All politicians take my advice: A very good way to keep litter off of your city streets is to develop a culture in which nobody eats on the go. I can´t tell you how much money I´ve saved just by wanting a drink but not wanting to sit down to drink it. I´m so used to carrying a drink while I walk down the street, or at least seeing people with a cup of coffee. Spaniards love coffee, every 10 steps there´s another coffee shop, but I have never ever ever seen anyone on the bus with a cup, or on the street at 8am with some hot cocoa. It´s bizarre. And now that I´ve thought about it, there are no fast food restaraunts and definitely no drive-thrus although there is plenty of traffic. There´s a McDonalds and Burger King on the way to the beach, but...it´s really nice. I should take a picture of it, becase it is all-the-way-sit-down-for-hours kind of place.
A sure-fire way to pick a non-spaniard out of the crowd is if they´re not eating at a table. The other day I saw someone eating a tangerine on the bus and I was genuinely surprised, until I heard her speak. She was from England. Yesterday I went to the beach and saw some of the girls from the program there. I noticed right away that each of them had a can of coke beside them and as I looked around, nobody else had food with them, except for another group of americans not far off. How odd!
It´s funny: I´ve never thought of myself as someone who always checks their watch until I came here and suddenly never have time to stop at a cafe for a drink. Dangit, I am the typical American and didn´t even realize it. I was sitting at a cafe yesterday (because I was thirst and forced myself to sit down) and I watched a man sit with his teeny-tiny shot size of espresso and spend 5 minutes drinking it in his seat. Seriously, it would have taken 10 seconds to drink it and be off!
Anyway, enough about coffee. Like I said, I went to the beach yesterday. I was so bored that I walked to the beach, stood there for 5 minutes, walked back to my house, played a game on my cell phone for an hour, walked back to the beach for another 5 minutes, and went home again. It´s like a 10-15 minute walk one way to the beach. Do you see how my Sundays are? I'll be there today, too, for a longer period of time!
Argh I know there was something else about culture I wanted to say, but I can´t remember! In other news, my host madre ran out of that nasty salad stuff, so she´s serving classic romaine now. How wonderful that it's not bitter!
Later, folks.
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