Lifestyles and Values

I'm not sure if it's fair to generalize my experience with my host mom Belen to the entire Spanish lifestyle, but my time with Belen has been so fantastic. Her lifestyle and values are rather different than the lifestyle and values I have back home, but I've really been enjoying the new perspective. For example, Belen puts a lot of effort into the food she prepares for us. She takes the time to sit with me and my roommate Frankie while we eat, and she always asks how we are, how our day has been, and what we're learning in school. Belen is very dedicated to her family, and she has graciously extended this same dedication to me and Frankie. I love my own family dearly, but we are far more individualistic, as I think many American families are. We all have our own busy schedules, so we don't really have the opportunity to be together in the same room, let alone share two meals together everyday. Food in America is pretty often just a necessity of life, so I, like many people in the US, find myself eating alone after grabbing fast food from a drive-thru or a granola bar from the pantry. It's been a pleasant change of pace knowing that everyday I get to come home and talk with people about my day and spend time listening to them talk about theirs while enjoying a meal together. Family and food feel so intertwined here, and that's something I would like to be able to bring back home with me. I think it would be challenging because everything is so fast-paced in the US, but I would certainly like to try, even if it's only dinner once a week with my family starting out.

The difference in how Spaniards view time versus how Americans view time brings me to the next difference: leisure. It seems like at all hours of the day you can find people enjoying leisure time in cafes and bars/restaurants. Nobody really gets coffee to go, they sit down and enjoy it while they read or talk with a friend. Everybody takes their time in Spain. The same seems to go for Belen. She always seems very relaxed and she never seems to be in a hurry to get somewhere. She takes time to enjoy her day, whether that is going to visit her family or having time to herself in her apartment to watch shows or have a siesta. Meanwhile in America, my idea of leisure time is the time I get to myself while running errands in between work and school. I haven't fully gotten on board with the siesta yet, but I do love that Spaniards dedicate time to themselves.

I suppose the challenge to dedicating time everyday to leisure is that convenience and efficiency are definitely not priorities to Spaniards. I'm used to having access to anything I want at any hour I want, and the fact that almost every business closes for a few hours in the middle of the day is hard to adjust to. On more than one occasion, I've tried to go shopping in the middle of the afternoon only to find that all of the shops that I've had my eye on have closed. Furthermore, nobody moves quickly here. trying to get a SIM card at the phone store was my first encounter with this sluggish pace, but I've had other experiences like servers taking forever to come back with something I've ordered or forgetting that I'm even still here. Even the professors seem to take their times getting classes started first thing in the morning or after giving us a few minutes for a break.The laid-back lifestyle can be nice in a lot of ways, but there have definitely been times where I've noticed my American impatience coming out after having to wait for something for a while.

Finally, I really respect that everyone that I've talked to in Spain seems to be very mindful that their political opinion should not be taken as the end-all-be-all of opinions. If you ask them how they feel about a certain political issue, whether it is specific to Spain or the US, they always preface their statement with "Well, this is just my opinion, but..." and then they are quick to remind you every so often that what they are saying is not fact but rather how they personally feel about the matter. I think that Americans have a tendency to state their political beliefs as if it is the Word of God and anybody who holds a different opinion is objectively and offensively wrong. We could definitely take a page from Spain's book and recognize that everybody is entitled to hold an opinion that may be different than yours.

All in all, I think with a little more time here, I could definitely come to favor Spanish values and ways of life over my American ways back home.