Rambling: Things About Spain

A list of things I've learned so far:

 

- Gay marriage was legalized about 7 year ago - woohoo!
- It barely rains here, but randomly has been raining all week (first rain since May-ish!).  So of course, people freak out.  They drive at a snail's pace.  I hear sometimes schools close!!  In the mornings, there weren't worms on the sidewalk, but huge CARACOLES  :-)  (snails)
- There is no MSU alumni association here :-( 
- College is free! For everyone!
- Synchronized swimming is a popular, respected, media-covered sport.  Who knew?
- The economy sucks right now.  Like, a lot.  They use the term "eurozone crisis" to refer to the recessions in most of Europe, and Spain has the worst unemployment of all. (More stats here).

I did not take this picture

- Knowing English is SO IMPORTANT (there are many bilingual colleges but you have to already know both, there are many opportunities to study abroad if you can speak it, obviously jobs, etc).
- A problem: you need to know English, but up until recently you only learned English if your parents could afford to send you to a private immersion school (or abroad).  So, there is a whole generation of people about my age who can't get a job because of the economy AND locked out of other opportunities since they were never taught English much in school.  Wah wahh.

Juice aisle

- If you haven't heard, there were crazy protests in Madrid this week, like crazy ones. We're talking 6,000+ people and police firing rubber bullets.  "Demonstrators - known as Indignants - say "Occupy Congress" is a protest against the kidnapping of democracy... at least 1,300 police are on duty at the Congress building."
- You don't say 'el' or 'la' in front of someone's name (some people do in the south, but most Spaniards consider it incorrect).  Also, "jugo" (juice) is "zumo."  THESE THINGS BLEW MY MIND.  
- Grapes have seeds.  I had forgotten about that.