Snowbirds Tackle Europe

After spending an amazing 40 days in Espana we paused to reflect on the experience.

People - Generally they were very friendly and helpful. Spaniards are very attractive with their dark hair and olive coloured skin tone. They are a fun-loving people and enjoy eating, drinking (beer is the most popular beverage), shopping, and singing. Despite the party atmosphere in the evenings we never witnessed public drunkenness or bar fights. They love their restaurant bar patios and will enjoy a meal outdoors even with their winter jackets on. Other than being cheated by the Barcelona taxi driver, we only had one other incident in a bakery where an elderly well-dressed woman distastefully called me an “Americano”. I corrected her but she just ignored me.

Dogs - Dogs are free to walk unleashed, even in the downtown area of large cities. Many wise owners did use leashes. Most owners are responsible although we did notice the occasional droppings left behind.

Fashion - Skinny pants (mostly jeans) were worn by all men and women of all ages, unless you were over 80. I felt very noticeably unfashionable in my boot cut jeans. Torn jeans are not popular. Casual dress was the norm and no one was out to impress, although that might be different during the warmer months.

Shopping - shopping malls were rare so the people come to the centre of town to shop. There are a lot of shoe stores. The clothing stores were either poor quality, trendy shops for the young or designer shops for the wealthy. It was fun to window shop but no room for any purchases.

Transportation- Spain has an extensive and very efficient transportation network, including inexpensive trains, buses and taxis. Connections are all time coordinated and the stations are central, often with the train and bus stations next to each other.

Tourism - The cities we visited were mainly tourist destinations with tourism offices and lots of attraction signage, although sometimes even that wasn’t enough for these direction-challenged tourists.

Food & wine - We’ve rediscovered our love of olives and almonds. There was only one bottle of wine that I didn’t like....one out of many! We enjoyed fresh fish and seafood. The locally grown clementine and mandarin oranges were the best. We came to love tapas, although at first it was difficult to order the right number of tapas. We quickly adapted our meal times to the local tradition. Breakfast is whenever you wake up; lunch is from 2-5 at which time the restaurant closes; and dinner is from 8 pm onwards. We quickly learned that if you arrive before 8 they won’t be open but if you arrive at 8:30 or 9 they will be full and you will disappointedly end up eating at the local pizza joint!

Weather - From what the locals and other regular tourists have told us, Spain is experiencing a colder than normal winter and they aren’t very happy about it, and nor were we. We had plenty of sunshine but it was a cool daytime high of 8 degrees in Madrid and a moderate 13-15 degrees in the Costa del Sol. We won’t even talk about the blizzard in Segovia! A breeze off the Mediterranean meant it was time to get out the puffy down jacket again. Rarely did the weather stop us from any activities.

Overall we loved Spain!Lue lisää