To start with: most of the Spanish people are unreserved, friendly, helpful and courteous (or possess any other positive attribute). But… there are a***oles (replace *** with ssh ;)) among all nationalities and why would the Spaniards be an exception?! Same goes with the size: it matters everywhere. Unfortunately!

My experiences are good as well as bad but I remember especially one occasion. It was my first visit in Madrid for six years ago. I don´t wear fancy clothes, I´m more “a jeans and T-shirt–person”. When I entered El Corte Inglés (la Puerta del Sol), I was quite unpleasantly affected by the treatment of the staff, more exactly their facial expressions. They seemed to think: “Does she really think she can afford buying something here?” or “ She looks like a shoplifter. I have to follow her wherever she goes.” Nowadays the gazing doesn´t bother me at all, but at that time I was not prepared. I wanted to buy a computer game to my son and didn´t know what it is called in Spanish. I spoke in English to a shop assistant who watched me and her rude answer was: “YO no hablo inglés!”. I was very surprised: how can she work there (a big store in the centre of Madrid!) if she doesn´t speak English??? Luckily a woman (Spanish, with good English skills) passed by and heard her answer and helped me out with the translation.

I don´t have very Scandinavian looks but I´m not as dark haired as the Spanish people and that can cause problems, too. Somehow the people take for granted that they won´t be able to communicate with a person who looks different… I can talk to someone in several minutes (in Spanish and my Spanish is not that bad!) and then suddendly the person brightens up and seems to think: “I understand what she´s saying and she understands me. Great!”


I have also noticed that the shop assistants treat me very differently now that I´m quite fluent in Spanish. I can understand that they are pleased about that a foreigner speaks their language. I would be equally flattered if a foreigner spoke my mother tongue to me, but trying to learn Finnish would cause anyone a nervous breakdown… Anyhow, the more you chat the more the shopping cheapens, i.e. in smaller shops or “quioscos”. An excellent example is a bottle of water: the price varied from 75 ptas to 150 ptas in Ronda. I wonder how much the locals pay? They don´t drink bottled water, of course, but other things...