A partir

Hello, friends. I'm in a large city (Madrid) in a medium-sized country populated by smallish people who speak very quickly. I've been here about three weeks, one week in a youth hostel and almost two in an apartment located not far from the famous Prado art museum (which I have yet to visit). I've been toying with the idea of making a blog for a while but it is tonight, a night when crowding into a dark, hot, noisy room didn't appeal to me much, that I put in the time.

It'd be hard to catch you up, nor would a summary give you much of a feel for my experiences. Suffice it to say there has been culture shock, sticker shock, and other, more sedate forms of surprise. Every day I learn a little something about the way things are here. In time I may be able to group those things and make some broader conclusions, but I feel no particular need to break things down at the moment.

Enough introduction. Here's some background on my surroundings, the everyday life stuff which I wouldn't otherwise focus on at this point due to its ubiquity:

1. Romance: There is unabashed PDA at all hours of the day. In addition, staring at women on the street is not only common, it's expected. One girl in my program received attention from a pair of precocious 11-year-old boys.

2. Manners: Spaniards don't apologize or say excuse me when they bump into each other. Waiters and other workers who deal with people rarely make an effort to be friendly. If you have transgressed in any way, however, you must justify your actions ("Es que..." = "It's that..."). That's the Catholic influence at work.

3. Getting around: Most everything is within walking distance if you live towards the center of town (as I do). If you have to use the Metro, it's both cheap and efficient. Spaniards almost never use cabs: they're for drunks and foreigners who don't mind paying the steep 25% tax on top of the time/mileage.

4. Wetting your whistle: The alcohol content of mixed drinks is much higher here than in the US. Beer is dispensed at McDonalds and in vending machines. A really popular combo among younger people is red wine + coke = calimocho. Groups gather in squares and sip the stuff from tall cups.

5. Feeding your face: The #1 restaurant chain serves reasonably-priced, tasty Turkish dishes which I can already tell I'll miss when I go home. The #2 chain is called the "Museum of Ham"- it's decent. The government mandates that all restaurants offer a budget lunch menu which includes two plates, a beverage, dessert, and often bread as well, all for under E10.

6. Sanitation: No one cleans up after their dogs. You are advised to watch your step. Fertilized pavement notwithstanding, the city is clean overall; trash is picked up daily.

7. Vagrancy: I don't know what the situation is exactly but at least one down-on-his-or-her-luck individual is stationed outside each high-traffic business. I regularly pass one man whose sign says he's dying of AIDS (here, SIDA) and another without arms.

8. Checking your watch: Spaniards don't seem to mind waiting in lines for extended periods. On the other hand, the bad rap they get for having a loose sense of scheduling is partially undeserved. When they're meeting friends they're not overly concerned about arriving on the hour, but when it comes to more formal appointments, they are punctual.

9. Entertainment: Everyone is football-mad, except my flatmates, who prefer trashy celebrity news and reality TV (the Spanish incarnation of Big Brother, in particular). There are a lot of American series (Grey's Anatomy, House, The Simpsons) and even more movies (Signs, The Edge, Alexander) badly-dubbed- always dubbed, never subtitled- into Spanish.

10. Media: El Pais is the center-left paper of record, with a more international focus than its competitors. El Mundo is another left-leaning daily. ABC is traditionalist and pro-monarchy while La Razon is liberal in the European sense. A few sports dailies and free, sensationalist papers round out the offerings. There's a lot of coverage of the presidential race and the financial crisis, so it would be impossible for me to ignore the US entirely, even if I wanted to. (I spend too much time and energy contemplating events a few thousand miles west of me, if I'm being honest.)

Finally, a few photo highlights to round out this inaugural post (one of the palaces, a futile hunger strike against Madrid's unbelievable congestion, the city at night):

Gracias for your time. In the future I'll have more story-driven, bite-sized content for you. Save that link!