Madrid is a big city where I can still get my Starbucks when I want to study. So how is it different from being in LA (besides the fact that the Starbucks guy sometimes makes fun of my Spanish sentence structure)? Well I put together a list of differences that I'll blog about in groups of ten. Enjoy.
1. FARMACIA – One every couple blocks, their pharmacies are actually pharmacies. They fill prescriptions and you can go in tell them what's wrong and they'll hook you up with some drugs. Unlike our beloved Walgreens and CVS they don’t have any handy other things like candy, highlighters, or soda. Dangit.
2. SCHOOL – Lucky Europeans start learning languages in elementary school. The little kids I live with have English and French during their school day. Since they start early when the language part of their brain is still open (thanks, CA public school system) mostly everyone here speaks two languages at the least. That brings us to my school. Oh Spanish university, where to start? Well it's giant. It has two campuses; I have to take a bus between classes for 20 minutes. Students take a test at the end of high school to see what universities they can get into to pursue their chosen career. They only take classes on this subject. So students our age are already working on their doctor’s degree instead of just their undergraduate. Few classes have attendance or work, it’s basically just lectures and maybe a group presentation. It’s the students’ job to do further research on everything said in class using the 16 million books on teachers bibliography and take a final with unknown material to decide if they pass or fail and what number grade they get from 1 -10. If you get below a 5 you fail and have to come back in September before school starts to retry. There’s no greek life and very little on campus housing. The hardest thing to get used to is their version of essays - “trabajos” - which are basically many, many pages of repeating information you looked up on a topic with not much stress on one clear point or thesis. And they don’t use double space. Dangit.
3. CONCEPT OF TIME – Probably the biggest difference here in Spain. Spain time. It’s basically like life on relax setting or constant delayed response mode. No one is rushing down the street. Everyone is just chillin. Everyone is late including teachers who start class 10 minutes late regularly. They don’t eat dinner till around 10 pm. People don’t go out until 1 am, clubs aren’t cool until 3 am, and they don’t come home until 6 am.
4. PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION – Freshman year I asked my RA how to get to Santa Monica on the bus. She had no idea. Well unlike LA, Madrid has an awesome, easy to use metro that can get you anywhere and every train comes every 3 to 7 minutes (depending on what time of day) and there are plenty of buses that are always on time. Only bummer is the metro is closed 1:30 -6 a.m. so you have to either stay out and party the whole time or take a cab or walk. Dangit.
5. NO SWEATS – No one wears sweats here. Everyone looks put together when they walk out the door whether it be to school or to go to the grocery store. Whenever we give in and venture out in our college sweatshirts we get definite looks. This, as you can probably guess, is a big problem for me and my usual school uniform.
6. PHONES – As I mentioned in a previous post, they don’t have phone plans here really. They put “saldo” (credit) on their phone. There are three major phone companies with the same-ish rate: 18 cents a text and 38 cents a minute plus connection fee. Therefore, no one walks around on their phone and hardly anyone has smart phones.
7. FOOD – First of all: ham. They are obsessed with ham here. They have it in everything. They have a popular restaurant/store called Museo del Jamon, which has ham hanging on every inch of the wall, a restaurant, and a deli counter. They don’t eat breakfast here, just coffee and bread. No one walks around with coffee because they don’t really do to-go drinks. You have to pay for water at restaurants. Churros and chocolate is open 24/7 and people go after going out (kinda like our fro yo trips). And of course tapas! It’s fun to order a couple plates to share instead of trying to decide what you want. There is also lots of olive oil involved. And somehow they stay skinny despite all the creamy sauces, potatoes, oil, and meat. And I almost forgot: fanta obsession.
8. SALES – Stores here don’t have much in the way of sale racks or sales but REBAJAS happen twice a year when every single store has sales on almost everything in the store with stuff up to 70% off. They are going on right now in January!
9. ENTERTAINMENT – Blockbusters come out a little bit later and are half the time re-titled in Spanish. They listen to our pop music but way behind. They are still obsessed with the “tonight’s gonna be a good night” song. They have a lot of our TV shows dubbed over in Spanish but also their own. The little girl I live with watches a Spanish Disney channel one called “Patito Feo.” It’s about a dorky girl and her drama with the popular kids and boys. Oh, and somehow singing and dancing is involved. Sorta like high school musical. But it also has stuff that would not be approved of on US TV; it shows the drama of the parents too, like ladies having romantic tension with married men.
10. STYLE – Boots over the knees and tights or the other extreme of a mullet with dreads and MC Hammer pants. Definitely no rainbow flip flops and jeans. Dangit again.
* Mullet and school sign photo courtesy of Allie Browne.
thanks for the photo shoutouts :)
ReplyDelete