I moved to the Spanish capital, Madrid, nearly two months ago. I am here for a year teaching English in a secondary school as a language assistant. Before I arrived I thought I would be able to adapt to Spanish culture very easily, but my previous expectations have been very different from the reality of Spanish life.
Firstly, I didn't realize how difficult it would be to adapt to the Spanish day and the timing of meals. Spanish “midday” is 14:00, meaning lunch is never before it. My ideal expectation was that I would be eating lunch from 12:00 to 13:00, but most days it's 15:30 when I eat lunch. Can I really still call this lunch?! The same applies to dinner or tea. In the UK, dinner is between 18:00 and 19:00, but now the dinner time is 21:30. The thing I didn't realize is that this affects the Spanish sleeping routine. Eating dinner so late of course means that Spaniards go to bed much later. It is such a British thing to go to bed at 22:00!
Queuing (排队等候) politely is also something that is very British. I only realized it when I arrived in Spain. I took it for granted that queuing patiently is as the normal thing as in Britain or countries like China, Japan and America. But this definitely isn't the case in Spain. If there's a free table in a restaurant, you can quickly take it, even if there are other people who have been waiting longer than you.
Finally, the reality of the Spanish diet is very different from my expectations. Food categories that are so normal in the UK aren't nearly as popular here.
