But before you pack your bags and hop on the first flight to Madrid, you should know: beautiful, passionate and joyous is not the whole story. If you want real statistics, go study sociology. I remember a something executive telling me, years ago, about how lucky I was to have a girlfriend from a town of 10, people, in a nice area. And that was where he was doomed to spend his holidays, till death do us part: sleeping on a sofa-bed in the kind of place where Clint Eastwood would have gone to film a spaghetti Western.
Or watching mangy dogs lick themselves on the town square of Villafranca de Ojetes, population 22β¦. I hear American girls are nice. Most of my international friends here in Madrid think owning a car in the city is insane β or at least unnecessary.
Walking out of the house and having such things waiting for us seems glamorous and European β almost James-Bondish. Most people blame the economy , the real estate market, or something equally lame. You might see her do it with friends β shouting and waving her hands, in a group of 9 people who are all talking simultaneously. Spanish people just converse in tones that sound to us timid anglophones like someone losing their shit.
If you should somehow become the target of this conversational shouting β and you will, if the relationship lasts longer than a few hours β the best thing to do is just breathe. Other Spaniards will let her shout β and then just shout louder in order to be heard. And what better way to develop patience than to wait, compassionately, for someone who needs 45 minutes to blow-dry her hair before leaving the house?
The relaxed attitude towards the passing of time is one of the things that draws many foreigners into Spanish lifeβ¦. Just deal. Of course, of courseβ¦ I hear you. Yankee go home! No problem. You speak English. You gently correct her pronunciation, teach her some colloquial expressions , and try not to confuse her with your quaint regionalisms.
