as my trip home approaches, i'm realizing how ready i am for a little break from spain. i truly love it here, and am considering extending my contract to teach for another year. but there are certain things i miss about the US, and certain things about spain that drive me absolutely nuts.
for instance, there is the personal space issue. the spanish "bubble" is much, much smaller than the american one. in fact, i'd go as far as to say it does not exist. people are all up in your grill, all the time. the other day i was waiting for a friend outside a supermarket downtown. i was waiting about a yard from the door, against the wall of the bulding, on a sidewalk that happened to be mostly empty. a woman came along, approaching the supermarket entrance, and actually ran into me on her way inside. as in, hit my shoulder with her shoulder, and even gave a little huffy sigh of exasperation. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? the whole sidewalk is EMPTY. i am not in your way by any means. and she ran into me 3 feet from the very wide supermarket door?? i was so mad!
the day got worse. later that night i had choir rehearsal, which takes place up on a street called General Davila, which is the worst street in the whole world. perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. but i really hate it. it's at the top of a huge hill, so walking from either direction means hiking a 45 degree slope, and of course it's usually pouring rain. it's a long, ugly, dark street. there is only one bus that goes there, the number five, and by association it is the worst bus in the whole world. it is always packed full of people, and sometimes it doesn't even stop because it's so full. then you have to wait another 15 minutes in the rain at the tiny bus stop full of too many people smoking cigarettes in your face. General Davila is a very residential street, so the buses going there are always in high demand. as the little digital screen counts down the minutes we have to wait, people start to get more and more restless, shifting over to where they're guessing the bus doors will open so as to be the first one on. which in the first place is stupid, because if the bus driver stops he's not going to pick and choose who can get on. and secondly, it is super annoying because people are wicked pushy and a little mob crowd forms while 15 people try to squeeze through one bus door at the same time, all wildly waving their bus passes and their one euro coins. and inevitably there is that one little old woman who pushes through everyone and stands in the bus doorway to ask "are you going to valdecilla?" 75% of the time they are not, so she fights her way back through the crowd. (the little old ladies are the WORST with the pushing and shoving and general lack-of-respect-for-personal-space. it's the little old ladies who'll getcha).
so as i reluctantly joined the mob that monday evening, a little old lady (told you) bumped into me pretty hard. i turned around, uselessly, because they never acknowledge it. but this time, miraculously, she apologized profusely, calling me "hija," which means "daughter" but is more like "sweetie," saying she was so sorry, oh pardon me, i'm so sorry, excuse me please, forgive me. i turned back around, feeling wonderfully surprised and pleased with this showing of politeness from a spaniard. i was shuffling towards the door, looking over all the short, bald people in front of me (everyone here is bald and short. both men and women. maybe bald is a strong word; but hair-loss is rampant here), when i felt something poke me very forcefully. it was the woman who'd apologized for bumping into me! she had her finger in the small of my back, and was physically pushing me into the people in front of me so she could get on the bus faster! she was bossing me verbally too, saying "get on, get on, hurry, move forward, that's it," all the while pushing me and poking me. i couldn't believe it. right then and there my slightly renewed faith in spanish manners was crushed under the wheels of the number five bus by a pushy old spanish woman in an ankle-length fur coat and hot pink lipstick. needless to say, the number five bus has not improved any since then. nor has General Davila. although to be fair, last night my trip up there was relatively uneventful.
i realized that the lack of manners (or what we in the US would consider manners -- obviously here it's not really considered a social a transgresion to push people onto buses) is taught from a young age. i teach a private 'class' to two little girls, who are four and five years old, respectively. yesterday i had them say "por favor" when they asked me to open the door for them, or when they grabbed markers out of my hands, and they looked at me like i had three heads. and my roommate's boyfriend chews with his mouth open. smack smack smack. i guess the branch-spencer household and road's end farm emphases on manners has stuck with me in a big way.
but soon i will be home in the land of cool (frigid?) northeastern attitudes, where strangers don't touch each other, where (most) people (i hope) chew with their mouths closed and say "please" when they want to use the blue marker. i fly home december 19th (a week from today)! although let's be honest, the moment i land in boston i'll wish i was back here. but c'est la vie, right? the grass is always greener.
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