. I was walking around last Saturday morning and saw three 70-80ish year old women having a beer at 10:45. That’s nowhere near 5. The big difference is that whereas people in the US (college students, I’m talking to you) usually tend to drink with the goal of getting drunk, its not really the same story here. It’s a lot more frowned upon. Also, Spanish people aren’t really as open as far as having people over to their houses/apartments goes, so bars sort of fill that void of places to meet. Makes sense, but I’m still not really sure how they afford it on top of the super expensive wardrobes everyone seems to have.

Bathrooms: Showers here are a pretty in and out business. You’re not really supposed to take long ones and the hot waters pretty limited. Pretty lucky in the US. As far as the actual toilets go, it’s a pretty funny situation. I know I’m 21 and should probably be more mature than writing about them, but I’m not. I’ve lived in Mexico before, so it’s nothing really new to me to have to toss your TP in a trashcan instead of the toilet. The great thing about Mexico was you did it everywhere and didn’t really have to question it. The rule everywhere was just throw it away. Here, it always seemed like a big debate right at first on whether to throw it in the toilet or a trashcan. Some places you can flush it, some you can’t. Always seems like a bit of a mystery to me and was the cause of some unnecessary anxiety. We were joking that if they don’t start adopting a set of rules around here, people are gonna start finding used tp in bathroom cabinets, under the sink, etc.

Siestas: In short, they’re pretty great. Everything shuts down at about 1:30 or 2 and everyone goes home to eat, out to grab a beer, take a nap, etc. Places start to open up again a couple hours after. People also seem to be a lot less worried about time here. If you want to go take a break from work and go run some errands or get some food, the attitude seems to be go for it. Maybe that’s not how it always works, but that’s how it seems to me.