Culture Shock - Phase II
I think that I officially entered Stage II of culture shock this week. I´m glad that I let it settle in a bit before writing about it, because if I had published this entry two days ago, I could not have included enough expletives to truly express how I felt. In short, the way the Spaniards did EVERYTHING was wrong. The way that I was accustomed to doing them was right. This had been building for a while, with a sharp jump every time someone cut me off when walking without saying "excuse me" or gave me directions to something that were completely wrong or really made no sense. But, I think the defining series of events that really brought me completely into phase two was my search for a free wifi internet cafe.
I had googled "free wifi madrid" in as many ways as I could imagine, and always came up with the same list or a list that was taken from this list. I actually have to really say thank you to the author of this list, because without it I would have been even deeper in Frustrationsville. BUT, as I went down the list one by one, searching for the places most within my normal zone of activity, I kept running into dead ends. Cafe Faborit is an awesome cafe that I had already visited during my stay near Puerta del Sol, so I went there first. Once I had purchased my coffee and pastry, one of the employees at the counter informed me that the free wifi was only a service offered in the mornings until 2:30 p.m. It was 3:00 p.m. and I still haven´t been able to make it there early enough to take advantage of this. I know, sounds strange, but if you lived by Madrid hours, you would understand. The next day, I tried Stromboli and Espresso Republic, neither of which was at the location listed on the site. I searched up and down by several blocks, in case it was actually an odd number around the same address. The number systems are different on each side of the street, so 106 could be across from 81. In frustration (and with rain dampening my spirits), I went to the cafe at Corte Ingles (kind of like Macy´s), which is pretty upscale and ended up costing me $18 for breakfast and the one hour of internet I was able to squeeze in before the line was so out of control at the door that I felt guilty staying at my table any longer. Oh, well, at least I know it´s possible. The next day, I went to Cafe Panini and they also were true to the list in having free wifi - for the first hour. When I went to pay, the waitress had charged me an extra 3EU for the 15 minutes extra I had used the internet, but I wasn´t counting the time that I had my laptop closed while eating. Finally, she removed the charge, but the whole thing made me feel like a freeloader. And that´s the feeling I get pretty much everywhere... you should pay ALOT for your internet access, because it´s a luxury. This seems ridiculous to me, because a wifi connection is sooo friggin cheap to establish, there should be on every corner. I actually think Madrid is considering the same type of directive as San Francisco to make the entire city a wifi hotspot at little or no cost to the users. Wouldn´t it be nice?
So, I had pretty much given up on any aspirations of obtaining the free, easy and comfortable wifi connections I had in the U.S., when I decided to venture out of the usual zone a bit to Giangrossi cafe and ice cream shop. Imagine my dismay, when they told me that I could take a seat in one of their beautiful white leather chairs and they would come and take my order while I surfed the internet to my heart´s content. A sign on their table says "Free WiFi Hotspot - Why should work and pleasure need to be separate?" Their ice cream is amazing, to boot. I arrived late, but I´ll be back there again.
Anyway, back to the culture shock thing... there are definite cultural differences, and I´m going to need to do separate entries on some of them, but the courtesy thing is really really difficult for me. I tend to be a bit over-courteous, even for the U.S. Coming here is like a major slap in the face. Ultimately, it´s probably good timing, because I´m getting to the point in my life where I really don´t have the time nor the patience for unkind people and I certainly will not be pushed around. Madrileños are notoriously loud and lively and I would add to this AGGRESSIVE. Now, I´m only going on impressions, but I think it has something to do with the Franco years. The older folks seem to be much more stern and less polite than the younger crowd. At first, the older women seemed downright scary to me. If you give them even an inch in a line or on the street or at the counter of a shop, they´ll just shove their way right to the front and order. I think that in addition to a cultural norm that just doesn´t seem as polite to me, they tend to be more aggressive with foreigners like me, who generally bow to the pressure. I mean, I was just taught to always respect older folks, especially older women, so I am inclined to open the door for them or let them go first. After a couple of weeks of doing this and having an entire parade of people go through without even a thank you, I started to catch on that it was probably best for my sanity to stop with the courtesy. Like an American friend of mine here said - they see overpoliteness as a weakness, and they prey on it. I´m trying to keep in mind that it´s just a cultural difference, but it´s really an ingrained part of my behavior and my expections of others that´s really gotten me in a dark space on several occasions.
Then, yesterday, just when I really fucking hated everything, and was starting to cut people off myself in retaliation (go Jeff!), little patches of kindness open up out of nowhere. I went to get The Monster from the hostel where I´d been storing it yesterday, and the owner insisted that I not pay him any of the money I owed for the storage, even though we´d agreed on 1EU/day. Very nice. Then, as I was dragging The Monster onto a metro train, this one guy gave me a really dirty look. I gave him an even dirtier look in response. Later, as I was sweating like a maniac trying to drag the damned thing up and down another series of stairs (why do they have to go up if they're just going back down again in a few steps?), that same guy came up beside me and grabbed one of the handles. He asked where I was from and said that he was from Argentina and that he hoped I had a better day. I was like THANK YOU, but who would have expected that from the look in the metro?
I just want to note that there are many many things about Madrid that I love, and I wish I had been blogging when I was still on the pink cloud, although I think that only lasted 2 days or something. Just to end this bitch session on the correct tone, I'm going to just list all of the things that have been irritating me as some sort of rite of cleansing and hope that it helps me to start anew.
Me with The Monster in My New Apartment
Top Annoyances (AKA - Culture Shock-Phase II)
1. Kamikaze Walkers, Shoppers and Pretty Much Participants in Every Activity - I swear I'm going to be run down by a car when a little old lady forces me off the narrow sidewalk into the street one of these days.
2. Internet Hell (see aformentioned wifi search entry for reference)
3. Directional Chaos/Non-Existent Addresses/Imprecision - I met with my new Spanish/English conversation partners recently, and they said I should meet them IN McDonald's on Gran Via. They called me 15 minutes later and asked where I was, I said I was at the main door, they were across the street at the metro entrance. WHAT?!
4. Language Confusion - I learned my Spanish in Costa Rica, and there are many many colloquialisms that I learned there that are now useless. There are also many words that are just completely different here (computer = ordenador in Spain, computadora in Latin America).
5. Fear of Petty Theft - Everywhere you go, there are signs in cafes and restaurants telling you to guard your bags from the professional bag thieves. Pickpocketing is frequent. I always have to be thinking of where to put all of my things. Yesterday, I locked my laptop in my backpack and was 3/4 of the way to the internet cafe before realizing I'd left my key on the desk at home.
6. Natural Gas Ignition - I have to turn on the natural gas heater at my apartment before getting hot water (and remember to turn it off, ideally). I forget probably half the time and am standing there naked next to the shower when I realize I forgot to turn it on.
7. NO DRYERS! - This was the same in Costa Rica, and by the end of my six months there, my underwear practically hung down to my knees, I had to wear a belt with all pants and roll them up to keep them from dragging on the ground. I finally found a laundromat several blocks from my house, but it's very expensive.
8. Waiter/Bartender/General Public Snobbery - I'm so tired of people acting like I'm an idiot just because I don't speak perfect Spanish. I think it's probably worse in the gay area of Chueca, which is where I've spent a lot of my time thus far. One guy I met from Cuba told me that Spaniards are snobbish to native Spanish speakers from other countries, too. My conversation partners confirmed this. Apparently, Castillian Spanish is the best and everyone should lisp on their Z's and C's. I'm already caving to the pressure by saying "gratheus" instead of "gracias", damnit.
9. Weak Coffee - Although, this has the upside of allowing me to consume many coffees per day in my quest for free internet access.
THE PERFECT POST SCRIPT: Yesterday, I had spent 45 minutes typing the final portion of this entry at a "free" internet cafe. When I went to save it, I came to a screen for DKNet telling me that my free hour had expired. Fortunately, I was able to go back in my browser and copy and paste the text into Word to upload today. This morning, I finally woke up early enough to make it to Faborit by 1 p.m., with an hour and a half left for free wifi. NO, the woman at the counter informed me when I arrived that it's UNTIL 2:30 p.m. on the weekends and it BEGINS at 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. I am now in the reading area of FNAC, where I've ended up in one last desperate attempt to get this posted. If you see this, you will know that it is good.
I think that I officially entered Stage II of culture shock this week. I´m glad that I let it settle in a bit before writing about it, because if I had published this entry two days ago, I could not have included enough expletives to truly express how I felt. In short, the way the Spaniards did EVERYTHING was wrong. The way that I was accustomed to doing them was right. This had been building for a while, with a sharp jump every time someone cut me off when walking without saying "excuse me" or gave me directions to something that were completely wrong or really made no sense. But, I think the defining series of events that really brought me completely into phase two was my search for a free wifi internet cafe.
I had googled "free wifi madrid" in as many ways as I could imagine, and always came up with the same list or a list that was taken from this list. I actually have to really say thank you to the author of this list, because without it I would have been even deeper in Frustrationsville. BUT, as I went down the list one by one, searching for the places most within my normal zone of activity, I kept running into dead ends. Cafe Faborit is an awesome cafe that I had already visited during my stay near Puerta del Sol, so I went there first. Once I had purchased my coffee and pastry, one of the employees at the counter informed me that the free wifi was only a service offered in the mornings until 2:30 p.m. It was 3:00 p.m. and I still haven´t been able to make it there early enough to take advantage of this. I know, sounds strange, but if you lived by Madrid hours, you would understand. The next day, I tried Stromboli and Espresso Republic, neither of which was at the location listed on the site. I searched up and down by several blocks, in case it was actually an odd number around the same address. The number systems are different on each side of the street, so 106 could be across from 81. In frustration (and with rain dampening my spirits), I went to the cafe at Corte Ingles (kind of like Macy´s), which is pretty upscale and ended up costing me $18 for breakfast and the one hour of internet I was able to squeeze in before the line was so out of control at the door that I felt guilty staying at my table any longer. Oh, well, at least I know it´s possible. The next day, I went to Cafe Panini and they also were true to the list in having free wifi - for the first hour. When I went to pay, the waitress had charged me an extra 3EU for the 15 minutes extra I had used the internet, but I wasn´t counting the time that I had my laptop closed while eating. Finally, she removed the charge, but the whole thing made me feel like a freeloader. And that´s the feeling I get pretty much everywhere... you should pay ALOT for your internet access, because it´s a luxury. This seems ridiculous to me, because a wifi connection is sooo friggin cheap to establish, there should be on every corner. I actually think Madrid is considering the same type of directive as San Francisco to make the entire city a wifi hotspot at little or no cost to the users. Wouldn´t it be nice?
So, I had pretty much given up on any aspirations of obtaining the free, easy and comfortable wifi connections I had in the U.S., when I decided to venture out of the usual zone a bit to Giangrossi cafe and ice cream shop. Imagine my dismay, when they told me that I could take a seat in one of their beautiful white leather chairs and they would come and take my order while I surfed the internet to my heart´s content. A sign on their table says "Free WiFi Hotspot - Why should work and pleasure need to be separate?" Their ice cream is amazing, to boot. I arrived late, but I´ll be back there again.
Anyway, back to the culture shock thing... there are definite cultural differences, and I´m going to need to do separate entries on some of them, but the courtesy thing is really really difficult for me. I tend to be a bit over-courteous, even for the U.S. Coming here is like a major slap in the face. Ultimately, it´s probably good timing, because I´m getting to the point in my life where I really don´t have the time nor the patience for unkind people and I certainly will not be pushed around. Madrileños are notoriously loud and lively and I would add to this AGGRESSIVE. Now, I´m only going on impressions, but I think it has something to do with the Franco years. The older folks seem to be much more stern and less polite than the younger crowd. At first, the older women seemed downright scary to me. If you give them even an inch in a line or on the street or at the counter of a shop, they´ll just shove their way right to the front and order. I think that in addition to a cultural norm that just doesn´t seem as polite to me, they tend to be more aggressive with foreigners like me, who generally bow to the pressure. I mean, I was just taught to always respect older folks, especially older women, so I am inclined to open the door for them or let them go first. After a couple of weeks of doing this and having an entire parade of people go through without even a thank you, I started to catch on that it was probably best for my sanity to stop with the courtesy. Like an American friend of mine here said - they see overpoliteness as a weakness, and they prey on it. I´m trying to keep in mind that it´s just a cultural difference, but it´s really an ingrained part of my behavior and my expections of others that´s really gotten me in a dark space on several occasions.
Then, yesterday, just when I really fucking hated everything, and was starting to cut people off myself in retaliation (go Jeff!), little patches of kindness open up out of nowhere. I went to get The Monster from the hostel where I´d been storing it yesterday, and the owner insisted that I not pay him any of the money I owed for the storage, even though we´d agreed on 1EU/day. Very nice. Then, as I was dragging The Monster onto a metro train, this one guy gave me a really dirty look. I gave him an even dirtier look in response. Later, as I was sweating like a maniac trying to drag the damned thing up and down another series of stairs (why do they have to go up if they're just going back down again in a few steps?), that same guy came up beside me and grabbed one of the handles. He asked where I was from and said that he was from Argentina and that he hoped I had a better day. I was like THANK YOU, but who would have expected that from the look in the metro?
I just want to note that there are many many things about Madrid that I love, and I wish I had been blogging when I was still on the pink cloud, although I think that only lasted 2 days or something. Just to end this bitch session on the correct tone, I'm going to just list all of the things that have been irritating me as some sort of rite of cleansing and hope that it helps me to start anew.
Top Annoyances (AKA - Culture Shock-Phase II)
1. Kamikaze Walkers, Shoppers and Pretty Much Participants in Every Activity - I swear I'm going to be run down by a car when a little old lady forces me off the narrow sidewalk into the street one of these days.
2. Internet Hell (see aformentioned wifi search entry for reference)
3. Directional Chaos/Non-Existent Addresses/Imprecision - I met with my new Spanish/English conversation partners recently, and they said I should meet them IN McDonald's on Gran Via. They called me 15 minutes later and asked where I was, I said I was at the main door, they were across the street at the metro entrance. WHAT?!
4. Language Confusion - I learned my Spanish in Costa Rica, and there are many many colloquialisms that I learned there that are now useless. There are also many words that are just completely different here (computer = ordenador in Spain, computadora in Latin America).
5. Fear of Petty Theft - Everywhere you go, there are signs in cafes and restaurants telling you to guard your bags from the professional bag thieves. Pickpocketing is frequent. I always have to be thinking of where to put all of my things. Yesterday, I locked my laptop in my backpack and was 3/4 of the way to the internet cafe before realizing I'd left my key on the desk at home.
6. Natural Gas Ignition - I have to turn on the natural gas heater at my apartment before getting hot water (and remember to turn it off, ideally). I forget probably half the time and am standing there naked next to the shower when I realize I forgot to turn it on.
7. NO DRYERS! - This was the same in Costa Rica, and by the end of my six months there, my underwear practically hung down to my knees, I had to wear a belt with all pants and roll them up to keep them from dragging on the ground. I finally found a laundromat several blocks from my house, but it's very expensive.
8. Waiter/Bartender/General Public Snobbery - I'm so tired of people acting like I'm an idiot just because I don't speak perfect Spanish. I think it's probably worse in the gay area of Chueca, which is where I've spent a lot of my time thus far. One guy I met from Cuba told me that Spaniards are snobbish to native Spanish speakers from other countries, too. My conversation partners confirmed this. Apparently, Castillian Spanish is the best and everyone should lisp on their Z's and C's. I'm already caving to the pressure by saying "gratheus" instead of "gracias", damnit.
9. Weak Coffee - Although, this has the upside of allowing me to consume many coffees per day in my quest for free internet access.
THE PERFECT POST SCRIPT: Yesterday, I had spent 45 minutes typing the final portion of this entry at a "free" internet cafe. When I went to save it, I came to a screen for DKNet telling me that my free hour had expired. Fortunately, I was able to go back in my browser and copy and paste the text into Word to upload today. This morning, I finally woke up early enough to make it to Faborit by 1 p.m., with an hour and a half left for free wifi. NO, the woman at the counter informed me when I arrived that it's UNTIL 2:30 p.m. on the weekends and it BEGINS at 4:30 p.m. on weekdays. I am now in the reading area of FNAC, where I've ended up in one last desperate attempt to get this posted. If you see this, you will know that it is good.
posted by Chromest*r at 5:06 PM
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