Excuse my flip-flops! -Spanish Etiguette-

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Something that definitely takes some getting used to is Spanish etiquette. From saying hello to the shoes on my feet, I can’t do anything right in this city! Especially at the dinner table! For meals, it is abnormal or rude to put your napkin in your lap. I learned that at my first meal with my family! They also have their hands/elbows on the table pretty much the whole meal; it is weird to have them in your lap. This is especially strange when I don’t hear my father say “bird get your elbows off the table!” every time I do it. They also hover over their food. They eat like they are in a rush and just shovel it in their mouths without breathing or sitting back. (That is why they don’t have their napkins in their laps because they don’t need them if they hover!) When they are eating something they need to cut, they don’t switch back their fork and knife. If you are eating chicken, you keep your fork in your left hand the whole time! I’ve missed my mouth a couple of times…
They also LOVE to give you tons of food. It is shocking that they are not as fat here because the goal of the parents is to simply “beef you up” and make you look more healthy and full. To them, being attractive is in our eyes someone who is neither skinny nor fat but just healthy. They give you a whole meal with vegetables, salad, meet, and bread and when you finish they offer you a plate of fish, and after that yogurt, then fruit, then chocolates. It just never stops! I feel bad because I don’t eat a lot usually in one meal, so I can barely finish the first meal before they offer me a few more. Luckily my sister in my house doesn’t eat a lot either so I don’t feel as bad.
Another thing, they kiss on both cheeks when they say hello. Handshakes are rude. That is so hard to get used to. I instinctively stick out my hand to shake whenever I meet someone, but to them that is rude, like you don’t want to get close to them or something. Also, it is LEFT TO RIGHT when you do the double kisses on the cheek. That can get awkward when I meet a boy and I forget and then like practically kissing them when I just met them!!
As far as shoes go here, flip flops are one step above barefoot, and Spanish girls will look at my shoes then look me up and down and give me this look like “American.” And not that I don’t want people to know I am American but I don’t want people to know I am American! They don’t like us … at all! They think we are dirty when we wear them, and they apparently don’t like the flip-flop sound. It is something I never expected to be that different or that big of a problem, but apparently it is.
Their style here is so strange! But I won’t get into that … all I can say is that girls walk around with baggy pants around the crotch that are skinny jeans by their calves and wear them low so their underwear hangs out … on purpose! I went shopping with my sister Alba and she tried them on and then asked me what I thought … I had no words and for the first time it wasn’t because I couldn’t speak Spanish!

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