USA vs. Spain, TOP 10!

We are introducing our soon-to-be craved top ten list today! Aaron and I have decided that one fun, albeit, HILARIOUS way to describe things are by doing a top ten list. I figure if Letterman can laugh and tell himself how funny he is after he does a top ten, I can say how funny it is before. I´m not in showbiz...

TOP TEN DIFFERENCES IN SPAIN:


10. Squeezing in at number ten is Paper. Paper? Yes, paper. Why (that is what you are thinking) paper? Ladies and gentleman someone forgot to send the 8 1/2 x 11 memo to these wonderful people across the pond. The copy paper here is a scoshe wider and like an inch and a half longer than NORMAL paper!! The insanity (imagine that being said by Marv Albert, if you don´t know who that is, er, Dick Vitale will suffice)!! Also, as Aaron so passionately says, there is no REGULAR, lined paper. It is all GRAPH PAPER!! Does it look like I want to take notes on little squares? No, I just broke into snob mode, I want regular COLLEGE RULED PAPER. Morale of this story, buy paper before you come to Madrid...

9. Cars, vehicles, autos, etc. I really hope you have a left foot and took your drivers test in a vehicle with a manual transmission. On my first night here, in the groggy, fog that was my state of mind, I was ¨communicating¨ with some local college students at a bar (don´t worry mom, bar here doesn´t have the same 'let´s get drunk' aura about it) and they couldn´t get enough of my automatic transmission tales from the US of A. Additionally, they are tiny, small, miniscule. 85% of the vehicles, nay 95% are little. Since 97.3% of statistics are made up, those exact numbers will do!

8. You don´t see backpacks, you see those one-shoulder thingies. I am serious, straight out of the JCPenney back to school catalog, they are huge here.

7. Kind of an extension from number 8, but slightly more awesome is the love of the pull-cart. Remember that kid in your highschool that used to ROLL his bag to school. Yes, the pull-cart is an invention sent down like manna from heaven. Since the locals walk everywhere (one guy said he drives 'maybe one in fifteen days') this is a wonderful thing for them. No shopping carts, no-sir-ee, we are sporting the brand new pull cart 2000, be jealous. Aaron and I carry our groceries, tear.

6. Mi Casa es su Casa, what a wonderful inviting phrase that we all learned in Spanish I in 6th grade. They lied. It should be Mi Apatemento es su Apartemento. Families live in Apartments. The apartment has definately been one of my favorite things in Espana, the family that occupies it is hilarious, but I will save those stories for later. When you walk around, you could almost mistake it for the slums or ghetto due to the immense number of apartment buildings, but do not judge, we love the apartment!!

5. No one is fat. They walk everywhere. (Don´t worry honey, I am slimming up JUST FOR YOU!)

4. Everyone in Europe is hip. Old, young, rich, poor, they all have a sense of serious fashion. Seriously, when walking around downtown Madrid, you could definitely tell the difference between the tourists and the locals, but not in the way that you think. Sure, there are the huge cameras and fanny packs-yes, the fanny pack is still a staple of the ignorant tourist-but they stick out because the locals are so well dressed! It is like they walked off the runway during Paris fashion week and just kept walking south. Brilliant!

3. Oh ya, if you haven´t noticed from my pulitzer prize winning journalism, they speak Spanish. I do hear all of my nay-sayers out there saying, ¨Robby, I am from Texas, that is normal!¨ That is a fallacy, you are from Texas, you are weird.

2. SIESTA! This has positive and negative implications. First, having a three hour naptime slash (I can´t find the slash on this crazy spanish keyboard) mealtime is amazing. We eat lunch with papa, mama, and sergio everyday at 2:00pm. It is great! Unfortunately, that means that every shop and restaurant owner is doing the same. So I really hope you don´t have any pressing engagement that requires a stop at the store!! On the bright side, almost everything is open until 10:00pm! So I got that going for me, which is nice...

1. When I wake up in the morning, I look outside and see what the weather is going to be like that day. If it is warm, ususally shorts and a t-shirt, if it is cool, jeans and a t-shirt. Here, the young, strapping men get up, look outside and say to themselves, ¨It really isn´t a shorts or jeans day, I am going to wear, er, um, BOTH!¨ This is true. Manpri´s dominate here. Is it bad that we wish we were cool enough to pull them off???