It's very odd. I expected there to be many, many differences between Manolo and I when he moved here. In a normal relationship there is differences between how two people were differently raised, socio-economic status, etc. I figured that these changes compounded with the fact that Manolo and I come from two different continents and cultures would mean that much of our time together would be spent trying to overcome the different ways that we each saw the world. (I really thought that much of this blog would be written to note those differences). Surprisingly, we’ve encountered many more similarities then differences.
The 3 big differences that we have encountered:
1) Sleep – As I’ve mentioned before it is typical in Spain to work an 8 hour day, taking a short nap (3 hours or so), go out to eat with friends and family at 10pm or 11pm, go to sleep at 2am, and then sleep for another 4 hours before going to work again at 8am. (And this sleep pattern isn’t just for the young. Married couples, kids, and older people also maintain this schedule. It was very bizarre for me to be in Spain the first time and see 3 year olds eating dinner at 11pm with their families as well as 80 year old couples eating dinner at midnight). Manolo thought it was very weird in the beginning that he was expected to sleep in an 8 hour chunk of time. He has quickly adapted to this mode of sleeping though and often sleeps longer then I.
2) Eating – What he eats and I eat is not so different (except breakfast which I need to write about in more detail later), the differences come more into meal times and quantity of food eaten at each meal which we are still trying to work out.
Typical American meals:
breakfast at 8am
lunch at noon (mid-size portions)
snack
dinner at 6pm (larger size portions)
Typical Spanish meals:
breakfast (desayuno) at 8am
lunch (almuerzo) at 2pm (large portions) that is eaten back at home with family and not at your desk by yourself
smaller 2nd lunch at 5pm (typically tapas with coworkers after work)
dinner (cena) at 11pm (smaller portions).
We’re still trying to work out the mutual agreement of when we eat and how much we eat at each meal, but at this time we are just wonky. Manolo keeps waiting for me to come home before eating lunch (I don’t get home until 4pm) which is unfortunate since I’ve already eaten lunch at work at noon. I then usually end up eating a 2nd large portion lunch which just then makes for a very odd hour for dinner which is usually large as well since I am used to cooking full-scale meals for dinner and not smaller size portions.
OK, so this is long and I need to get back to work. More later on a typical Spanish breakfast (it was a shock for me while in Spain) as well as the 3rd difference: the damn singing all the time.
