Who Drinks More?

One thing I realized as soon as I arrived to Spain, is how different the drinking culture is here as opposed to the United States. Here, you see people having a beer or a glass of wine at anytime during the day, as early as eleven in the morning. While it is most common to drink coffee in the morning, I have seen Spaniards having a beer with breakfast on multiple occasions. Walking around at two or three in the afternoon, you will see many people out enjoying a “bocadillo” and beers during their late morning break. At first, from an outside perspective it is easy to say the Spanish drink too much or maybe they show alcoholic tendencies. After spending some time in Sevilla and observing what it is actually like here, I realized Spaniards drink much more responsibly than Americans. In the States, younger people live inn such a “pregame” culture where you drink to get drunk. People will make drinking into a competition, and push each other to their limits. Here, locals will slowly enjoy a beer with their meal, rather than guzzling down drinks to feel a buzz. It makes me wonder if our drinking culture would change if our drinking age was lowered to 18 in the US. I think the younger generation would approach drinking in a different way and there would be less binge drinking. However, I do not think it would completely change what drinking is like in the US. Our time orientation in the US is completely different from Spain, that I do not see a time where it will be common to see many people drinking beers in the morning and afternoon. 

There is no such thing as siesta time, or a break in the afternoon in the US. It is also just more of an open, and accepting practice here. Along with laws against open containers in the US, there is also this sense of judgment towards drinking at certain hours of the day that are deemed “too early” by cultural norms. The biggest thing I have learned being abroad is that it is important to recognize the differences between Spain and the United States, not to deem one better than the other, but rather to begin to understand the people from each culture.