Observations on Spain

Although it's hard for me to believe, we've been in Barcelona for almost a full month! We've gotten to know the geography of the city pretty well during that time. We're comfortable taking the metro, and even the bus, wherever we want to go. We are making progress on learning Spanish and have a much easier time expressing ourselves and understanding others in common social situations, like ordering at a restaurant (where, by the way, the menus are often in Catalan and not Spanish). But there are some elements of Spanish culture that are significantly different from what we're used to in the U.S. that are harder to get used to. 

First, the siesta. From what I understand nobody actually naps during siesta, but it is the case that businesses tend to close for several hours during the mid-afternoon. So, from around 2:00-5:00 p.m., you may not be able to go to a particular store or shop. This hasn't been a huge problem for us because we haven't had urgent specific shopping needs and the bigger grocery stores stay open. But if we plan to go to a particular cafe or store or museum we will always check first online to make sure that it will be open. Believe it or not, Will and Ryan are not that interested in getting up and starting the day with the sun; it is often afternoon before we are ready to venture from the apartment. I love just walking around and experiencing the city, and it does change that experience when three-quarters of business are closed. And when they're closed they're not just locked with a sign on the door--they are closed over with heavy-duty garage-style doors, I assume for security. So I prefer to do my people watching in the morning or in the later afternoon when there is more life on the streets. But rest assured, we've never been unable to find a convenience store (mercats, which, obviously, we call "meerkats") open to sell us ice cream bars at any time of the day, even on Sundays!

A side effect of the siesta is that work days in Spain appear to go longer than what we are used to in the U.S. I read that even a lot of corporate offices are closed during siesta hours, which gives employees time for a long leisurely lunch if they wish, or a trip to the gym, or time to get some laundry done, or whatever. But that means that people get home from work in the evening pretty late. That doesn't affect us directly because we are living la vida loca essentially as freelancers. However, what it does mean is that by 6 or 6:30, when we're done with our work, homeschool, and local adventures, we'd kind of like to grab a drink or a snack in one of the gazillion adorable cafes or bars on our way home. Restaurants tend to re-open from siesta around this time so places are often open -- but they are totally deserted and I find it weird and awkward to be the only customers in a restaurant. I am the only member of my family who feels this way, but I feel it very significantly. It took me a long time to understand why the Spanish, a seemingly fun-loving people, don't like to do happy hour after work. It turns out they probably do -- it's just much later in the evening than what we are used to. So we have taken to doing our happy hours at our apartment (see paragraph on quality and cost of Spanish wine below).

I will move on the food, which is not hard to get used to. The food here is just really, really good. The fruits and veggies--even the regular stuff that you get at the grocery store--taste fresh and sweet. The meat is tender and flavorful. The eggs are divine. We have gotten snobby about eggs at home and buy expensive fancy-schmancy eggs, but here in Barcelona the regular cheap eggs are better than our free-range, organic eggs in Delaware. And it's all much less expensive than what we're used to at home. The grocery stores are very small, at least compared to the gigantic supermarkets that we have in the U.S. suburbs. When we first got here and checked out the local grocery stores it seemed like they didn't have many options, but I see over time that that's not really true. They do have a good number of options, they just have relatively small quantities of the different options and it's easy for eyes to pass over unfamiliar products and packaging without seeing them. Also, packages are quite a bit smaller than what we see in the U.S. You definitely do not see "family-sized" bags of chips or boxes of chicken nuggets here. I sometimes buy a bag of Sun Chips to serve with dinner. It costs around $1 and contains four reasonable servings and no more. I like enjoying a treat without the temptation to overindulge. And kitchen and refrigerators are small anyway, so there's no point in stocking up on groceries. We have at least three or four decent-sized grocery stores within about five blocks of our house so grocery trips are quick, easy, and relatively painless. We tend to buy about two days' worth at a time. 

One thing I will not buy at the regular grocery store is baked goods (other than sandwich bread). And there is no need. Local bakeries on every block sell gorgeous crusty baguettes, croissants, cookies, and traditional Catalan pastries. We have tried enough bakeries to have our favorite place to grab a nice multi-grain baguette at the end of the day and a different place for croissants for Saturday's breakfast. Another thing you see all over the place here is small produce shops. I'm not opposed to buying fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, but the specialty shops tend to have more variety and, we think, higher quality on average. There is one of these shops just down the street from our place, so every couple of days we stock up on tomatoes, oranges, pears, lemons and limes, and whatever other vegetables we want for meals. I suppose it might seem inconvenient to go to the grocery store, bakery, and produce shop instead of doing all the shopping at one location, but with everything so close to each other--and no driving or parking involved--it feels like a privilege rather than a hassle to be able to get high-quality products from these small, specialized businesses. 

Before we came I heard from a number of people that Spanish wine is great and also cheap and it is so true. You can get a really pretty nice bottle of wine at the grocery store for about $5-$6. There are more expensive bottles, and I think Matt (who is sort of a wine snob) would like to explore them, but so far we have really enjoyed the lower-priced options. At restaurants they don't give you water for free like they do in the U.S., and a glass of wine costs about the same as water. (So why order water is the point...) In truth, we probably drink more wine here than we really should, but after experiencing my first Spanish hangover a couple of weeks ago I have grown more responsible and since then so far so good. Plus, I assume I'll return to the U.S. spoiled and unwilling to pay more than $6 for a bottle of wine anymore, which means I'll never drink wine again. So we may as well enjoy while we're here!

Now that I've described the food and drink I will end this post with a much less enchanting topic: the Spanish bureaucracy. It is impossible in this country (or at least in this city but I think it extends to more of Spain) to figure out how to do anything, ever. Some of my readers know about the lengths we had to go to to get our visas. It turns out, that was just the beginning. I won't go into all the details, but we have a lot more paperwork, appointments, and waiting to do before we actually have the documents we need to be able to stay past 90 days. And it's not just that it's a long process, it's a completely opaque process. You can ask five different locals about it and get five different answers. And the locals we've asked include police officers, HR specialists, and lawyers. Part of the problem is that a big industry here is legal firms who charge big bucks to help people through the process. These legal experts would be out of a job if you could look up online exactly what you have to do to get these very common documents. Worse than that, these firms snatch up all available appointment slots immediately when they are released from the local city halls and then charge people to book them appointments. We didn't know this for the longest time so we would go online to try to schedule these appointments and be told day after day that nothing was available. The same thing happened when we scheduled our visa appointment at the Spanish consulate in NYC. It was infuriating. The Catalan research institute who is hosting us for sabbatical has been nice and have helped us a lot, but we've still ended up having to pay a lawyer to help us through the process. Luckily her rate is a fraction of what we were quoted by some others when we first got here, but still. 

This lack of clear information seems to extend to the tourism industry as well. Websites are just not all that helpful. It's hard to know exactly where to be at what time to see things. I don't honestly think it's intentional. I think the Spanish people just have more of a "you'll get there when you get there" kind of attitude than we do in the U.S. Or at least than I do. I want to know all of the logistical details in advance so that I know what to do, what to expect, and how much I will pay. This need to pre-plan is part of my dealing with anxiety over not being proficient with the language, but I think it's also just part of my east-coast U.S. DNA. It's probably good for me to experience and embrace this more relaxed environment for several months. 

Finally, because I'm sure none of you were really all that interested in my expounding on my observations of the Spanish culture, here is a picture of Will and Matt doing homeschool math.