Adapting to a new culture

Same but different

The Language

It's pretty obvious that there's still going to be a language barrier between us and the locals, but what we didn't prepare for was the accent! In southern Spain, the pronunciation of "s" is not there 99.9% of the time. Any of our fellow Spanish speakers will understand how difficult that can make things for as "s" is on verb endings, therefore sometimes we don't have a clue what person they're talking it. 

Meal Times

Eat, eat, eat. That's all we do! It's quite common for Spaniards to completely disregard breakfast and have a coffee instead. How horrifying. So we tend to have a slice of toast (the bread is tiny), a piece of fruit and a good ol' cuppa tea - we can't run on empty tummies. However, we have the snacking down to a T. We tend to snack at 1pm and 6pm, having a big lunch at 2.30/3pm so that we fit in. Lunch is the biggest and most important meal of the day in Spain. Now, let's talk about dinner. It's pretty much frowned upon to eat any early than 9pm and you don't have a big meal either, it's normal to have a tapa or a sandwich. During our first week in Spain we found this pretty hard to adjust to but whilst Rebeka's Dad was visiting we didn't actually go out for dinner until 11pm *gasps*. We didn't have a meal either, we simply paid 2,20 Euro for Tinto de Verano then we got to choose a tapa for free. 

Uni timetables

Here in Spain, uni timetables are crazy. Lectures run from 9am until 1pm in the morning and from 1pm until 8pm (even 10pm sometimes). As Annie recently discovered, it's hard to get your timetable changed. It involves asking every lecturer if they're happy with you attending their classes, then another trip to the International Relations Office for a meeting to see if these changes can be officially made. We're yet to have our meetings, but will update you on this sometime next week. Also, we both enrolled on a 4th year course accidentally (oops) so we're desperate to drop this!

Sundays and Siestas

We're still trying to understand why the entirety of Spain comes to a standstill between the hours of 3pm and 5pm every day. We understand that a siesta is part of the culture and that it's super hot, but most buildings now have air-con so it's a poor excuse not to be at work. The entire city literally turns into a ghost town. But if you think that's bad, just wait until you try doing anything on a Sunday. Last Sunday, we were losing our marbles staying in all day so we googled place that were open. McDonald's. Yep, that's right. That's the only place we could find so off we went for some nuggets and a McFlurry.

No one told us about the rain

So we've experienced one extreme to another whilst we've been here. Some days it's 30 degrees, lovely and sunny. Others it's thundering, lightning and chucking it down. We didn't expect rain this soon into our year abroad - it's like being back in Swansea. Also, there's been a few earthquakes too. This first time Rebeka only felt it and I thought she was a bit crazy, but from there on the became more frequent and I finally felt one. The worst was 3.2 on the Richer scale which sounds like nothing, but if you've never experienced on before it really does get the adrenaline pumping. 

That's all for now. We're planning on going to Monachil tomorrow for a walk in one of the many gorges of the Sierra Nevada. Then we're heading to Nerja on Sunday for a day lounging on the beach. 

Annie & Rebeka