How to live in Spain

Hi everyone!

I live in Spain and there are a lot of things here that I am used to but when I talk to people from abroad, they are usually surprised by. A lot of our customs or our way of life are not too common in other countries.

Today I am going to post a bit of a shorter blog post than normal, telling you about some of the customs and day to day traditions that we have in Spain and which will often catch your attention if you visit or live in our country. There are also things that occur only in Spain and I have realised this after having travelled to other countries.

Friendliness

I didn't know exactly what to call this. But, here when you are going up the stairs of your building or you are in the lift and you come across a neighbour, whether you know them or not, you will greet them. In rural areas this will occur with any person that you come across on the street, you don't need to be at home.

The same thing happens when you go to a shop and the person at the till will greet you, say "good day", "thank you", etc. This isn't as normal in other countries, the most usual thing is that they will say hello to you and ask you if you want a bag, but nothing more. A bad thing in relation to this is that here it is still very common to use single-use plastic bags, very few people bring their own bags made of fabric or any other kind of material. So, if you come, bring your own bags with you, since in certain countries it is forbidden to use plastic bags.

Going back to the previous point, that is not all. Also here, when you go hiking along the mountains and you come across someone else which is doing the same thing as you, regardless as to whether you know them or not you will also great them, whereas abroad this is not common.

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At home

Another thing to do with living at home is the topic of shoes. In certain countries when you get home, you take off your shoes at the door and don't go in wearing them. The normal thing here is to walk around the house in them.

It is true that when it is time to put on your pyjamas or around the house clothes and you take off your shoes, sometimes you will have specific shoes for wearing around the house, but it is true that there is no problem in putting on and walking around in the house with the same shoes that you would wear outside. The same thing applies for visitors. Particularly in Asian countries or countries in the North of Europe, this is certainly not something normal.

Timings

To eat

Something that usually really surprises the foreigners that come to our country are the hours that we have for mealtimes. Here we have breakfast at more or less the same time that they do in the rest of Europe, or maybe a little later, but our times for lunch and dinner and a lot later.

Breakfast depends on what time you go to work and at the weekends, it could be at any time between 9 am and 11 am. As for lunch, as a general rule it is between 2 and 3pm. If you work, normally you will finish working at 2pm and you won't eat until you get back home, till about 3pm.

However, what will more usually catch peoples attention is our dinner time, which in other European countries is usually at 6 pm. Here, that is the time for a small snack and dinner isn't usually until 9 or 10pm. When we go to other countries, the restaurants usually close before the time that we eat. And the opposite thing happens to foreigners, who find that the places to eat still aren't open or that are practically empty when they go to eat.

Shopping

The opening hours for shops are also surprising, here the shops are open practically every day when they are in shopping centres or in the centre of a city, such as Gran Via in Madrid.

However, most supermarkets and small shops close on Sundays, although sometimes they are open. The most usual thing is that this day is for rest and that no supermarket is open, so if you want to do a food-shop you need to do it beforehand, whether on Saturday or during the week; although normally, all the big shopping centres will remain open. In other European cities, I have seen that it is impossible to not be able to buy anything on a Sunday.

It is also very interesting that all of the shops have far longer opening hours than in other places, for example when I travelled to Brussels or France, the shops usually closed at 6 or 7pm. In Spain, the shops are usually open until 9pm on weekdays and 10pm at weekends.

Another thing that I am not sure is very common outside of Spain, although I think that there are 24 hour supermarkets which are open all day long. In Spain, they are becoming more and more common and they are very useful, although sometimes during the night the prices are slightly higher than normal.

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Going out

One last thing to do with the timings, which is particularly to do with young people, are the hours for going out partying. In Europe and the rest of the world, people go out partying a lot earlier than they do here. They usually go out at 7pm and are back home by 1 or 2am.

Here, however, for us, that is very early and as we eat late, as I have already told you, we only stay in until about 11pm to go out together to the place we are spending the night out at (bar, pub, club... ).

Normally, if you go to a bar it will close at around 2am and then you can go home from there, but if you want to go to a club, there will not be any kind of atmosphere there until around 1am, which is when they start to fill up. People stay until 6am which is close and the clubs start to empty at around 5.30am, but the usual thing to do is to wait till 6 like I told you, since this coincides with when the metro opens and it is easier to get home.

If you don't want to stay out so late, we usually get a taxi, uber or cabify, even though there are night buses (buhos).

Life outside

In summer it is really warm, and in the winter the temperatures aren't as low as in the rest of Europe. If we add to this the character of the Spanish people, life outside is very common. When good weather comes around, you can find people walking along the streets and the most usual thing is to go to parks, whether it be the Retiro Park or the Madrid Rio.

You will always find people laying down on the grass, walking around in the evening, having a picnic and sunbathing (even in a bikini).

Parks and green areas

Moreover, another thing which I hadn't noticed but which people from abroad had noticed was the amount of trees and green areas that we have.

A French friend who lives in a town (a more rural area) was surprised when she came to Madrid and saw the amount of trees and green areas that there were on my street.

It seemed like a normal thing to me, but it is actually not that common that there are so many trees planted. Here, when spring comes, there are lots of parks which are full of flowers and in the streets you can also see lots of flowers and vegetation.

Way of speaking

One last thing that isn't very general, and that wouldn't have caught my attention if it wasn't for getting to know Mexicans, is the way of talking.

The language is the same, but we have different ways of talking and it really caught my attention how we use the same words to say different things. It is very enriching to meet people from other countries who speak the same language because you learn a lot of new uses for it. You also have to be careful when coming here to ensure that they understand exactly what you want to say to them.

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With that, I am finishing of this post for today. I hope that some of the things have come in useful, especially if you are thinking about coming here so that you know a bit more about how we live or certain customs that we have.

I hope that this has been helpful and I will see you soon.

Thanks for reading!

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