February 2021 Update: Adopting and Adapting to Spanish Habits, Customs & Lifestyle

We’ve lived in Spain now for more than 3 and a half years. While we miss the opportunity to travel a lot, the pandemic has given us a deeper opportunity to appreciate what it is like to live here on a day-to-day basis. While many of these observations aren’t necessarily “new,” they reflect our updated perspective.

Here are some habits that we have whole heartedly embraced:

·         Shopping at small local businesses for most of our groceries. We go to at least 3 different butchers, a fishmonger, and multiple produce stands. Many of the purveyors recognize us and know what we like best. It’s a fun way to shop. It is so easy to support a “kilometer 0” approach here and to have a better idea of where things are coming from.

·         We eat lunch and dinner later here than we did in the US. While we haven’t gone full Spaniard – it makes no sense to eat dinner at 10 p.m.! – we have shifted our schedule later.

·         We used to avoid getting coffee to go. Spaniards drink and enjoy their coffee at a café/bar. Sadly, COVID has made coffee a “to go” item.

·         WhatsApp is essential. No one uses text messaging because it is not included in mobile phone plans like it is in the US. Plus, WA is much more versatile.

·         We like the style of healthcare delivery. Most physicians have an exam room within their office with more equipment available. It is more efficient.

·         Public transportation is efficient. We don’t miss having a car at all.

 

 And a few customs we haven’t accepted:

 

·         Primetime television starts at 10 p.m., after the 9 p.m. news, not at 8 p.m. like in the US. No thanks!

·         While we’ve adjusted our dinner time at home, we still take the first reservation available for dinner – 8:30 p.m. in most restaurants. We are often the first diners, but that’s fine with us. You get better service that way!

 

And then there are the things we are still figuring out. The biggest one is the political system, both locally and nationally. We understand the basic principles behind a parliamentary system, but each region has different political parties, and it is difficult to know which one stands for what. The recent elections in Catalunya required some research to appreciate the results, but we are still novices in this area. We are more familiar with the parties in the Basque region but aren’t exactly sure which party we would support, if we could vote. We’ll keep reading the newspaper to broaden our knowledge.

 

In the end, our lives are not that different from before. People are people after all. And now that we are proficient at and comfortable with Spanish, the intimidation factor has been eliminated to a large extent. We’ve even managed the pandemic and all the chaos that has brought so far, which confirms we are where we’re supposed to be.

 

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff