Navidad

I wasn't suprised when there were differences between what Manolo and I ate for breakfast or what time we went to sleep at, but I was suprised when Manolo and I began talking about Christmas traditions and found how wildly different the USA and Spain celebrate.

In USA the holidays focus on December 25th. On Christmas Eve some families gather for dinner but some do not. Some families go to church that night at midnight but most do not. On Christmas Day Santa comes, presents are delivered, everyone gathers around the Christmas Tree in the morning and opens gifts. Then an early dinner is eaten (typically ham or prime rib) and everyone goes home (or to bed). After this Christmas is over.

In Spain it is very different. Pretty much all families gather on Christmas Eve and do mass at midnight. Christmas Day is a big meal with lots of friends celebrating Jesus' birth. There are no gifts but this is when the real holiday celebrations begin. The holiday celebrations last aaaaalllllllll the way until January 6th which is 3 Kings Day. On this day way back when according to the bible is the day when the 3 Kings visited Jesus and gave him presents to celebrate his birth. To honor this day, presents are given to your immediate family and they give presents in return. No Christmas trees (big boo for that!). Instead the focal point of the holiday celebrations is a rather large and intricate nativity scene in each home.

Sevilla!

For those that have never been to Spain, it might be hard to imagine what Manolo's home town of Sevilla looks like. The video below shows various pictures from around Sevilla. Hopefully after watching you can begin to imagine the beauty, history, culture, and traditions that envelope you as soon as walk down the street. You'll see many pictures of a giant cathedral which is where Christopher Columbus is buried. For more history on the 2,000 year old city of Sevilla, read this wiki.

(The 2nd video is unfortunately the same song as the first but shows different areas of Sevilla.)

Año Nuevo

Last night Manolo and I were cooking dinner together and he asked me what I was going to be doing for New Year's eve. (I was really hoping to go to Spain for the Holidays but unfortunately at this time flight prices are $3,000 for a round trip ticket and out of my price range). I tell Manolo that I am not sure but it will most likely involve a nice dress, dinner with friends, drinking too much, a bar at midnight, and then home by 2am. Manolo was quite surprised to hear that this was a typical NYE in America.

Manolo explained to me that in Sevilla at 9pm on Dec 31 a large meal is eaten with your immediate family. You drink champagne and eat. As the clock begins bonging at midnight you stuff one grape into your mouth for each bong. It's supposedly very funny as the clock strikes 12 and your mouth is overflowing with grapes. You kiss everyone in your immediate family to celebrate the New Year. At around 1am you go to a friend's house to drink, sing, and play music. At 4am you go to the discos until 7am or later. At 8am (after breakfast) you stumble back home. While this does seem like a much more exciting NYE to me, I am not sure that I could handle partying all night from 9pm to 8am the next day!

El Cantante

So … the singing. The damn singing. The all the time singing.

In Spain, fun and revelry are very much valued. I really appreciate their love of life, food, drink, family, and friends. Often in the middle of the dinner people will break out into song. In the car people sing. At soccer games people sing. Sometimes old traditional songs, sometimes funny songs, sometimes religious songs, sometimes new contemporary songs. A few times I have been in the middle of cooking dinner and I'll ask Manolo to hurry to the grocery store and pick up an item that I need but forgot. I'll say a word that triggers a memory of a song for him and this will set him off into full blown singing of that song. Like loud singing that does not help me when I just need him to hurry to the store and pick up an onion before the chicken finishes cooking!

I've never seen Manolo more disappointed in American culture then when I informed him that people don't actually go Christmas caroling like you see in the movies. I guess in Spain this is a pretty common thing, for friends to get together and go around and sing for their neighbors and friends during the holiday season. Manolo had assumed that we too would be doing this (and maybe they do this in other parts of the Country) but here in Cali it's just not done. Really we don't sing anywhere. When we cook, we don't sing. In the car with friends, we don't sing (unless a really great classic song is played). And much to Manolo's dismay, while there are a few chants played during American Football games, there really are no songs that we sing. For the Sevilla Soccer Club there are over 20 songs that are sung by the crowd during the game. And they sing one song or another during the entire game. Some are short but most are 3-4 minutes (or more!) and quite elaborate. (Believe me, one time I had to sit through Manolo reminiscing and singing me all 20 songs. The things we do for love).

The really interesting thing is that it seems that the Spaniards (and especially those from Sevilla) are naturally gifted with fantastic singing voices. Manolo is not known for his voice (compared to his friends and family) but boy can that boy carry a tune. And so can many of the other Sevillanos that I have met. The video below is a bride from Sevilla breaking out into song in the middle of her wedding. And while her voice is better then average it really is typical of the women's voices I have heard while visiting with Manolo's friends. (Plus bonus for this video being from the Catholic Church that Manolo has attended since he was a baby).

Preguntas

My good friend Tammy asked me a few questions that I thought were interesting.

Q: How’s your Spanish coming along? And his English?
A: I am almost fluent in Spanish now. His English is decent. He can speak pretty well but understanding people when they converse is difficult. When people talk they use a lot of slang, idioms, and they talk very rapidly. That has been pretty hard for him. I have the same problem when I am in Spain but I do a better job of catching words here and there and understanding what is being said and discussed. Manolo tends to just tune the entire convo out as soon as he gets lost.

When we talk together, he talks in English and I talk in Spanish. Whenever we have trouble finding the correct word we just say the word in our native language and the other tends to know what the word is when translated. We also use my iphone which has a translator app for when we both don't know what the word is translated. Manolo is a talker! and we never have times when there are silence. Very rarely is there a time when one of us can't say what we want to and we talk about everything (marriage, politics, religion, cultural differences, etc).


Q: Are you thinking of moving to spain at all?
A: Sometimes I do think of moving to Spain. I love America but I do love Sevilla as well and the great family/social network that Manolo has over there. If we ever had kids I would most def want to raise them over there where his HUGE family lives within 10 minutes of each other (in the Triana neighborhood of Sevilla) and every night is spent eating dinner with friends and/or family. His family has a country home and a beach home. These are all things that we just don't have in the States. The one thing holding me back is my career. I'm successful in what I do and I make a lot of money BUT I also work very long hours. I would like to have kids one day (sooner then later) and it worries me if I will be able to balance my current career with family but then again the thought of leaving behind this career scares me ...


Q: How does he like life in SD? And his job?
A: He likes SD and his job. I'm lucky that he came to America not expecting it to be anything like Spain. He has traveled quite a bit (Egypt, Cuba, etc) so he knew that each country is different and that includes the good and the bad. He thinks our grocery stores have a lot of selections and he is surprised that there aren't guards at the doors of every store, market, etc but he appreciates that America is so safe. He doesn't like that so many things in America are so highly regulated (music downloading, where to walk on a hiking trail, etc) but that is because Spain was once ruled by a dictator (Franco) until 1975 and his family happens to be very anti-Franco. He misses being able to walk to the grocery store to pick up a gallon of milk and wishes we didn't drive so much. He doesn't understand why we don't hang out with friends for dinner during the week nights and why we sleep in 8 hour chunks of time (in Spain they take a nap in the afternoon, eat a late dinner with friends, and then sleep for 4 hours before going to work at 8am the next day). He does like America a lot though and is currently worrying (a lot) about whether his work visa will be renewed in January.