I spent one year in Zaragoza, in the north of Spain, and lived with a family in a tiny village surrounded by almond trees (it was as idyllic as it sounds!). I wanted to talk about one thing which seems to be quite different in Spain compared to the UK, and that is alcohol.
In the UK, alcohol is quite restricted, and is most definitely shielded from the eyes of children. In the supermarket, alcohol is placed separately to the aisles of sweets and fizzy drinks â the classic setting for parent child power struggles â and when found elsewhere in the store bottles are placed high up on the shelf so none but the gangliest preteen could hope to reach them. If aforementioned preteen does get to the check out with his contraband, he is unceremoniously turned away by the diligent store assistant. Drinking establishments often have clearly defined and distinct areas for eating and consuming alcohol âaccess to these places is restricted, and many children nowadays will not have set foot in a pub before the age of 18.
At a Spanish supermarket, in contrast, alcoholic beer appears side by side with soft drinks, near the entrance of the store. Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beers sit together â itâs often hard to tell the difference between them. A British consumer might cast an eye over the price tags to differentiate â however, in Spain this is no help as alcoholic beer is often cheaper than the equivalent soft drink! This theme follows through to restaurants, where due to the economic savings involved I was compelled to order a lager with every meal for half the price of orange juice. Pubs do not exist in Spain in the same way as in England â stop at any local cafĂ© and lining the shelves will be lemonade, Colacao (a chocolately milk drink) and neat vodka. And the Spanish are just dying to give alcohol away. At the end of every meal out, tiny chupito glasses appear on the table â a 40 proof aperitif on the house.
I donât know whether itâs the difference in taxation, a more relaxed drinking culture or just flagrant alcoholism. All I can say is that now I know why the first Spanish phrase a British person often learns is âdos cervezas, por favour!â
Category Archives: My Intercultural Experience
Drinking in Spain
Filed under My Intercultural Experience
A Cultural Journey during a Year Abroad!
My name is Georgia and I just finished an internship with Routes into Languages at the University of Southampton. I studied French and German at Southampton and spent my third year as an Erasmus student at the Goethe UniversitÀt in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
When I was in Frankfurt, my main group of friends was made up of other German speaking Erasmus students from countries such as Hungary, Switzerland, Moldova, Greece and France. I was so happy that I got to know them as they were really friendly and we learnt a lot about each otherâs countries â all while speaking and improving our German!
We did lots of things together, such as day trips to local towns and going to bars in Frankfurt. One of the most enjoyable activities we did were âinternational eveningsâ, where we took it in turns to invite people round and cook food from our home countries. This gave us the chance to try food from other countries and we also did other things: on the evening hosted by our Hungarian friend, we learnt traditional Hungarian dances; for the Swiss evening, we had a quiz about Switzerland and on the Greek evening, we sang Greek songs. It was really interesting learning things about different countries and I liked being able to share things about the UK too â apple crumble and custard went down very well!
Through these evenings, I learnt lots about my new friendsâ home countries, which also helped us get to know each other better. Since we were from so many different countries, I felt that you were able to learn lots about them equally and that we treated every international evening with as much interest and enthusiasm as the last. Toblerone cheesecake didnât hurt, eitherâŠ
Filed under My Intercultural Experience
Cooking for Spanish Friends
My name is Fraser Bowen, Iâm from the UK, and I studied BA French and German
On my Erasmus year abroad in Switzerland, I was cooking for a small group of Spanish people. I made the assumption that Spanish people love spicy food, and I made them a very spicy meal. However, it turns out I had got Spanish food mixed up with Mexican food. Mexicans love to put chilli everywhere, but the Spanish have herbs and spices that arenât chillis. The Spanish people couldnât finish my food, which I had put extra chilli into, because it was too spicy! It was pretty embarrassing when I said that they should like spicy food, theyâre Spanish! It turns out that all the American TV I watch which paints all Hispanic people as Mexican hasnât helped me develop a very good idea of the different cultures present in the Spanish speaking world.
