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#56453 - 01/18/06 03:43 PM
Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 10/04/04
Posts: 657
Loc: New York City
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After reading these interesting opinions over at another travel website ... From Slow Traveler\'s Forum "Doggie Bags in Rome" ...made me think what are the cultural dos and don'ts when a person is visiting Spain? The only one I know of is eating in the streets. Is this true? Are there others I should know of? Does Spain have the concept of a doggy bag? Thanks Bill
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#56454 - 01/18/06 05:22 PM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 05/06/00
Posts: 9080
Loc: Madrid, Spain (was Columbus, O...
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In general, I think the answer is NO. But, just yesterday, my ladyfriend and I were eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant (more-or-less near the Puerta de Toledo in Madrid) and since we had so much food leftover my ladyfriend suggested that I take the rest home. This surprised me but not as much as SHE was surprised when *I* ate all the rest there at the table. Hehehee.. Good food - cheap prices. And now for the Spaniards....? Saludos, MadridMan (Woof! Woof!)
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#56455 - 01/19/06 03:40 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 11/14/04
Posts: 314
Loc: Madrid
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Well, I can't answer as a Spaniard, but after years of eating with them, I can say that doggie bags are not common at all. That doesn't mean I've never seen food taken home, but it was rare. Some Spaniards I know who have been to the U.S. get a kick out of the idea of doggie bags. The idea of cultural slip-ups is an interesting one and I use it sometimes as a conversation topic for my students. There are a lot of cultural codes that we barely know even exist until someone breaks them, usually by mistake. I know I've made dozens of mistakes over the years...but that's a part of learning about a new culture.
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#56456 - 01/19/06 03:55 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 10/30/04
Posts: 291
Loc: Madrid
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I know that the English are very polite comapred to Spaniards, as my boyfriends Mum is always highly amused by the amount of times I say "please" and "thankyou".
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Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
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#56458 - 01/19/06 09:47 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 10/04/04
Posts: 657
Loc: New York City
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I know I've made dozens of mistakes over the years...but that's a part of learning about a new culture.
Murdy I like to hear about the ones you did while in Spain. Bill
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#56459 - 03/29/06 06:27 PM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 05/06/00
Posts: 9080
Loc: Madrid, Spain (was Columbus, O...
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Recently, while in Barcelona, I had lentils for dinner as a starter before the main meal. When telling my signifant other this detail she nearly laughed herself silly! I didn't get it at first until she told me that lentils are a LUNCHTIME dish because of its weight - or something like that. HUH??? REALLY? She told me that the waitress probably gave me a strange look when I ordered them but I didn't recall that she did. We, in the USA, often had lentils at dinnertime. Are lentils really so strange to order for the nighttime meal in Spain? Saludos, MadridMan
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Visit BarcelonaMan.com for Barcelona information, Transportation, Lodging, & much MUCH more! Curious about what could POSSIBLY be inside the brain of MadridMan? Visit MadridMan's Madrid Blog
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#56460 - 03/30/06 01:53 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Member
Registered: 02/23/04
Posts: 483
Loc: Madrid
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I understand your significant other, but I think she's being a bit exaggerated. It's true that lentils are not, say, among the top 50 starters for a Spanish dinner, probably due to the way they are usually prepared in Spain (with plenty of lard, ham, chorizo,... i.e. heavy dish), but it's not so weird as to cause strange looks from the waitress. To give you an idea, I probably had lentils for dinner less than 3-4 times in the last five years, but I actually did.
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#56461 - 03/30/06 01:54 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 10/02/03
Posts: 345
Loc: Colmenar Viejo, Madrid
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Quite true! It's not normal to order lentils for dinner, as well as cocido or fabada. It's quite odd...the waitress probably thought "oh, poor boy, he must be starving!" BTW, in the Mediterranean coast the food tends to be lighter, it may be a climate-related thing, so in Barcelona your "heavy" dinner it's even more strange than elsewhere in Spain.
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#56462 - 03/30/06 05:38 AM
Re: Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?
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Executive Member
Registered: 06/05/00
Posts: 1713
Loc: Phila., PA, USA
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Bill from NYC writes: Does Spain have the concept of a doggy bag? Short answer: Yes! But they don't call it that (doggy bag). Twice, in separate years, a Cousin invited us to lunch the day we arrived in Madrid. Most recent was at the Giralda restaurant on c/Maldonado. We were 'beat' from our TransAtlantic flight and we just couldn't handle the filetes de ternera he had ordered for us. So he asked to take them with us. They put them in a styrofoam and covered them for us. The other time, a few years earlier, was similar but at a different restaurant. I must mention that my (wife's) cousin, a Music Producer / Publicist is very well known in those places. They might do things for him that they wouldn't do for a run-of-the-mill customer. BTW Eddie is from NYC also: I was born in uptown Manhattan, graduated H.S. in the Bronx and attended NYU (College of Engineering) on University Heights, way back when ...
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