Why do you like Spain? (read beginning post first!) [Archive]

Ben

13th June 2006, 04:57 PM

What is it that draws you to Spain? What do you like so much about the country?

I think I'm interested in exploring the essence of Spain in the eyes of others, in your/our eyes to be precise!

Try to answer first, before you read what others have posted - don't worry if you find that someone has already picked out and mentioned your thoughts/ideas, maybe we can find a few common demoniators that really define what makes Spain so wonderful.

ValenciaSon

13th June 2006, 05:37 PM

Spain is part of my heritage. It is part of who I am and where I came from. It is part of my youth and so Spain is sort of like this distant part of me that isn't apparent on the surface but is certaintly imbedded and will never go away. I recognize that my perception is Spain from 1973 viewed through the eyes of a 9 year old, so I am really curious to learn what has evolved since and what is Spain as viewed through my adult mind.

jessica

13th June 2006, 06:49 PM

i hate to be cliche, but i'd really have to say the crystal blue water, the culture, the language, and the majesty of the cities and buildings. there's so much to explore and, from what i've seen on videos, there are so many things unlike what you'd find here in the US.

whenever i give that kind of an answer i always get asked "well, can't you have all of that in mexico or something?" and i never really know what to say except yes, but it seems so much more appealing in Spain. :)

richardksa

13th June 2006, 07:47 PM

In a word - vivacidad.

jt_skip

13th June 2006, 08:15 PM

I'm an observer of world culture, I enjoy exploring the worlds different cultures thru travel and blogs like this one. In my readings, I have found Spain maintains a certian mystic, Americans are more familiar with the British Culture, and perhaps slightly less of French, Italien, German, Irish and Mexican cultures. (IMHO)While Mexico decends from Spain, the culture, food, attitude is dramatically different from Spain.
I think much of the American perceptions comes from various imigration to the US. Thus Americans in general are unfamiliar with the Spain of today, the rich history, the dynamic culture.

I have one good friend who has found himself working in Barcelona, while he does not apprecieate the culture as much as I might. My contact with him has opened a few windows into everyday Spanish life... Enough to intrigue me to learn more about Spain.

Edith

13th June 2006, 08:35 PM

I have always liked Spain intuitively, even as a child. The language of course, and the food, especially seafood... the climate of Spain's south coast... the music, the art, the architecture, its fascinating history. I love Andalucía and its Moorish palaces. The Spanish people have got a great sense of style. Think of those little patios and all the potted plants you will find there - wonderful. Even the humble geranium looks great on a Spanish balcony. Think of the heavy wooden doors studded with cast-iron nails, the trelliswork, the azulejos! Need I say more?

Mexico is another great favorite of mine, its culture being an interesting mix of Spanish and Native American elements. It would be very hard for me to choose between Spain and Mexico. :)

Edith

13th June 2006, 08:41 PM

I have found Spain maintains a certian mystic, Americans are more familiar with the British Culture

I'm from Holland and Anglo-Saxon cultural influence is very extensive here, so this sounds familiar. Very few people in Holland speak Spanish, so this part of the world remains closed to them. Even though my Spanish is still pretty basic, learning Spanish has opened doors for me... just like English.

cubix

13th June 2006, 10:20 PM

Culture, the language(compared to other countries it has stayed purer), the people, the food

dave

14th June 2006, 04:46 AM

Wow, how timely! My wife and I leave for Portugal and Spain in just a couple weeks. We visit every two years for a month at a time. Now, I *love* Spain (when I went on business, I felt as if I'd won the lottery!), and so does my wife, but being Portuguese, she's loathe to admit it. ;D We have two empty homes in Portugal in which to stay, so things being the way they are, it just usually ends up that we don't get to spend more than a few days at a time in Sevilla.

Today we sat down and talked about a general timeline and guess what?! She wants to see more of Spain than we usually get to! woohoo! It looks like we'll be spending at least a week driving around Spain! We're thinking about Sevilla (a no-brainer for us), Cordoba, Granada, Madrid (Toledo) and somewhere in Galicia. Sorry, I'm just so excited and who better to share the news with than the NFS crowd? :)

To get back on topic.....

It's difficult to put my finger on why I feel the way I do about Spain. It's not the food. I'm the pickiest person in the world. In fact, she loves the food more than I do. I would say it's very likely simply the Spanish approach to life. Here in the States, we rush through everything. It feels like as a society, we're constantly trying to complete the task at hand to get on with the next. To me, Spain lives for the moment.

Now granted, I'm usually in Spain on vacation, which by definition allows one to temporarily live at a slower pace. But I have an exercise that I partake in whenever I'm there. I'll awake early in the morning, 7am or so, and I'll leave my wife and daughter asleep in the hotel room. I'll walk for a bit, buy a newspaper and find a coffee shop. I'll sit there reading for a bit and drink a cortado or two. Even there, among the people heading to work, I can feel it.

I find it difficult to verbalize what it is exactly that draws me back, but it definitely has more to do with the people and their attitude than anything else.

Jimmy

14th June 2006, 05:20 AM

For the guys: Penelope Cruz & Paz Vega.

For the girls: Antonio Banderas (or maybe for the guys who want to be like him - so to attract the previously mentioned females).

I even had a thing for Letizia for a while - until some bloke came along and whisked her away from my daily Telediario viewing !!!

:p

timg

14th June 2006, 09:04 AM

For me, one of the main things is the people. Coming from such a generally inhibited country (England - I'm not sure the other UK countries are as inhibited as the English!) it's refreshing to meet people who seem so open, so willing to chat and joke, across the whole age range. Of course I've encountered some not-so-pleasant people, but that's true wherever you go.

tostadora

14th June 2006, 02:49 PM

The thing that draws me back to Spain is the wild areas - the Picos de Europa, Sierra Nevada, the Sierra de Grazalema. Hiking for days through breath-taking landscapes. The variety of these landscapes are remarkable - lush and arid, open plains and jagged peaks. By European standards these wilderness areas are untamed, often challenging.

Also: gazpacho, not having to say please constantly, moving slowly through hot Sevilla afternoons, from-the-gut flamenco, the sense of endless possibillities for discovery.

celia s

15th June 2006, 07:07 PM

For me personally,Spain seems to be a country where its people have a real passion for everything that they do.
I am particularly impressed with age-old traditions such as flamenco,bull-fighting and cooking traditional recipes.
Not to mention the fiestas which demonstrate how proud and high spirited Spanish people really are.

Ben

16th June 2006, 11:25 PM

Here are some random answers that occured to me when I arrived back in Spain today after a week away:

The parched landscape viewed from the plane (so different to the rest of Europe)
How good a banana tasted that I found in the kitchen when I got home (fruit tastes so much better here)
The fact that beeing a cobbler is still a viable profession and that cobblers can still afford to run their own shops
The bicycle mounted knife sharpeners (I have to get a photo one day)
The heat as you get off the plane in summer
The down to earth simplicity of the typical Spanish bar...

There's so much more, but these jumped into my head when I arrived on Easy Jet today...

(NB, I moved the posts on Mexico that did appear above to a new thread, I hope that's OK! I'm hoping to keep this thread just about the nature/essence/wonder of Spain. Ben)

Marbella

17th June 2006, 12:05 AM

Sincere apologies if I came across too prickly about the purity of the Spanish thread.

Of course the S America aspect is fascinating and I enjoy reading it, but, it is like talking about Australia and New Zealand, or, USA and Canada as if they are the same.

Marbella

17th June 2006, 11:58 AM

I could write about so many things (would drive you mad!), but one thing I always find is that there always seems to be a surprise around the corner.

We spotted this guy for example in Madrid on Wednesday morning and he was still there at about 7 in the evening when we stopped for a beer on the terraza.

He sits in the well of a tree right on a busy pedestrian crossing in Calle Alcala/Goya. I've not captured it in the photos, but what was fascinating was the way people reacted to him. Some engaged in a brief conversation, some just tossed a few coins in the box without a word, some took a close look and then took a couple of steps back to gain a better perspective as if they were in an art gallery admiring a famous work...

At one point he got up to stretch his legs (I think the single piece of timber was quite heavy) and calmly left his box of money on the floor for a good 10 minutes while he wandered off up the road. I took it upon myself to stand guard, as I was sitting just a couple of tables away, but he knew that even in a busy capital city like Madrid, the chances of anyone picking up his cash was very slim. Isn't that nice?

http://static.flickr.com/66/168803667_53c94d0e06.jpg?v=0

http://static.flickr.com/44/168803666_798fdb40b1.jpg?v=0

Edith

17th June 2006, 04:10 PM

Beautiful! Is he carving stone or wood?

greytop

17th June 2006, 04:23 PM

At one point he got up to stretch his legs (I think the single piece of timber was quite heavy) ...

Edith
timber = wood

and you though Spanish was tricky!

Marbella

17th June 2006, 04:27 PM

Amazing colour isn't it; it does have a sand-stone look to it but it was definitely wood.

Edith

17th June 2006, 05:41 PM

Edith
timber = wood

and you though Spanish was tricky!

Oops... I must have skipped that post! (I know the word timber, LOL)

Sometimes I just read too fast. :blush:

Edith

17th June 2006, 05:47 PM

Amazing colour isn't it; it does have a sand-stone look to it but it was definitely wood.

That's what I thought it was: sand-stone!

Espanolero

13th July 2006, 06:48 AM

Espanolero

13th July 2006, 07:06 AM

For me personally,Spain seems to be a country where its people have a real passion for everything that they do.
Yeah, they seem to be really passionated about tormenting animals.

I am particularly impressed with age-old traditions such as flamenco,bull-fighting and cooking traditional recipes.
Impressed by cruelty towards animals?

Not to mention the fiestas which demonstrate how proud and high spirited Spanish people really are.
They are quite proud of their sick rituals of animal cruelty indeed. What this has to do with high spirits, however, is beyond me.

Ben

13th July 2006, 08:13 AM

Espanolero, I think you have clearly made your point here and in the other bullfighting thread (http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums/showthread.php?t=470&page=7) that you do not approve of bullfighting, which is fine (neither do I), but this thread is really about discussing all the things people like about Spain. It seems you have twisted all of Celia S's thoughts back to bullfighting, but clearly she was talking about a general passion for Spain that most of us here share.

Andy E

13th July 2006, 01:53 PM

Oh yeah, I forgot about the food.. is there any famous spanish dish? Never heard of one.

Ignorance is usually something one keeps quiet about rather than broadcasting it to the world.....

Here's one:

It's 6 letters long, begins with 'P' and ends with 'A' .

HINT: Pizza's only got 5 letters in it and it's Italian anyway.

Andy.

Edith

13th July 2006, 03:58 PM

Ignorance is usually something one keeps quiet about rather than broadcasting it to the world.....

Here's one:

It's 6 letters long, begins with 'P' and ends with 'A' .

HINT: Pizza's only got 5 letters in it and it's Italian anyway.

Andy.

And then there is Basque cuisine...! This guy has probably never been to Spain, or perhaps he only went to the tourist resorts and hamburger joints. Anyway, he seems to be very proud of flouting his ignorance, and I don't understand what he is doing here in the first place.

simonb

13th July 2006, 04:16 PM

Edith

13th July 2006, 07:50 PM

The simple pleasure of being able to go out in the evening for a stroll or drink in a town or city. When I stayed in Madrid I was amazed at the number of families walking around the centre at about 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening. It is a much different experience here in the UK. :(

And it makes you feel very safe, too! In the Canary Islands, where it's warm all year round, you never get to see these bleak, dark, deserted streets we are so familiar with in Northern Europe. I'd love to spend the winter there as a pensionada, or to move there altogether. I feel very much at home in an international community, so I won't depend on living in an expat enclave. Whether I socialize with Spaniards, Brits, Americans, Germans or Dutch makes no difference to me. The only thing I'd appreciate is a good Internet connection, a satellite dish so I could watch the BBC, as well as a supermarket where I can buy breakfast cereals and oatmeal since I don't care much for churros soaked in coffee. :D

So, yes, Spain is my kind of place, apart from bullfights! ;-)

Catica

13th July 2006, 10:25 PM

What is it that draws you to Spain? What do you like so much about the country?

Spain was a taboo subject in my family. It's where my grandmother was born, high in the mountains. She came to the U.S. on the bottom of a ship with her mother and older half-sisters. But why they came to the U.S. was always a mystery. I did not learn until after my grandmother's death that there was a vendetta against her father's life. This would explain a lot of my family's hang ups.

Years later, my boyfriend and I took a trip to Spain. In Zaragoza, we met the grandchildren of my great-grandfather's brother.

What struck me, beyond the eery family resemblance, was their warmth. Without even knowing us, they took us in. We ate dinner at eleven o'clock at night and laughed and laughed and they never seemed at all agitated over what time it was.

We only spent a month in Spain. What I'll take with me is the importance of family, of talking walks in parks and that you can share a bottle of wine every single night without going broke and without someone telling you you need to go to Alcoholics Anonymous.

ValenciaSon

14th July 2006, 12:34 AM

I have never liked spain.. not even before I realized that they were hurting the bulls while waving the red cloth; I used to believe that this 'activity' of theirs involved the cloth only and nothing more. I was really shocked when I found out that this people enjoys watching animals being slowly put to death as some sort of sick "entertainment". As for the language I find it rather annoying.. same thing with the music. I always preferred Italian. Oh yeah, I forgot about the food.. is there any famous spanish dish? Never heard of one.

So as someone who never liked Spain, finds their langauge and music annoying, doesn't know spanish food so prefers italian, what do you do? You enter a forum which requires registering for membership in a site called "Notes From Spain" and decide to launch your anti-spanish rhetoric and is then astounded because other members do not fall in line with your dislike with all things from Spain. What were you expecting? I can't believe even you are ignorant to at least one culinary contribution from Spain. I also can't believe that you can condemn a whole nation and all that it has to offer because you can't get past one cultural practice you disagree with. Well you must hate all cultures and societies because they all have at least one custom or practice which would be considered disagreeable by many others.

McCartney said it best when he said "Well don't you know it's just a fool, who plays it cool by making his world a little colder".

neskadebilbao

14th July 2006, 05:04 AM

Life is so different in terms of speed and values. It seems to me like Spaniards know how to relax and enjoy life a bit more than the estadounidenses. Honestly I can´t remember the last time when I went to "tomar un café" with a friend. Or how about the family factor-closeness is the norm-how nice.

As for the cultural differences...it amazes me that Spain can offer such diversity within its own borders. We have the autonomous communities and the treasured languages: Euskera, Gallego, Catalán, etc. And with that comes the geography-amazing diversity.

As for castellano...the language is beautiful. I don´t really recall my reasoning for starting Spanish in Junior High School but I have no regrets. I am proud that I can speak the language and learn about others.

:party:¡Viva España!

Ben

17th July 2006, 09:39 AM

guapo

17th July 2006, 05:02 PM

This photo was taken at midnight last wednesday. 30 degrees centigrade, a plaza buzzing with happy conversation, cold cold beer, no-one in a hurry to get home... That is something I really like about Spain...

and of course, I am afraid to say, I doubt you will ever take a picture like that back in England. The many attempts to create a "cafe society" there always fail because of the different attitudes to alcohol we Brits have compared to the Spanish.

cheers!

Ben

17th July 2006, 05:05 PM

...and the weather!

guapo

17th July 2006, 05:10 PM

well I was going to mention the weather but then people have been complaining that it was over 30°C in the UK this week :)

richardksa

17th July 2006, 05:30 PM

Guapo, this article agrees with you:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=396066&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

Edith

17th July 2006, 05:45 PM

and of course, I am afraid to say, I doubt you will ever take a picture like that back in England. The many attempts to create a "cafe society" there always fail because of the different attitudes to alcohol we Brits have compared to the Spanish.

cheers!

In Holland, this is commonplace... when the weather is nice (which is not too often). ;) We have even got a special word for it: terrasjesweer (nice weather to sit outside on a café terrace). On a warm summer's night, the Spanish personnel of the Instituto Cervantes in Utrecht's city center must feel really at home because of all the people sitting outside the nearby cafés and enjoying their beer and wine until deep into the night.

http://roselli.org/tour/photos/Utrecht_General/Oude-Gracht-canal.jpg

Cafés and restaurants alongside the Oude Gracht near the Instituto Cervantes, Utrecht