Fulbright: Cultural Discomfort in Logroño

So I forgot a few things about Spain, cultural things I mean. It’s strange, but I am experiencing a more noticeable culture shock this time around than when I was studying abroad in Madrid two years ago. Perhaps it is the fact that now I am living in Logroño, a small town compared to booming Madrid, or maybe it is that last time I was insulated by a tight group of Americans. Either way, I am being reminded of all the things I forgot about that make Spain so different from the United States.

The first thing that I remembered upon attempting to wash my hands at the airport was the bathroom trinity of soap, toilet paper, and paper towels. If you get one of these when you’re using a public bathroom in Spain it’s pretty good. This is a country of drip-driers in more than one sense. Though, I find that most often soap is what is missing. Luckily, I came equipped with several mini hand sanitizers.

When I strolled around the town center of Logroño, I was also reminded of a strange Spanish phenomenon. This is very specific, but if you’ve ever spent significant time in Spain you will be nodding your head vehemently at this. More than half of the street performers are playing the “Sound of Silence,” and always this song is being played on the pan flute. I don’t know why. I couldn’t even begin to decode this cultural phenomenon, but it is real. See this google search of “sound of silence on pan flute” as proof.

Something that I was not expecting is how much more easily people can pick me out as an American in Logroño rather than in Madrid. I think this has something to do with the fact that I am a big city girl by nature, and therefore I automatically stick out in Logroño. I walk too fast and talk too loud. When I was opening up my bank account, the teller told me “tranquila, shhh.” I suppose I should have been offended that he was basically telling me to calm down and shut up, but I realized that I do talk louder than nearly everyone else here. This is interesting to me, because I do not consider myself a particularly gregarious person in America. But I guess here I am a regular old Gilbert Gottfried.

Another way that I know people can pick me out is my being “blonde.” I think there is a cultural difference here in how we see appearance, because I do not consider myself blonde, maybe light brunette. But I have lighter hair and colored eyes, two characteristics that are rare in the general Spanish population. I look like I am a foreigner, British, German, Canadian, American. Typically, people assume that I am German for some reason or another. People just seem to know that I am not from here even before I open my mouth to speak. This cultural concept of looking foreign in a more light-haired, light-eyed sense can be encompassed by the word “güera.” A güera, or güero for a man, is someone who looks foreign, and often it is used as a joke. It is kind of like the equivalent word in Mexican-Spanish slang “gringa” or “gringo.” “Güera” and “gringa” are mostly used in Latin America, but I have also heard them used in Spain. People are not exactly rude about it, but I feel like people are wary of me. It doesn’t help that my name, “Jacqueline,” is about as difficult to pronounce in Spanish as it could get.

I don’t mind being singled out. I expect it, and in way feel that I deserve it, because I know that the United States isn’t always the most welcoming when it comes to cultural differences. What I wasn’t expecting was how much this would make me miss home and the comfort of knowing how things are done. I think I am confronting this more now during Fulbright than when I studied abroad, because I am integrating myself much more deeply into Spanish culture and society. I hold a job here, have an apartment, a cell phone, and a bank account. But I think that this will help me grow more as Spanish-speaker and culturally competent traveler than study abroad did, and I am looking forward to this.

And yet as much as my logical brain can be intellectually looking forward to something, my emotional brain is triggering anxiety. Sometimes it is the mild everyday anxiety that I experience at home, but other times it is the crippling kind that have me wondering what the hell I’m doing here and why I can’t just settle down and stay in one familiar place like everyone else I know.

I wonder about the concept of self-care. I always thought that I was maintaining a good level of self-care by pushing myself out of my comfort zone and into diverse cultural experiences, refusing to be complacent. But I also wonder if the extremes to which I push myself are a form of self-harm. I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle here. I guess I don’t know what kind of person I am. Is it going against my nature to settle down or is it going against my nature to fight against comfort and familiarity? I don’t know, but maybe these next few months I’ll find out.

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