Blog Post 9

---

Blog Post 9 “Royalty”



THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL “Feeling like a Princess”

When touring the palace, I felt like I was amazed. I thought it was really cool that we actually got to tour the place that the King and Queen of Spain lived not that long ago. I thought the inside was beautiful as well as the outside. I also felt that each room of the palace was different from the other and that you traveled to a new world when going into them. I also thought that it was a little excessive to have a different room to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The views from outside the palace was amazing especially the view of the cathedral as seen in the picture. When walking throughout the palace it made me wonder how the King and Queen actually felt about living there because they could probably go a whole day without seeing each other since there are so many rooms!



THE RELATIONAL LEVEL “Fight to the Death”

Something that I never thought I was going to do was go to a bullfight. I was really excited to go, but also never nervous because I have never been to anything like this. According to Culture Smart, on page 78, it says that the Spaniards consider bullfighting as an art instead of a sport because the technique is very important. I was very surprised by how many people were there and how nice they dressed up for the event as seen in the picture. I think that this event is like riding a bull in American culture because they both focus on the technique of the person trying to tame the bull. When sitting in the seats everyone was jammed back against one another. There was no where you could move without touching another person. The people sitting around me didn’t see to mind that they were touching someone from all sides, but for me it was a little uncomfortable. This is very different from the American culture because when we go to events, we have our own personal space without people touching us.



THE SOCIAL LEVEL “Smoke Everywhere”

When attending the bullfight, I thought I was prepared for people smoking around me, but I was definitely not. There was so much smoke in such a small area. In Leading with Cultural Intelligence, on page 169, it says that culture plays a huge role is what an appropriate distance is. In American culture when smoking people usually give their distance so people don’t have to breathe it in. In the bull fight everyone was smoking so close that I felt like I couldn’t breathe without inhaling smoke. I think that is a social issue because people who are around those who are smoking are inhaling the smoke from the cigarettes which can lead to health problems of the non-smoker. So even though the person chose not to smoke they are still inhaling the bad toxins from that cigarette. I think for events like the bullfight that are in such close quarters that there should be different sections of non-smokers and smokers that way they wouldn’t breath in as much smoke as if everyone was all mixed together.

---