17 Dec Little details

There’s a very common question that any exchange student has to face when going to another country, and that question is “Is here very different from your country?”. My answer to that is Yes, it is. But, as the days went by, I realize that it’s not that different. Let me explain.

My routine in Spain is pretty basic: I go to class, I make plans with my friends, I study, I do assignments, I hang out, I go grocery shopping with my mom, etc. And here is basically the same, just in different locations and at different times. That’s what I mean when I say that my life is not that different. But, of course, a lot of things are different. But I was already aware of the major differences before I got here: language, currency, even plugs are different. And I came prepared for those changes. But there are also a lot of changes in little details. And it’s kind of fun for me to find out about those.

Some of these details could be paper size. When I tried to keep some paper in a plastic folder I brought from Spain, the paper didn’t fit! I was too wide for that folder. This means that the paper size in Spain is different from the U.S one. Very curious. Another detail could be that here in the U.S people use wet mops for cleaning the floor. In Spain, everyone uses something called “fregona”, which I think you also have here, but it’s not that popular. This other example could be a little weird, but it seems also very curious to me. The water in the toilet goes all the way up until half of the toilet, meanwhile, in Spain, there’s just a little bit at the bottom of it. The last detail could be that here, at least in SF, there are so man people at public transportation that don’t check its ticket when they get into the bus or the train. In Spain, if you try to get into a bus and not checking the ticket, the bus driver won’t let you get in at all.

I don’t know, for me is really entertaining and fun to find this kind of details that makes such a difference even living a life as similar as in Spain. Basically, the routine is the same but some things are not.