Things I Hate about Spain

I absolutely love Spain and am greatly enjoying my time here.  I think Spain is an incredibly beautiful and rich country.  That being said, when you start to miss home and it's little comforts, those things here that you are forced to "deal with" become more of a nuisance.  So this blog post was written in tribute to missing home by identifying those things here that just aren't quite right.


Disclaimer: I recognize that I am about to make horrible, sweeping generalizations and I may come off as a spoiled, American brat (ala "Super Sweet Sixteen").  But I'm going to do it anyways.  Enjoy!!

1. Humidity.  Now that summer has ended and the rainy season has officially begun, everything is wet -all the time.  When I get into bed at night, my sheets feel wet.  My pistachios that I bought just a week ago went soft due to just the damn wetness in the air!  When Jonathan turns the space heater on, it feels like I'm literally in a jungle.  We are going to invest in a dehumidifier on our next trip into Pontevedra.

2. Nobody has garbage cans in their bathrooms.  This may seem like not a big deal, but when a woman's got her period, it is.  I don't know if they flush tampons here or what the deal is.

3.  I miss my friends and family.  I have been able to maintain contact with some people via the internet, but it's just not the same.

4. Nobody drinks water (they only drink wine, beer, and coffee).  I feel as though I walk around dehydrated at all times.  As with everything here, the glasses we have in our apartment are small and I have to either sit in our living room with a huge jug of tap water or get up about every 15 minutes to refill my glass in the kitchen.

5. Spaniards are very proud people.  They like to consume Spanish foods and drinks; they're not into imports.  Something I had never really thought about before was how accustomed I am to eating a large diversity of flavors.  Trying to find food that is not native to Spain (i.e. curry and coconut milk) has proven to be a challenge and when we can find them, they are often very expensive.  I understand the benefits of consuming food produced locally and seasonally, and not importing everything, but seasoning everything with parsley, garlic and paprika gets old at a certain point.  I literally jumped for joy the other day when we found ginger in the grocery store.

6. I miss peanut butter.

7.  Vegetables aren't important enough.  The most popular dishes here are fish/shellfish and potatoes (either boiled or french fried - but always, always peeled which is another thing that drives me nuts!  I love potato skins!).  Vegetables usually aren't served when we go to family dinners and when they are, they are a small side dish (i.e. every one can serve themselves 2-3 peppers or a slice of tomato).  Vegetables aren't incorporated enough into dishes; they are generally an afterthought.

8. Epically horrible dubbing.  A tradition that was enforced by Franco an has remained a cultural norm. Absolutely everything is dubbed.  They don't do subtitles here.  The soft core porn that comes on public tv every night around 11pm is dubbed (yes, the grunting).  We watched dubbed Jackass 2 this afternoon; they dubbed the laughing.  Why?!What is actually interesting though, is that every major star has a specific dubber assigned to them.  So for example, Bruce Willis has a specific dubber and Spanish speaking voice associated with him.  The family has said that if someone else were to dub Bruce it would be strange because Bruce wouldn't sound like he normally does (which is stupid because it's not Bruce's real voice anyways!)

9.  Spanish television is horrendous.  And it's not just because I can't understand half of it!  It's like horrible day time television, all the time.

10.  Seemingly simple things are surprisingly difficult to find.  I went out the other day in search for a set of plastic mixing bowls to make Christmas cookies with.  This is something that you can find at almost any dollar store.  I scoured the entire city of Pontevedra and couldn't find any!  Do they not mix here?!

11.  Galicia in the winter is super rainy.  I hate rain (although, I'm going shopping for rain boots tomorrow - my Christmas present from Jonathan:).  Sometimes the rain seems to go on for like 72 hours without ceasing.  I know I no longer live in the frigidness that is Buffalo, but I think I actually prefer snow over rain.  You can walk outside without getting completely wet, everything isn't always so freakin moist (see #1).