Click here to read the previous post, Adjusting to Life in Spain: Dating in My Non-Native Language
Now that I’ve lived in Spain for eight month, I’m pretty much an expert on all things Spanish. Except the language. And the politics. And the history. And the culture. And ordering in restaurants and bars. But other than that….
Ok, clearly I’m not an expert here. But I am very observant, and I’ve been noticing some differences between Spanish and American culture. (No shit. Of course there are differences between these two countries!) Obviously, but while some of them make sense, others boggle my mind.
So, with that said, here are some of the differences between Spain and the USA that I’ve been either enjoying or fighting tooth and nail to understand.
1) Storing Eggs
Not long ago, I notice that in A’s (the Spanish man I’m dating) kitchen, he leaves the eggs on the counter. Not accidentally; that’s where he stores them. Note to self, I thought, do not eat any eggs he offers you.
Now imagine my surprise when, after circumnavigating the supermarket in my search for eggs, I finally find them…on the shelf. In room temperature. And yet, you never hear of rampant cases of salmonella in this country.
What the what is going on??
So I looked into it and to my surprise discovered that in Spain (and many other European countries), eggs are stored on shelves at room temperature rather than in refrigerators because of how they are processed and handled here compared to the United States and Canada:
In Spain: Eggs are not washed after being laid. They naturally have a protective coating called cuticle or bloom, which seals the porous shell and prevents bacteria like salmonella from entering. This natural barrier helps keep the eggs safe at room temperature.
In the U.S.: Eggs are washed and sanitized to remove contaminants, which also removes this protective layer. But without the cuticle, eggs are more susceptible to bacterial contamination which is why they must be refrigerated to stay safe.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
The European Union bans egg washing (for commercial purposes; don’t worry, they’re not going to raid your house and arrest you for running an egg under the faucet) to preserve this natural cuticle. Instead, egg farmers (is that what they’re called? do you farm eggs?) focus on preventing contamination at the source by maintaining hygienic conditions. And then the eggs are kept at a consistent room temperature throughout the supply chain.
Makes sense, but I still twitch uncontrollably when leaving eggs on the counter.
2) Bottle Caps Are Attached
The first time I bought a bottle of water in Madrid, I unscrewed the cap and attempted to remove it, but it was held fast by a sturdy plastic thread. No matter how much I yanked it, all that happened was water sloshed over the rim onto my pants, but the cap remained attached.
Source: WINSS
I thought that was an anomaly, a bottle cap gone rogue, but it turns out that all such caps – on water bottles, soda bottles, plastic milk bottles – are all firmly fastened to their host receptacle.
I asked A about this, and he said he was as mystified as I was, and that this was a new thing. Indeed, a quick search tells me that I’m not the first person to google this (although it does tell me that I should be saving bottle caps for an upcoming fallout – oh, wait, another search tells me that Fallout is a video game, which means I can ignore it):
Apparently, “bottle tops are among the most frequently collected items during beach cleanups, indicating their large presence in ocean pollution. The new attached cap design helps mitigate this issue by ensuring caps stay with the bottle, making it easier to recycle both together and reducing litter.”
Okay, fair enough. I can get used to that.
3) Making Out
As far as my research tells me, there is no word in the Spanish language for “making out.” And believe you me, I have thoroughly investigated this subject (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Asking both dictionaries and people, the closest I can get is:
Besarse apasionadamente – To kiss passionately (not the same as making out, which involves more than just kissing, passionately or not)
Darse un buen beso – To give each other a good kiss (not even close)
Ligarse – The dictionary says all sorts of things, from “commit oneself to” to “bind” or “tie” to “get hold of” (not the same); Google says “to flirt, make out or hook up with” (these three things are all distinct activities); and Spanish friends tell me it means “to flirt.”
Fajarse – To feel up (slang in Mexico, but the dictionary lists it at the very bottom of this entry – is this how they make out in Mexico???:)
Enrollarse – To make out (slang in the U.S. – but not Spain, and the vocab/jargon between Spanish-speaking countries is as different as night and day; in the image below, it does say “to have intimate relations,” which I generally take to mean have sex, and from further searching I believe it means more like “hooking up”)
So for fun, I just googled “do spaniards make out” and got a list of articles about kissing on the cheek as a form of greeting. So even Google.es doesn’t know what they heck this phrase/activity is.
Then I had a thought: Do I even have the correct definition of “making out” in English? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “to engage in sexual intercourse” (nope), the Cambridge Dictionary defines it as “to kiss and hold a person in a sexual way” (what does that even mean?), and a Reddit user summed it up as “kissing heavily for a while with lots of touching, maybe some sexual touching, but no penetration and there may or may not be orgasms.” This last one is how I would define it.
And, finally, when I asked several Spaniards how to say “making out,” one of them shrugged and the other said “What do you mean by making out?” When I explained that it was all that fun stuff between kissing and sex, the second person also shrugged and said that there’s no word for it because they don’t really do it. You kind of just kiss and then go straight to sex, not spend hours just making out. (And yes, I’m quite aware that my poll of Spaniards is one gazillionth of a percent, so take this with a very large grain of salt.)
No matter. I am very happy to teach the Spaniard in my life the meaning of making out….
4) Direct Communication
What Spaniards call “direct communication,” Americans and Canadians call “insulting me to my face.”
I was telling A about a difficult period in my life in which I had gone from a dark place to a light place (mentally/emotionally speaking), and afterwards he remarked that while watching me recount it, my face had changed, had gone from “fea” (“ugly”) to “hermosa” (“beautiful”).
As my American/Canadian friends can imagine, I was startled and hurt, and it took quite a while to get him to understand the difference of meaning – or at least the difference of context, since he seemed to know what it meant in English.
Me: Fea means ugly in English.
A: Yes, I know.
Me: Why would you say that about me???
A: Because I saw that in your face as you told your story.
Me: Ugly is a negative word to say to someone in English.
A: Yes, in Spanish, too.
Me: That was really mean and hurtful.
A: I didn’t mean to hurt you.
And to be fair, it seems as though many (most? all?) Spanish-speaking countries do this. Years ago I dated a Mexican man who once poked me in the tummy and called me “gordita” (“little fatty”) after I’d gained a few pounds from a harsh medication I was taking, and didn’t understand why I burst into tears. He said that his family regularly called the cousin with the proboscis “big nose” and the uncle who had once flunked math class “estupido.”
I asked two of my friends here in Spain who are originally from Colombia and Ecuador about this, and neither one seemed to think what A had said to me was offensive or hurtful. They agreed that what to them are nicknames or terms of endearment are what Americans call insults (fea, gordita).
However, I think the key thing here is that if words like "fea" are used in the wrong tone or with someone who’s unfamiliar with this custom <points to self>, it will be taken as an insult.
So, I’ll chalk this one up to an honest-to-goodness cultural difference, but one that I will never get used to.
5) Becoming Boyfriend/Girlfriend
In the U.S. and Canada, generally speaking, as two people are dating, by about month 2-4, they usually check with the other about where the relationship is at in order to ensure that they are on the same page.
In every relationship I’ve had, at some point someone asked “Are you dating anyone else?” or “Do you want to make this exclusive?” or some variation of “Do you want to be boyfriend/girlfriend?”
Only in one instance did the guy I’d gone on maybe two dates with suddenly proclaim, “What a great day! I got a new job and a new girlfriend!”
“Wait, what? Hold on!” was my delicate response. “Where was I during this important decision-making??” Because, as it turned out, I was not on the same page as him. He was chapters ahead and I was still checking out the table of contents.
But when it comes to dating and relationships in Spain, there isn’t typically a clear-cut set of stages, like casually dating and then becoming exclusive or deciding to be boyfriend/girlfriend. Instead, people here seem to be just fine letting the relationship develop naturally without the need for explicit conversations about it. (Kind of ironic, though, considering number 4 above: Direct Communication. Apparently they’re only direct when insulting you. Sorry, sorry! I know: difference of culture….)
This assumption can be great – as long as you both want the same thing at the same time.
I asked A how this works without verbally talking about it out loud in words with the other person. He said that at some point you just assume you’re committed to each other and not dating anyone else.
After I picked my jaw back up from the floor, I said, “But what if you assume that you’re now exclusive, and she’s still dating other people?” He shrugged, so I went on: “What if you think ‘oh, now we’re boyfriend/girlfriend, yay!’ but she’s thinking ‘ugh, this isn’t working out’??”
He shrugged again and said something more about assuming and trusting and that usually things just naturally headed toward commitment. So at this point I said that assuming something was a terrible idea when it concerned another person. The biggest reason why relationships fail or why people feel hurt in them is that they assume they know what the other person is thinking or feeling or wants.
So I wrote on a napkin: ASS | U | ME and said, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”
He laughed and thought that was clever, but still didn’t understand why I was so flabbergasted. And maybe this is more of a personal thing than a cultural thing, but I don’t like people taking for granted that I automatically want (or feel) what they want when they want it. I’m my own person, goddammit!
So, I’m assuming that this cultural distinction may well remain a difference.
6) Yellow Lines on Roads
Picture this: You’re on the sidewalk, approaching the curb to cross the street. You notice that the cars parked on your side of the street are facing both directions; you look at the other side and dang, the cars parked on that side are also facing both directions. This gives you no clue as to which way you should look before crossing.
So you glance at the street itself: There’s a white dotted line in the middle of the road. Okay, no yellow line? Clearly this is a one-way street. You step off the curb and a car zips past you, heading left. You take a second step and another car drives by, heading right. Wait, what? What’s going on here???
Well I’ll tell you what’s not going on here: any rational markers on the streets and highways to clearly indicate the direction of the traffic!
Here’s another example that boggles my mind. This yellow line parallels the sidewalk on one side of the street. Why is it not also on the other side, if it’s noting where the street ends and the sidewalk begins? Why is it not in the middle, to denote a two-way street (which it is)? And why does it stop for no determinable reason?
So I turned to my personal cultural translator, A.
His response: “El que pintaba era diestro, así que empezó por la derecha y lo pintó todo excepto donde estaban sus pies, pero se le gastó la pintura y no pudo continuar con más líneas. Luego le despidieron por inciompetente y aún no han encontrado remplazo.😝”
(Translation: “The painter was right-handed, so he started on the right and painted everything except where his feet were, but he ran out of paint and couldn’t continue with any more lines. He was then fired for incompetence and no replacement has yet been found. 😝”)
Finally, an answer that actually makes sense!!
I’ll chalk this one up to my not knowing the specific rules of the road in Spain, because in every car I’ve been a passenger in, the driver has never been as confused as I am about where the hell to drive!
7) Vermouth Is Illegal 23 Hours Out of the Day
So, it’s basically illegal to order vermut (vermouth) outside the small sliver of time prior to lunch – called, naturally, la hora de vermut (vermouth hour). And la comida (lunch), by the way, is typically from 2-3:30 pm, although it can stretch from 1:30-4 pm.
Okay, maybe “illegal” is pushing it, but it sure as hell feels that way.
Not knowing these unspoken rules, I naively ordered a vermut at a taberna one <gulp> evening around 6 pm. Waaay past la hora de vermut but not close enough to la hora de cena (dinner, which is typically eaten at two in the morning; okay, I exaggerate – but seriously, dinner here is normally between 9-11 pm).
The first time a bartender hesitated, I figured it was my poor Spanish that gave him pause. The second time a waiter stared at me unsmiling, I assumed he was a typical OG madrileño waiter who never smiles at anything ever no matter what. The third time a friendly bartender’s smile wavered, I started to wonder what was going on.
That’s when I learned about this rule of conduct enforced by a controlling authority (ok, again, I exaggerate a wee bit). I asked A (and a few other Spanish friends, geez, so don’t go and assume (ass | u | me) that I’m obsessed with this guy or anything!) and they all basically confirmed this social law.
“But, but, but,” I stammered, “if a customer is handing you money and asking for something that’s on your menu, just give her the goddamn vermouth!!”
I leave you with an article that sums it up: “La Hora del Vermut takes place in the heart of the day, typically between 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. This sacred [italics mine] time marks the transition from the morning to the afternoon christened by the first alcoholic drink of the day serving as the perfect prelude to the Spanish lunch.”
Ah, well, to each (country) their own (custom).
Note: I accidentally referred to vermouth hour as coming before dinner, not lunch, in this Financial Times article that quoted me. I haven’t read the comments, but apparently people were upset with my error. My bad!
8) Spanish Has a Mere 100K Words
Whereas the Spanish language contains 93,000 words, English has 170,000 words. Keep in mind that the number changes depending upon how you count words, but these numbers are according to the Real Academia Española and The Oxford Dictionary.
Although, according to one of my favorite Spanish-language podcasts called Palabras!, Spanish has 100K words.
(By the way, yes the Spaniards use the comma and decimal point in the opposite way that Americans and Canadians do.)
Anyway, my point is, as far as I’m concerned, this sheds light on why, when I ask a Spaniard for the Spanish equivalent of an English word or phrase, the answer is always (ok, often) (ok, ok, sometimes) either:
A full sentence that simply describes the word (“cringe” = sentir vergüenza ajena → literally to feel secondhand embarrassment)
A word that has two distinct meanings (“canguro” = kangaroo AND nanny)
A shrug
As an English speaker (and a writer, avid reader and English Major), this makes learning Spanish frustrating at times because the smaller vocabulary means:
Longer explanations for precise or abstract concepts
Fewer synonyms, making speaking or writing a bit repetitive
Less concise ways of expressing ideas
Am I complaining? Absolutely not. I love the Spanish language. In spite of (or maybe because of) its smaller vocab, it’s still rich and expressive. When I speak it, I feel quite poetic.
Trying to express myself with almost half the number of words in my new language? Challenge accepted!
9) Beauty and Fashion Standards
Generally speaking, I’ve noticed that beauty standards in Spain tend to be more natural compared to American beauty standards, where makeup and highly curated looks are often emphasized. Obviously, this varies by personal preference or even region (big city versus small town), but all I can say is that I feel less pressured to be “camera ready” (i.e. perfect) when leaving the house.
There are two specific areas that I’ve noticed when it comes to beauty and fashion:
Spanish women, both young and old, wear sneakers with EVERY. THING. Jeans, pants, dresses, skirts. And not fashionable sneakers (whatever that is), but the kind of sneakers you’d wear to go out for a jog.
Spanish women, both young and old, go light on the makeup. Heavy contouring, bold eyeshadows, thick spiderleg eyelashes and matte lips are common in the U.S. (at least in big cities) but are super rare in Spain, from what I’ve seen. Instead, the "cara lavada" (“washed face” or minimal makeup) look is popular – even with mature ladies.
From what I can see, natural aging is more accepted here. I haven’t seen (to my knowledge) botoxed faces or plastic surgery gone wrong. There seems to be less pressure to stay youthful at all costs.
This is one cultural difference I can get behind!
10) The Half Shower Door
When the landlord of my apartment showed me around the place, I was quite puzzled by the half shower door.
Source: Explore
“Is this a mistake?” I asked. “Have they not finished installing the shower door?”
The answer was nope, this is how it is.
“But doesn’t the water spray out of the shower and onto the floor?”
“I never have a problem with that in my bathroom,” the landlord said. As though I were some kind of Neanderthal who didn’t know how take a civilized shower.
After I’d moved in to the apartment and taken my first shower, I was not surprised in the least to find the floor outside the tub wet. Over the next half dozen showers, I tried to find a way to cleanse my person that kept all the water contained in the open receptacle: aim the shower head at the wall, don’t move at all when showering, place all my towels on the floor outside of the tub.
And this is not just my weirdo apartment. In the last year I’ve stayed at hotels and Airbnbs across Spain, and all of them featured this bizarre component. And never, not once, have I come across such a shower in the U.S. or Canada. Not even in a posh, European-wannabe’s house.
But the oddest part is that no one else here seems to care about this flooding faux pas as a result of these half-glass shower doors.
In my online search for why the hell this is a thing, what could the advantages possibly be, the answer seems to be: “The use of half-shower doors in Europe can be attributed to several factors, including spatial economy, aesthetics, and building norms.”
Spatial economy? How much space does a thin glass partition take up?
Aesthetics? Meh. To each their own, I suppose.
Building norms? Suddenly city building codes changed from “use an apparatus that keeps all water in the shower” to “use half an apparatus that ensures water spillage on the floor”?
Anyway, this is one cultural difference that I’ll never quite get used to, not as long as part of my showering routine includes mopping up the damn bathroom floor every time.
Bonus: The Festivities!
At least once a week, when in my apartment I hear the clip-clopping of horses passing by on my narrow cobblestone street. Ok, I guess that doesn’t mean that a festival is going on, but still….
I do hear parades:
Or stumble across dancers performing in the closed-off street:
Or come across a barrio-specific festival:
I don’t know the numbers, but Spain definitely has a lot of festivals, largely due to its deep-rooted religious traditions. There are a lot of “fiestas del pueblo” or town parties, which may have started as ways to celebrate the harvest, but these days are “built around a yearly devotion or re-dedication to the patron saint or virgin of the town or main church in town.”
I’ve personally attended one last September in the town of La Iglesuela del Tiétar; it was the patron saint festivity in celebration of the Virgin of the Olive. (Don’t ask.) All I know is there was live music, lots of beer, plenty of dancing until well past midnight in the town square, and church services. It was a blast.
This is one cultural difference that I can definitely get used to.
Click here to read the next post, Adjusting to Life in Spain: Authentic Spanish Slang
Note: All photos taken or created (using DALL-E) by Selena Templeton, unless otherwise noted.
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