I am familiar with the fact that this country operates very differently to England. I am also aware that there seems to be no logic in anything anyone in this country does. Despite this knowledge however, I am still constantly surprised at the things I see or hear...
1) We saw a woman wearing odd shoes. Not odd socks, odd shoes. One black and one red. It really was very bizarre.
2) A grandfather let his grandson urinate in the plaza, at the bottom of one of the benches where people sit. As well as being a beautiful sight while we were trying to sunbathe, I absolutely understood why he let the little boy do this – it would have been a lot of effort to take him to the public toilets located less than a minute’s walk away.
3) Our philosophy teacher said that we should call him if we ever think we’ll need to miss a lesson. One of the Spanish students then proceeded to give him her number, as if this suggestion was perfectly normal. I suppose it sort of makes sense as they don’t seem to use email here, however, if you take away the classroom situation, what she did was give her number to a (albeit very nice) 60-year-old man. Us girls have had so many awful experiences here with the creepy old men – one came within millimetres of me the other day while I was sunbathing in the plaza and leaned over me so that when I opened my eyes, there he was, walking stick and all. Marvellous. So, bearing that in mind, giving my phone number to my elderly philosophy teacher wasn’t something I was terribly inclined to do.
4) On walking into Carrefour the other day, the sign on the whiteboard that they use to advertise any offers read: Rape entera €6.90. A whole rape for just €6.90? Golly. What a treat living in a country that effectively encourages rape and paedophilia.
5) Urban Dictionary’s definition of ‘flash mob’: A group of people who appear from out of nowhere to perform predetermined actions, designed to amuse and confuse surrounding people. The group performs these actions for a short amount of time before quickly dispersing. Alcalá de Henares’ definition of flash mob: Announce the start of the flash mob to everyone in the plaza with two loud blasts so that everyone knows that something is about to happen. Create no confusion whatsoever. Then instead of dispersing quickly, get everyone to join in at the end with the Macarena.
6) As the temperature rises, so seemingly do the number of layers the Spanish wear. What on earth do they think when they wake up and see 30°C on the temperature gauge? A lovely, summery overcoat to leave as much skin uncovered as possible? A big pair of Ugg boots to keep my feet cool? Some tight jeans to let my skin breathe? Perfect. And a big woolly scarf to finish. It’s madness! I swelter in just shorts and a strappy top, let alone all these layers the Spanish bundle themselves in. The classrooms get so hot sometimes too. As soon as we walked into the classroom for our Spanish theatre lesson last Wednesday, we opened the windows to let some air in. Alas – as soon as the teacher walked in, wearing a jacket may I add, she went over to the window and shut it, as if she were a little on the chilly side. In 30°C heat. She then sat serenely in her chair at the front of the room and started to chatter away, perfectly comfortable. Meanwhile, us English lot were feeling very much the opposite of comfortable. Stuck to our seats, we spent the entire lesson wiping sweat from our foreheads, gulping down our body’s weight in water, fanning our faces with an agitated desperation and feeling as though we were about to faint. Combined with a hangover, as is often the case during this particular class, it’s about ten times worse. If only the classes weren’t timetabled for such early hours. Midday really is too much, especially when you’ve been drinking the night before.
7) The storks have started swooping a lot lower than they ever did before. This worries me slightly – while researching out of interest what the storks eat, we were informed firstly from WikiAnswers that they live on a diet of hot-dogs and vegetables (that would have been my first guess too), and then from Wikipedia that one of their actual food sources, along with fish, insects and small birds, is apparently small mammals. To which one of my flatmates said to me (5’2’’) that I’d better start keeping an eye out on my way into university and around town. Obviously I realise that this is a joke...but they’ve also started circling in an almost vulture-like manner in recent weeks. I’m definitely never letting myself fall asleep in the sun – staying still for too long under the glare of several stork nests could potentially bring this lovely Erasmus year to a rather undesirable close.
That’s all for now, but no doubt I’ll have more Spanish strangeness to add to this come tomorrow!
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