After arriving in the states, a lot of differences between Spain and here became pretty obvious. All of a sudden a 20 minute car ride became short again, 13 dollars for a burger went from highway robbery to standard, and drinking a beer with friends at 12 is no longer socially acceptable. In all seriousness though, the little things are, in my opinion, what make life here and Europe so starkly different. For starters I would cite things as simple as meals. Eating is something that every human throughout history has in common, but the way one goes about it can say alot about them and their culture. In the US, our economic based lives are reflected in the efficiency of our meals, get in, eat get out, and if you aren’t with the memo, the waitress/waiter will be, as the longer you take at the table the less they get paid. This is comically different to the way things operated in Spain. I would round out my average meal out to an hour and a half to two hours, and it’s gone way over that. Even the most humble meals were two courses, with wine, bread and a dessert. This isn’t even accounting for sobremesa which is a period of time where you just talk at the table. I personally enjoyed these moments a lot, and I appreciated that in Spanish culture it is common to put social interaction above the economic viability of things. This can be seen with the famous siesta. This aspect of Spanish culture has become kind of a meme, but in places like Oviedo, that aren’t as industrialized as Madrid and Barcelona, siesta is a very real thing. Businesses will close for hours, from about 4-6, to give their workers time to rest, and forget about going anywhere local on a Sunday, they are definitely closed then too. This can definitely be a little inconvenient to us Americans. As American consumers we expect to get things whenever we want and at our convenience, it’s like the adage goes “the customer is always right”. Well in Oviedo, this is absolutely not the case. Why would I, a 21 year old frat kid from Orlando, know more about what cider and what food is best in Asturias? Truth is I don’t, and there in Spain in general, there is definitely more power given to the establishment in this sense. Modifications to food is almost like a slap in the face, and portions are eyed out by the server. This may seem like an alien concept to many of us, yet I almost liked it more. I was there to be served by them, and a good restaurant should have the right to serve me in the way that gave them their fame in the first place, it almost took a weight off of my shoulders as a consumer, and not having to tip helped too. All in all, my time in Oviedo was overwhelmingly positive, and that kind of exposure to different ways of living life I think will allow me to live mine more fulfillingly.
