This blog post marks the beginning of my 4th work week with only 5 left, so about half way through the program. Assimilating into the culture has been easy in some aspects and much harder in others. In general, Madrid is a very touristy city I’ve noticed, and the street and apartment I am living in is a tourist hotspot, so I think assimilation has been a little bit different for me. The apartment next to mine for example is rented out by my host mom as an airbnb to other tourists. As a result of this, every restaurant and business around me, which are the places I go to the most, are very used to dealing with tourists and non-spanish speakers which hasn’t given me the most realistic view of culture in Spain. Rather than me needing to assimilate into Spanish culture, many of the workers here need to assimilate to accommodate the tourists that they deal with. This isn’t to say that everything’s the same as it is in the US though, as I have encountered many cultural differences still. 

Coming to work has definitely shown me a different side to the culture that I have had to assimilate into. Learning the customs and common behaviors while at work was something that I needed to learn once I got here. I mainly just did this by seeing what everyone else was doing and how they acted and replicating it. Overall, it wasn’t that difficult and I think I have assimilated well into the working culture. 

The daily life schedule however I am still struggling with. I have not been able to really assimilate that well into a conventional Spanish daily life schedule. It is not for lack of understanding how it works and when things are done, but rather the difference between here and the US is so stark that it has been difficult. For example, my family usually eats dinner at around 10:30, which is more or less when I like to go to bed. I have found it really hard to try and change my schedule to get used to eating dinner at 10:30 and then just going to bed right after. I am usually very hungry for dinner at like 6 and assimilating into this new schedule hasn’t really happened yet and I don’t know if it will by the time I leave. Similarly, everything is just done later in the day then it would be in the US, and people generally stay out later. I like going to bed earlier and am more of a morning person so this change is hard to cope with and assimilate into. 

Another smaller thing about the culture that I haven’t yet to assimilate to/am not a fan of is the walking and rules of the road/sidewalk. Everyone here walks so incredibly slowly and all over the place. There is absolutely no order or norms on how to walk on the sidewalk. People just walk in the middle at like 1 mph and do not move or even acknowledge anyone trying to get past them. This has been quite annoying for me when I try to run, especially because the streets are so narrow that they aren’t really suitable for a runner and car on it together at the same time. This forces me to try and maneuver on the sidewalk around all the slow walkers and I always come close to running into them or I need to really slow down at parts. This walking culture here is something that I really have not gotten used to and don’t think I will ever. 

Looking back at this week from a more personal view however, it has been the most relaxed week I’ve had since being here. The Euros started this week and over the weekend I really just stayed in and watched all the games. It was nice to have a relaxing chill weekend without anything to do, especially because this upcoming weekend I will be in Morocco and doing a lot. Spain also played their first game of the Euros on Saturday and I was quite surprised at how tame the city was. I was expecting a lot more excitement amongst the population and more public viewing parties/people watching at restaurants but that wasn’t really the case. It was really no different from a normal day. Maybe as Spain hopefully progresses in the tournament the excitement will increase and it will feel different. It was a nice week overall though and I am very excited for the coming weekend and having a little weekend trip to Marrakesh.