I generally avoid “expat” or “living abroad” articles and blog posts because I just can’t with them, but I found this one and figured I’d break it down as an American who’s lived in Spain and my family was living there when I wasn’t.
For context, in case this is the only post of mine you’ve seen, I moved to the Basque Country when I was 12, and when I was 15 my family moved to Málaga on the southern coast in Andalucía, and when I was 16 my family moved to a small town about 30 km outside of Sevilla and they were there until I was 23. I moved to Germany for boarding school at 15 while the rest of my family moved to Málaga, and on breaks from school, I used to stay with my family both in downtown Málaga and in the small town in Sevilla, which is where I also stayed on breaks before, during, and after my study abroad program when I was in college. I’ve been back to the Basque Country a few times since my family left in 2001, right after spending 6 months in the US before I moved to Germany, in the summer of 2001, 2008 for a few hours, 2010 for three weeks, and every year since 2016 minus 2020 because of the pandemic (I was in Spain that year, but not in the Basque Country). I visit my best friend there, whom I’ve known since I was 13, and I also spend a lot of time in Barcelona, which I’ve visited twice a year since 2019 (with the exception of 2020, for the aforementioned reasons; I was only there once).
TL;DR, I’ve spent a lot of time in Spain over the years, so while I am not, and never will be Spanish, I have a lot of experience with the culture and the people, and not just as a tourist.
Anyway, I found this article by someone who lived in Sevilla for a while and is reflecting on her experiences there. I will do my best to not be insulting or patronizing, but I’ve seen some myths presented here that I really want to clear up.
On the topic of kissing (or “los besos”) in Spain for greeting:
If you don't kiss someone that you are meeting, it is considered very rude. You would even still be required to kiss an ex-lover, unless the relationship ended very very badly.
When you kiss, it is best to actually physically touch the cheeks of the person that you are kissing instead of just kissing the air and making the kissing noise.
The vast majority of the writer’s observations about greetings are correct. It’s done when meeting someone for the first time or after extended periods of time. It’s done by women to women and men, men to women, not men to men, and children are usually involved as well. Pretty straightforward. As to the rules mentioned, while I don’t have experience with ex-lovers, I’m pretty sure that if you decline the besos everyone around will understand why and it’s not that big of a deal, especially if everyone knows the background. If not, it’s not really anyone’s business and as far as I’m aware, there’s no social stigma involved. I do want to clarify the point about “physically touching”… you should touch cheeks, but you’re under no obligation (in fact, I don’t know anyone who actually does this) to actually kiss the other person’s cheek. You touch cheeks (and if that makes you uncomfortable you can just get as close as comfortable) and kiss the air. That may have needed to be clarified, just in case.
On “tapas”
The author’s general assessment of tapas is correct. They’re kind of like appetizers, and even though it doesn’t really mean “small dishes” (the word “tapar” in Spanish means “to cover”, and the theory goes that food was placed on bread to cover drinks to keep flies and other bugs from getting into the glass) and are generally more common to eat as a “snack” (“merienda”) or during a coffee break and for the evening meal and not the mid-afternoon meal. The mid-afternoon meal is the big one and it’s generally three courses, but if you’re like me, tapas are perfectly acceptable for this as well since I can’t eat a three-course meal anymore but I’m an exception. Honestly though, while her assessment is generally correct, most of the dishes shown in the post are actual plates more than tapas, but it’s more of a semantic issue since if you’re in a group and ordering plates to share, they (the plates) can absolutely be considered “tapas”.
On meals
Spanish people don’t rely on fast food chains to feed their families like many American families do. In Seville, they have McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell, but they are there for the tourists. Very few locals eat there.
Tons of locals actually eat at internationally recognized fast food joints. They’re very popular with tourists, yes, but every time I’ve gotten food at any McDonald’s or Burger King (Taco Bell isn’t as common in cities that aren’t Madrid, Barcelona, or Sevilla) there have been tons of locals placing an order and eating. Sure, it’s mostly teenagers and travelers (especially at train stations and airports), but also shoppers at malls and downtown shopping districts. Sometimes you only have time for something fast, sometimes you just crave a burger and fries. Even with more “traditional” restaurants nearby, there are still always locals grabbing food at good ol’ Mickey D’s and BK. They’re hardly “there for the tourists”.
Spanish food isn't based around sugar while Americans love their sugar. Americans put sugar in their already very sweet sugared cereal. They drink their coffee with tons of syrups and chocolate powder. They chug a 32 oz. soda in one sitting like it’s nothing. Spanish people have less of a sweet tooth. They don’t focus on dessert.
Spanish bakers would like a word. Spaniards love their sweets. Coke, Pepsi, even local drinks like Kas Limón and Naranja are loaded with sugar, even in Spain. People pour the entire teaspoon packet of sugar into their coffee. Cola Cao is the beverage of choice for kids, so is Nesquik, which are both the Spanish equivalent to chocolate milk. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, sure, due to the influx of American brands, but still, Spaniards do love their sweets. Custards, pastries, even the classic “barra” of bread you pick up at the local bakery, piping hot, has sugar in it. “Natillas” (kinda like a vanilla pudding), "flan”, any iteration of yogurt aimed to kids have tons of sugar.
He ate a little bit of one but then politely said, "Can I just please have a banana?" The poor kid was already sugar overloaded for the day and just wanted to eat something healthy and non-sugary.
But I bet if he’d been offered a sandwich with Nocilla (Spanish Nutella) on it, or with a a block of Milka chocolate in it he would have been happy. Of course, this is also after a reference to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made by the author's mother or mother-in-law, and PB&J is not at all a common thing in Spain (or anywhere outside the US), so he probably looked at it with confusion and just preferred something he was more familiar with.
On live music
When you’re eating a restaurant, they will play something for you at your table.
Yes, and then someone else will come up and steal your wallet from your handbag, if not just the whole thing. If you’re in a public square and the entertainment is coming from the center of the square, you’re probably safe, but if you’re at a café/bar/restaurant and there’s someone performing at your table, keep your valuables safe. This is often a ruse used to part you with your goods.
Otherwise, I mean, sure, street performances are pretty common, but it’s like this all over Europe, especially in public squares where there are lots of people. It’s the same thing as those guys in costume at Times Square in NYC who also sometimes perform music (go to Washington Square Park sometime!). Where there are people, there’s money. One of the photos she shows is of “tunos”, performers participating in a “tuna”. This is a group of university students dressed in clothing representing the university or field of study, and just wander around playing music despite usually not being professionals. This is definitely more unique to Spain, though various universities throughout Latin America have them as well. So this is definitely something you’ll see in Spain, though much more commonly in areas near a major university.
Thought I’d point that out; it’s not a myth debunked but more like clarification as to what’s going on there. Anyway, moving on…
On schedules
In America they might call the police on you if your toddler is out that late, but in Spain, it’s completely normal.
Funny story… when we first moved to Spain this was definitely something my mom struggled to understand at first. She wanted us in bed at 8 pm, only to have the kids in the other parts of the building we were living in still playing in the patio at 9 pm, and then when we started hanging out with them, they’d ask why we weren’t joining them. My mom soon realized that if they were out there that late and had school at the same time we did, she might as well let us go out at that time too. Definitely a culture shock!
So she’s not wrong here! Just thought I’d share that story because the struggle is real.
I will say that “dinner at 8 pm” is even early by Spanish standards, especially if she’s in Sevilla, where dinner is often much later. 10, 11 pm. Especially in the summer, when it gets up to 110 F in the middle of the day. People start to leave their houses at 6 when they’ll grab coffee or some drinks, more drinks and tapas around 8, then eat something bigger around 10 or 11 before heading home and going to bed around midnight. But I guess for a young child, which she’s referencing here, it might be a bit more normal. Of course, it’s also plenty normal to see young kids running around at 10:30 pm in the summer.
On families/family life
And, Spanish kids are polite at restaurants and know how to sit quietly with the adults and visit. (Yes, without electronics!) You’ll often see kids dressed up in matching clothes even if they aren’t twins. Spanish parents typically dress up their kids in all matching attire, the girls and the boys. Something in some way is usually coordinating.
This is something that’s generally only common among the more upper-crust families (“pijos”, as they’re referred to in Spanish). I’ve seen plenty of kids with mom’s iPad or iPhone in their hands, as well as plenty of yelling and squealing and general kid noises at restaurants, and not just from non-Spaniards. The coordinating/matching outfits are very “pijo” and only something which parents with money will do with their kids. Of course, it also bears mentioning that it’s much more common in Spain for couples to have children much later on in life (most women are no longer getting pregnant before they’re 30) so their financial situation is generally much more stable, adding on to the fact that Spanish mothers are treated to much better maternity leave when they give birth so there’s better opportunity for bonding with their child than in the US where maternal leave varies with employer, and men are often granted paternity leave in Spain which is all but unheard of in the US. So there’s that.
But yes… you can tell which parents are well-off in Spain based on whether they have more than one child (more than one kid generally = money) and if said children wear coordinating outfits or not. Of course, I’ve known well-off parents whose children aren’t coordinating either, so I think the coordinating colors/outfits is generally a very “pijo” thing that only serves to show off how much money you have to the other parents in town.
The kids in Spain have imaginations and are able to entertain themselves easily. They play outside and very few own their own IPAD, iPhone, and IPOD
I don’t know any small children in the US who have their own devices either (12-year-olds, sure, but not toddlers and 8-year-olds, though I have known 7-year-olds in Spain to be given iPods for their birthday), but they certainly have their parents give them some to use while they’re out in public. I’ve definitely seen kids in Spain with devices, or begging Mom and Dad for theirs and then turning the volume all the way up so the entire square can listen to whichever YouTube video they’re watching or flashy video game they’ve decided to entertain themselves with.
They are very simple – one small slide, one teeter-totter, and maybe two swings. That’s it.
To be fair, since Spain doesn’t have the lawsuit-happy culture the US does, these often do cause American parents to pause because WHERE ARE THE SAFETY FEATURES?! A new playground was put in right outside our complex in the Basque Country, and the day it opened one of our neighbors, a friend of ours we were always playing with, fell and shattered one of her legs and was in a wheelchair for a month. No one sued, and the kids still played there. So there’s that.
What you need is an imagination. Spanish kids have imaginations and they use them constantly. They don’t express the well known phrase that American kids say much too often, “I’m bored!” They find joy in the little things.
Yo, so do American kids! Like… kids all over the world use their imaginations. And use them. Even here in the US. I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but I’ve seen plenty of kids around here goofing around, telling stories, to each other and their parents and this isn’t even just me talking about my Older Millennial childhood. I know for a fact there are young children in the US who still run around and play and use their imaginations, not to mention that again, Spanish kids are also now wanting to be YouTube influencers and asking for their parents’ devices when they’re bored. “ME ABURROOOOOOOO” (“I’M BOREDDDDDD”) is a common complaint by Spanish kids.
On language
I love the fact that the kids in Spain know two or three languages, and often times more. They learn English in school and also learn the languages of their parents, as well as learning Spanish from TV and by living in a Spanish speaking country.
I know times are changing, but 25 years ago when my family first moved to Spain, very few people were bilingual. If someone was bilingual in Spain it meant one of two things: their parents (or they themselves) were immigrants, or it meant that they lived in a part of the country with a co-official language, like Galician, Catalan/Valencian, or Basque. And even if they were in the Basque Country, they’d only actually speak Basque if their parents and family did or were required to learn it for work, such as in government work or education. Other than that, everyone only spoke Spanish.
English education has absolutely been expanded and improved since my time in Spanish public school (when English education was abysmal) and it’s more accessible to kids outside of public school. But most teachers are still required to be native Spaniards, meaning that your odds can be hit-or-miss in terms of the actual English being taught. Most of the time, kids who speak English have parents who have the money to attend private English classes outside of what they get in public school if they don’t attend a private bilingual school. Your average Spanish kid generally can’t communicate in English, and even most adults outside of areas with co-official languages don't speak anything other than Spanish. The original author most likely only had connections with people who already spoke English, leading to a very small sample size of people surrounding her, leading to these conclusions. Sure, there are families who are very well-educated and speak other languages. But this is by far not the norm for most of the country.
Bottom Line
The vast majority of the author’s observations on Spanish culture are accurate and portray a realistic view of what living in Spain and Spanish culture is like. Seriously. Go read the article. It’s overall quite good and makes very good points about living in Spain.
I do want to point out though that Spain is a relatively large country with multiple cultures and subcultures inside of it. The culture portrayed here in Sevilla is not necessarily what you’d come across if you were to move to Pontevedra, Barcelona, Bilbao, or León, or even Salamanca or Teruel. Many things are the same, but others are not. People do behave differently in different parts of the country (northern Spaniards are considered more “cold” and “aloof” compared to people in the south, for example). That doesn’t mean one part is better than another, they’re just different. There are a different norms, different perspectives, different histories. My family’s experiences in rural Spain were different than their experiences in urban Spain and northern vs. southern. The food can vary. so can costs.
It also turns out, after spending way too much time perusing the author’s Instagram account, that the total amount of time she spent living in Sevilla was four months, so I mean, sure. Yeah. Totally an expert on all of Spain at this point (Why do people do this, I mean, seriously? An extended vacation is not “living” anywhere. The family probably had nothing more than a tourist visa.). Not to say it’s impossible to know a country when spending 4 months there, but from experience, it’s very very hard to do unless you’re in Liechtenstein or something.
Spain is an amazing country and I adore it, partly because it is so familiar to me given how much time I’ve spent there and how many connections I’ve made there. But I also think perpetuating myths and overly romanticizing certain aspects of life (kids gonna be kids; y’all don’t even wanna know about my experiences with bullying in Spain) there doesn’t do anyone, least of all Spain, any favors. Please keep this in mind when talking about other places.
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