Whenever you move to another country, you’ll invariably go through what’s known as culture shock, a roller-coaster of emotions that you experience while dealing with the obvious (speaking a foreign language, listening to weird accents) to the benign (nothing open on Sundays) to the bizarre (blackface Epiphany parade-goers). I’ve talked about culture shock before on this blog, from all sorts of little differences I’ve noticed in Spanish elementary schools and Spanish apartments to saying things like “see you later” in the street when you mean “hi!” or “enjoy your meal!” to complete strangers.
culture shock spain
Galician countryside
Although some people might complain about how everything here in Spain is sOoOoOo different from cultures in the United States or England or what have you, I believe there is actually a lot we share in common and the main cultural differences—i.e., those things that can wear you down and cause culture shock—are just a lot of little things that can build up over time. It’s not like in East Asia where they place a big emphasis on saving face, or in Arab countries where you have to learn a completely unrelated writing system; I don’t believe there are that many huge cultural hurdles to leap over when moving to Spain coming from another Western country.
However, while much of daily life in Spain is similar to that in other countries in Europe or North America, you do tend to notice small differences every now and then that make you go “hmm.”