Spanish Culture

After two months living in Madrid I will tell you something about my experiences with the Spanish culture. The first weeks on University were hard for me. Unlike in the Netherlands the difference between teacher and students is much bigger. For example when you are quite sure the teacher is making a mistake and you try to tell him he can become very grumpy.
In the Netherlands we are used to have your own opinion here it is better to follow the opinion of your teacher.

When Spanish people give an answer on a teacher’s question the will always start their answer with ; Maybe … because you cannot be as sure of your answer as the teacher. One day the average grade of an exam was around 2 or 3 , the teacher asked us how it could be possible that nobody understood the exam. I told him that the questions were a bit unclear so I did not understand what he was asking for. The whole group of Spanish people looked at me in shock because they thought I was very rude by telling him what I was really thinking. However after me some Spanish people were carefully supporting me by admitting my point.



We made some Spanish friends which is maybe one of the most exciting things of my exchange. They are so nice to us and also really interested in where we come from and how we think about Spain. The boyfriend of one of our friends is studying in Tilburg at the moment so she went one week to Tilburg and told us about her experiences in the Netherlands. We went out with them what was really cool because we also talked a lot and had a lot of fun. On Facebook I am trying to speak Spanish with them what is still very difficult because I know so little vocabulary.

I can tell you just a bit about the Toros, bull fights, since I really love animals and for me this is just animal cruelty but I also spoke with my Spanish friends about this and their opinion was that this is really a culture part and you can’t have a good opinion about without knowing that part. I guess this is true and I don’t have a very strong opinion about this but I just don’t like to see it. Some of my exchange student friends went to the Toros, normally 6 bulls are killed in one show but they left after 3 bulls because they couldn’t see it any more. I guess we don’t understand the culture part since this is not our culture and then you don’t understand it and just see the cruelty.

Last week we would go to the hairdresser and our Spanish friend Alvaro immediately proposed to go with us to explain the hairdresser how to cut us. You may think we could do this ourselves in English but just 20% of the Spanish people speak English which can be very difficult for an exchange student! Luckily for us they are really improving this by offer a lot of English courses for Spanish people of all ages.

Our friends told us that the hierarchy between teacher and students is becoming smaller and that also they think it is not a good thing that they can never give their opinion. Our friends are really good English speakers and it is clear that people under the age of 25 speak much more often English.

What I really like in Spain is the food culture, the Spanish people love food. They don’t eat that much in the morning just a croissant and a cup of coffee. For lunch they have a break of 2 hours where they eat a 2 course meal in a restaurant. Despite the fact that Spain is in a crisis and there are a lot of tramps on the street they will never economize on food. By night around 10 pm they go again to the tapas bar to eat some tapas and drinks some sangrias, vino tintos or tinto de verano. Spanish people are really social people who live more on the streets and in restaurants than in their houses. The only problem for me is that my stomach won’t get just to the Spanish dinner time. I have a lot of pain but I keep trying to eat every night at 10.

As I told you before we have to do a lot more in this University. You have to be in class, make a lot of assignments, review tests and projects. I don’t like this system but Spanish people seems to care about this since Uc3m is the best University in Spain for Business administration since they like the fact that students from Uc3m are so used to work very hard.

I also had an appointment with one of my teachers to discuss a bit about my final project. After we talked another hour about the my exchange experiences. He told me that he start his day around 7.30 am and finish his work around 8 or even 9 pm. He told me he had worked in a lot of different countries where the people quit between 4 and 5 pm, the difference is that in the Netherlands the people work more efficient. Just some short breaks and when they work they work really hard. Spanish people prefer to work in a relax-modus and take a lot of breaks and longer breaks.

I think this are the main differences I experienced. The first months it was a bit hard for me but now I get used to their culture and found my way how to cope with this. Sometimes I just keep my opinion for myself what is still a bit difficult for an open minded person as I am. I love to spend my free time with my Spanish friends. I love the Spanish tapas despite my stomach don’t like the time to eat and more and more we get the feeling the teachers lose their prejudice that all the exchange people never come to class and do nothing.
For me it is nice to see how different a culture can be just 1699 km away from Tilburg.