things that are different from america in spain, part 1

1. they speak spanish here.
2. they have eurocuts and dress with european style: tighter jeans for men, a definite lack of "dressing-down", which i classify as sweatpants and sweatshirts... you rarely, rarely see those here EXCEPT when people are running.
3. practically nobody wears shorts. (again, except for running... but then again most people are wearing sweatpants. interesting story about that: our professor, jesús, told us that the reason for that is when franco was in power that people over a certain age were not allowed to wear shorts and had to wear pants. so it even today, that image of only children wearing shorts has carried over to today's society. interesting, no?)
4. the lightswitches for the bathrooms are always OUTSIDE of the bathroom. i have no idea why. but every single place we go, whether it's at our house, mcdonalds, la universidad, or the hotels we stay in, the lightswitches are on the wall outside the bathroom. not any other rooms, though. little kids must have a heyday playing with that. i would. heck, i'm still tempted to turn the lights off on my roommates while they're showering... i've thus far abstained though.
5. their meals are a lot later: lunch, which is their main meal and where we eat a TON, is usually at 2:30-3:30, and dinner, which is just a snack or a sandwich, is at 10:30 to 11. that's apparently early for them, too.
6. everything is smaller. the houses, the streets, the beds, the showers, the kitchens, the cars, the stores... everything except for the cathedrals. super, super small.
7. they have weird laws and rules: (i think this might have been a lie) but we heard that women are not supposed to go swimming without a man there. i know that this is a fact: busses need to stop every 2-3 hours for a half an hour break or they can be seriously fined. a lot of the supermarkets make you lock up your bags/backpacks in a locker before you go in so you can't just stuff things into your backpack. kind of weird things like that.
8. teenagers walk around with their phones that they've downloaded music to and play them loudly and obnoxiously on the busses, metros, trains, etc., and it's totally acceptable and normal. nobody looks at them twice. if kids did that in america, everybody would growl at them and be really annoyed. i don't know, it's just kind of weird to me.
9. public transportation is much better.
10. the history here is a lot a lot a lot cooler. even here in alcala, you just walk down the street and there's a 800 year old church on your right and miguel de cervantes' birth house a block over... that doesn't happen very much in the US.

this is all for now. i'm sure there will be ensuing continuations of this post later.