Um, What?

While I was doing some research for one of my final papers, I came across his quote:

¨How can this apparently greater degree of tolerane within Spanish society than is exhibited in the rest of countries of the European Union be interpreted? Leaing aside the commonplace stereotype of the "natural affability" of the Hispanic chaacter, two interpretations may be suggested."

Um, What natural affability???? I have never heard this streotype. After living here for about 7 months, I can tell you that I see no basis for this assumption. None whatsoever.

What I do know is that I have been confronted with more attitude than I ever have in my life. I have never met so many confrontational, dismissive, and unfriendly people before.

Here´s a good example of Spanish attitude: Last week I was hanging up my clothes to dry when Tamara (Spanish who is unaware of australia´s existence) asks me if Shannon is asleep. I tell her yes. She says in the snottiest way possible "por que?" meaning "why?" I was really taken aback at the force of her attitude. I told her that shannon was not feeling well but what I really wanted to say was ¨why does it matter? Can´t she sleep whenever she feels like it?" I resisted. Tamara only slightly tolerated word of Shannon´s ill health as an adequate reason.

Another example: There is a patio festival going on right now in Cordoba. Patios are popular fixtures of homes here and every spring there is a festival so people can show off how beautiful their patio is. The main feature is the selection and arrangement of beautiful flowers. Some people have sculptures or fountians. It´s really pretty and fun. Today while waiting in line to get into a popular patio, a middle aged Spanish woman attempted to push me out of her way several times. When I was inside a patio taking picture, another women literally shoved me out of her way so she could get to the other side of the patio and I nearly fell.

These little incidents add up and similiar occurrances happen quite frequently. It´s hard to get the impression of a national character of affability when people shove you out of their way or snottily demand explanations from you for simple things all the while making it clear that they are judging you negatively.

Disaster

My computer is broken nd not fixable here (sometimes I really hate this country). I had lots of things ready to post with pictures. But I can´t see them since the screen of my computer is done for. I will post pictures when I get home at the end of May.

Tenerife Misadventure

On our second day in Tenerife, We decided to head out on an excursion to the Pyramids of Guimar. They are across the island from Playa de Las Americas. I had seen the website and pamphlets about the pyramids. They all lacked directions on how to get there. Now I know why.

We asked the receptionist at the front desk of our hotel. He didn’t know but he told us that if we walked up to the bus station, someone there could tell us. So that is what we did. The station was not too far away, maybe a 15 minute walk. We ask the woman at information. She explains that we cannot take the bus all the way there. We take one to a spot she circles on our map of the bus routes and then tells us the number of the other bus we need to catch. We buy bus passes with the amount she recommends that should cover a round trip.

We get on the first bus. Simple enough. Pleasant ride. We get off where we were told which is at a stop on the side of a highway. We wait for about half an hour for our connection to show up. It doesn’t. We flag down the next bus that shows up and ask the driver. He says we are waiting in the wrong spot. We need to walk down a highway ramp to get to the stop. So we do. Then we do not see a stop. We walk in one direction and find one. We wait there. Then a bus pulls over. We ask. He says we need wait at the stop across the street. So we cross the street.

Our bus rides past us and the driver points ahead. We are at the wrong stop. We walk alongside the highway to get to the other stop. We find the other stop and wait there for at least 45 minutes in the sun. Then our bus shows up. It takes us the bus station in the town of Guimar. The driver tells us to take a local town bus that will take us closer to the pyramids. The town is small and depressed. Everything is dilapidated and there is a lot of messy, unfinished construction. We get off the bus where they tell us to. They driver points and says the pyramids are that way, “arriba” meaning up. The bus leaves. There are absolutely no street signs or signs to the pyramids. We walk up towards the direction he pointed in. There is nothing and no one besides construction. Someone sees us and realizes that we are lost. He tells us vaguely how to get to the pyramids. They at least a 20 minute walk away. They are closing in 30 minutes. We decided to head home.

We take the local bus back to the town station and wait for our first bus back. We need to buy more bus passes because the amount, the woman told us does not completely cover this journey. We take the first bus back. We walk up the highway ramp to catch our second bus. The first one whizzes by and we miss it. We wait much longer than expected in the stop on the side of the highway, freezing. This failed journey takes 7 hours.

Sopa de Agua

This is a soup we frequently have that contains little pasta stars. It's 90% water so we affectionately call it "sopa de agua" or "water soup". It's fine but, as I'm sure you may have guessed, the Spanish girls complain about it every time.

Spanish logic: Tenerife Edition

A Spanish family showed up to the beach with a toddler. They settled down and then they broke out an inflatable kiddie pool. One of the men in the family blew it up. Then two women in the family broke the entire kiddie pool down to the ocean to fill it up with water. This obviously did not work well. They got some water into the pool but by the time they walk back up to the rest of the family, they had spilled most of the water. Instead of doing something like, oh I don’t know, using a bucket to bring water up to the kiddie pool, they continued to try this method of filling the kiddie pool without success.

Tortilla Espanola

This is my favorite Spanish food. It’s amazing. It’s very simple: just potato and eggs. We only get it Saturdays. I can’t fully explain why we all love it so much. I order it almost every time I eat at a restaurant. It’s a safe order because it’s rare to get a poorly made one. And if you do get a bad tortilla, never go back to that place because if they fucked up a tortilla, I can guarantee that most other things will not be good. If I have some bad tortilla, I feel devastated.

Tenerife

During spring break, I went with Kelly and Lizzie to Tenerife which is one of the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are off the coast of Africa and are officially Spanish territory. They are popular vacation destinations because of the warm weather and beaches. I had never been anywhere so blatantly touristy before. We went to Playa de las Americas which is in the south of Tenerife. The main attraction is the beach. The beach is really interesting because the sand is dark because it’s volcanic ash. There is a volcano that is “no longer active”. Allegedly. This was not only the first time I’ve been on a small island that isn’t close to the mainland but the closest I have ever been to a volcano.

The island was beautiful. The people were also very nice but it felt kind of weird to be in place where most people’s livelihoods center around tourism. We also shocked a lot of people by speaking Spanish. I guess no one but Spaniards attempts any Spanish here. They all spoke English.

The beach was nice: really clean and the water was pretty. There were men who walked around selling fruit. They tried to entice us to buy some by yelling “watermelon, pineapple, ananas” and a bunch of other random words that included “Las vegas, Viagra”. It was also plainly obviously that we were among the minority by using sunscreen. No one else did and therefore, most people at the beach were lobster red. It was not cute. Many women went topless as per custom on European beaches and let me tell you: a lifetime without sunscreen while topless does not work out well.