• Nobody thinks it's warm here. It feels like summer to me, so I've been wearing shorts nearly every day and getting some stares. Apparently it isn't very warm for the locals, who walk around bundled up in winter coats and scarves.
• The hot chocolate is different here, but I like it better. It's much thicker than the normal hot chocolate that you drink in the U.S. In fact, you don't drink the hot chocolate here at all. Instead you eat it with a spoon or dunk churros or other pastries in it.
• According to Alicia, all of the school children go home for lunch every day around 1:30. Then they go back to school and have classes until 5pm! And at her school, they have half-days on Fridays because they don't have to return after lunch. I'm hoping to go to school with her some day, because I would LOVE to see how schools function in Spain.
• Last night, we walked by a McDonald's restaurant in Plaza de Catalunya where there were self-serve ordering machines to accelerate the lines. Here's a photo of my friend Mary striking a pose in front of the machines.
• In the U.S., sales are generally marked as a certain percent off the original price. Here, discounts are shown as negative percents. It's not really that different, but it has just caught my attention a few times.
There was a report on NPR today that although unemployment is rampant in Spain, there's a lot of conspicuous consumption with the example given of Apple stores opening all over the place. Have you seen that?
ReplyDeleteGreat observations. I'd like to try that hot chocolate!!
ReplyDeleteLove,
Mom
Everything dairy is thicker in Europe
ReplyDeleteI LOVE European hot chocolate!
ReplyDeleteit's SO good! especially when you dunk churros in it :)
ReplyDelete