Aprendiendo tantas cosas

I’m off to Paris this weekend, so I thought I’d drop a line before I have more to talk about next week and more pictures to not have time to post for you. (Just picture cathedrals and European streets and my awkwardness in photos and you’re practically there.) Nah, I’ll get some up eventually. Check my Facebook soon for those.

But just to get everyone up to speed, I thought I might run through a few other tidbits about Spanish culture before going any further. ¿Vale? (Pronounced “bah-lay,” that’s how the Spanish say “okay.” Please add this to your vocabulary list.)

Let’s have fun and start with the bathrooms, because a Sploggy just isn’t a Sploggy without a little potty humor (that’s what I’ve heard, at least). Nothing too crazy to report here, but bidets seem to be somewhat prevalent, and if you’re like my host family, your bathroom may not contain toilet paper for post-bidet use but will have some sort of communal post-bidet-use towel. I still haven’t decided what to think about this, but a newfound intolerance toward international customs seems to be the direction in which I’m heading.

Smoking is also quite prevalent, especially, it seems, among the elderly. Incidentally, the hacking-up of lungs until purple in the face is also quite common. Perhaps this downward bowel-pushing force plus the Activia is the Spanish secret to regularity. Is this getting too gross? I apologize. I’m still just worried for their colons.

And while on the subject of the lower intestine and bathroom hygiene, a food update! So ham and white bread still seem to be ever-present, but at home I’m still getting yummy stuff like lentil soup (no seriously, it’s delicious), and the ice cream here they sell on the streets may be the best I’ve ever had. I miss Food Network, and as you can see, this will probably manifest itself in Sploggy becoming a part-time food blog. I’d take pictures, but knowing my track record, my camera would likely fall into my plate of oil-soaked starches. And then in my Activia. Which then might then lead to this turning into even more of an Activia blog than it already is.

I’m sorry, back on track. But first, let’s talk about hair, since I just looked in a mirror and noticed that mine seems to be getting a little unruly. As I’ve told some, one of my biggest fears before coming here was the process of going about getting a haircut. My hair grows fast enough to where I need a trim about once a month, and while I think I’ll be able to get by, I’m just not sure what the word for “semi faux hawk” is in Spanish. (Native speakers, help me out here.) I’m a bit worried, in fact, that I might come out with a rattail of sorts, which, along with jean shorts and general disregard for musculature, seems to be inexplicably in style in Spain. For one expecting lots of Javier Bardems running around, this has been saddening.

Anyway, where was I? Culture. Yes. So I seem to have done my share of judging here, so let me note something entirely positive. Something that I think a lot of us living with host families here have found admirable is the Spanish is their, for lack of a less clichéd phrase, appetite for life — from the number of times that they actually do go to the beach (a lot, in fact) to their taste for the nightlife that brings even the oldies back home as late as 4 a.m. My host mom says that among she and her retired friends, their occupations, while important, now matter little, and that for them, this is a time to live life. Americans retire, entering a stage of comfort, but they don’t seem to do it with such enthusiasm.

Oh and on a shallower note, the Spaniards also have these cute little white dogs that look like lamb/dog hybrids (logs? dambs? loodles?). At first I thought they were horrifying, but they’ve grown on me. I want one.

Basically, if there’s one lesson I’ve taken from my three weeks in Spain, it’s that behind the cultural divide, there often lies a real, human understanding of what makes us and blah blah blah blah. What I’ve actually learned is that if there’s one thing that connects us worldwide — one common bond — it’s the subtle downward green arrow of the Activia packaging. And Lady Gaga. And loodles! (They’re ADORABLE.)