Afea

Páginas: 4 (797 palabras) Publicado: 23 de febrero de 2013
WHY I JUST CAN’T HELP BEING A BIT OF A “GUIRI” by Sharon Simon

Something happened the other day; a Spanish friend of mine called me a “guiri”. He said that until I dropped my English habits Iwould always be seen as one. He wrote the word on a piece of paper and told me to look it up. Tourist! That’s what guiri means, tourist (or foreigner)! I was actually a little miffed that after fouryears I was being perceived this way. I often sleep in the afternoon, I drink all the time and I love Ikea. How Spanish is that? However, the more I thought about it the more I realised that myfriend’s observations of me were right.

I still eat far too early. I like my lunch between 12-1 pm; any later would interfere with dinner which I like between 6-7 pm. Since the Spanish lunch occurs between2-5pm and the evening meal never before 8pm, if you are successful to have supper in a restaurant before that time you’ll find eating alone.

Apart from this, I’m quite punctual. Punctuality forsocial meetings is not considered very important in Spain. It is acceptable and common to be late for such gatherings. I have cause to remind myself of this every time I’m sitting on my own, in a bar,looking like a high class hooker. But I can’t bring myself to be late just in case my friends are not. It’s simply not British.

The “kissing thing” still catches me out. We Brits generally don’tkiss our friends that often and certainly never kiss strangers but here it’s common to do both. However, I never know whom I should kiss and whom I should not. Sometimes, I’m not kissed at all whengreeted and on more that one occasion have been left in mid-air, all puckered up, ready to give the old one-two on each cheek. It appears to me that the rules are, there are not rules.

I still don’tunderstand how the Spanish two name surname works. I always called my doctor, Dr Cuesta, until I saw an article of him in a magazine and noticed he was being called Dr Garcia. I discovered I had...
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