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SPANISH HABITS

‘Nobody listens here!’ Ten common complaints foreigners make to their Spanish partners

Cross-cultural relationships are as interesting as they are complex. Here are some of the ten most common moans foreigners have when talking to their Spanish partners.

'Nobody listens here!' Ten common complaints foreigners make to their Spanish partners
"You Spaniards smoke too much", is one of the grumbles many foreigners make to their Spanish partners. Photo: Zach Rowlandson/Unsplash

Spaniards are a passionate bunch. They wear their hearts on their sleeves, speak their minds when necessary and live life to the fullest.

But when it comes to life in Spain, their foreign partners may soon pick up on cultural differences and Spanish habits they don’t really understand.

From their penchant for swearing to how fatty the food is, The Local lists some of the most common complaints foreigners have about Spanish partners and Spain as a whole.

Let the grumbling begin! 

“You Spaniards are always swearing.” One of the things foreigners notice about Spain is the swearing. Everyone from grandmothers to toddlers seems to be at it. Don’t take offence though – swearing is just not as big a deal in Spain as elsewhere. 

“Everything takes so long here.” Whether it’s organising a new SIM card for a phone, opening a bank account or just buying a light bulb, everything in Spain seem to take longer than almost anywhere else in the known universe, foreigners will often claim.

“Do we really have to spend Sunday with your family again?” Many foreigners in Spain have left their home country to get away from their family, but in Spain blood ties are generally strong and family get-togethers are common. Getting stuck with a whole load of aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws – no matter how nice they are – isn’t necessarily what foreigners had in mind for their Spanish adventure.

“The food here is so fatty/greasy/salty.” Many people arrive in Spain envisaging olives, salads and mounds of fruit. Instead they get lots of fried meat and, well, fried meat. “Yes, Spanish food can be amazing, but the occasional vegetable wouldn’t kill anyone, would it?” some foreign partners often grumble.

“Nobody listens in this country!” Spaniards may have fine-tuned the art of all talking over the top of each other, but for foreigners used to a more give-and-take approach to conversation, the free-form Spanish version can be mind-bending.

“Your compatriots are such drama queens.” A lot of Spaniards like a bit of excitement in their lives, and don’t mind hanging out their emotional laundry. This is tough for more reserved foreigners where feelings are stuffed deep down into their souls. 

“Is anyone ever on time in this country?” While some Spaniards take great pains to never arrive late, others have a more fluid relation to time. Many ‘guiris’ find this less than endearing – at least until they give in and start being late themselves. 

“Why can’t I just go out and blow off some steam?” Sometimes northern Europeans just need to go out and drink too much and make fools of themselves. Unfortunately, this sort of unhinged behaviour isn’t as common among Spaniards, which may mean they take this personally and imagine their foreign partner is up to all sorts of mischief. 

“Can’t we do something different for a change?” Spaniards are master (slow) drinkers, eaters and talkers, and really know how to make a drawn out lunch enjoyable. But sometimes it seems that socialising is all they do. This can be tough if you really feel like trying out something new.

“People here smoke too much.” Spain’s bars and restaurants may not be the smoke-filled dens they used to be but around a quarter of Spaniards smoke every day. That figure is around one in ten in the UK and the US, for example. So it’s no surprise that for many foreigners based in Spain, Spaniards smoke like chimneys. 

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FOOD AND DRINK

Why do they pour cider like that in Spain’s Asturias?

The green northern region’s drink of choice is cider but it’s the method waiters have of pouring it from a great height that catches the attention of ‘out-ciders’.

Why do they pour cider like that in Spain's Asturias?

They say Asturian blood is 50 percent water and 50 percent cider, and given the 40 million bottles produced every year in the region, it doesn’t seem too hard to believe.

However, it’s the method of serving cider in Asturias which really captures the imagination. 

The bottle will either come attached to a contraption which sucks up the cider and splurts it into a wide but thin-rimmed glass.

Or the waiter will come out every few minutes to grab your bottle and glass, lift the former high up with one arm and the latter down low around waist height before pouring some of the cider into the glass from at an arm’s length. 

There’s even a verb for this action – escanciar – to decant.  

The objective is for the cider to be shaken and aerated so that its natural carbon dioxide ‘awakens’.

When it is poured from above and hits the glass, carbon dioxide bubbles are produced that make the aroma of the cider come alive.

It’s good and normal for there to be splashback when pouring Asturian cider, but the aim is still to get most of it in the glass. (Photo by MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP)

These bubbles go away quickly so once served, the customer should quickly drink the culín (small bottom) up in one swig. 

The action of escanciar imitates how cider would be traditionally served when it went directly from big oak barrels to the glass, as cider has been the drink of choice in Asturians since before Roman times. 

READ ALSO: Why Spaniards’ habit of drinking alcohol every day is surprisingly healthy

This is after all natural cider which doesn’t come with the sugar, additives and pre-carbonated mixes of brands such as Strongbow, Magners or Kopparberg.

“It took me some time to get the hang of pouring cider, I missed the mark a lot, and my arm used to get very tired at first,” a Latin American waitress at a bar in Gijón told The Local Spain. 

Many sidrerías (cider houses) and restaurants have cylindrical tubes on wheels where escanciadores (the waiters in charge of pouring cider) can put the glass in to avoid making a mess on the floor or splashing customers, as there is always some splatter even if they don’t completely miss the mark. 

A waiter pours cider for customers at a cider bar in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo (Photo by RAFA RIVAS / AFP)

The more old-school chigres (cider house in Asturian) prefer to have sawdust all over the floor to absorb the spilt cider.

To pour, tirar (throw) or escanciar (decant) cider like an Asturian, you should tilt the bottle slowly from above and aim for the cider to hit the top part of the inside side of the glass, which has to be held at a 45-degree angle. It’s this that brings out the effervescence out in la sidra natural.  

So when you visit the beautiful region of Asturias and you tuck into their famously ample servings of fabada asturiana (Asturian bean stew) or cachopo (meat, cheese and ham all together in breadcrumbs), washed down with one or two bottles of sidra, now you’ll understand what’s behind this eye-catching tradition.

READ ALSO: Eight fascinating facts about Spain’s Asturias region

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