American as Apple Pie

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One of the fun parts about traveling is seeing how other people live, living their way, and sharing your culture with them. This "intercambio" is filled with excitement and learning, but also culture clashes.
I've had both good and odd experiences with cultural differences... Last night I made an apple pie with my sister!! I'd never made one before, but my brother Andrés had requested apple pie. I decided to give it a shot, prepared for full out disaster. When I told my sister I thought I'd go to the supermarket, she offered to accompany me. I needed three things: nutmeg, butter, and pre-made pie crust. Pre-made pie crust in España, who was I kidding?! When we realized that piecrust wasn't sold there, we used her phone to find an "easy" recipe, and then bought those ingredients as well. We spent hours in the kitchen fighting with conversions to the metric system, a lack of baking knowledge, and the "easy" recipes from the Internet and my boyfriend's mom. Finally at 8PM (we started just after lunch) it was finished. Somewhat burnt, but finished. After dinner I served the pie with vanilla ice cream to my family. They loved it! Really, it tasted fantastic. But I'm biased.

Back to our topic: cultural clashes. An example from the pie incident is that the family couldn't understand why I didn't want to put apples on top of the upper crust. I explained that that's not how a pie is traditionally made.
Some others:
-PDA (public displays of affection): so many couples are all over each other! In the street, the bars, the metro, and everywhere. Please stop showing me your tongues.
-Phone procedures: when answering, they often say "dime," which means, "tell me."
-Table manners: keep your elbows off the table? Nope. It's custom to keep your hands on the table, from in the past when guests could have been holding a weapon under the tablecloth. We eat dinner with trust and all-hands on the table.
-Modesty: my 11-year-old sister still walks around the house in just her skirt when she feels like it, or wears only her swimsuit bottoms. The women, like I mentioned before, freely wear transparent tops.
-Food: we eat eggs here for every meal except breakfast. There are more oddities, but that's one of my personal favorites.

On the train to Madrid now, alone, and actually heading in the right direction (my Spanish family loves making jokes about that). I'm off to see a friend from home, John. We'll have lunch and hang out in the city! I'm looking forward to the adventure and this test of getting to Madrid by myself.

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Comments

[Thalib]

!Muy genial leer tus aventuras en Espana, y buen articulo! Interesante, que se dice "dime" cuando se responde al telefono. Tambien, que se come los huevos con la cena y el almuerzo pero no con el desayuno. Estaba en Inglaterra por algunos semanas este verano, y ahi el desayuno, siempre pan tostada, huevos, y frijoles pinto. :) Eso de PDA y la modestia, eso yo he oido tambien, y pienso es como eso en toda Europa. Como no les hace verguenza eso no se... Y ese amigo, no se, pero pienso que John Vall esta en Espana en este momento, ?es el mismo John? ?O estoy equivocado? Otra vez, buen articulo, y que vaya bien todo en Espana! -Thalib (yo confeso: consulte a wordreference una sola vez...pero vale no tengo mucha practica aqui en Indiana)