What the Social Life is Like in Spain - by Michael Medina

       
While staying here in Spain I was able to notice a numerous amount of differences in the social life here (going out to eat, going to the club, etc.) versus the social life back in United States of America, specifically Massachusetts. Here in Spain I noticed that when people tend to go out for a quick bite to eat it is associated a lot more with being sociable with the people that you go out with. Back at my home city it is a lot more common to go out and grab the food quickly and head back to your home to enjoy it there instead of at the restaurant. While looking at the small bars around every corner in Los Remedios I saw that they were usually full of life later at night, with people of all types of ages there and it was really something that caught my eye. The reason that I say so is because usually back home there isn’t many younger kids or older people out anywhere past 10 on weekdays where here it seems to be very common. Even my parents who aren’t that old wouldn’t be caught going out that late on a weekday to have something to drink or something to eat. So going out and walking around during the night to see young kids running around still playing on the playground as well as elderly people walking to go find a seat at a small café was definitely a sight that I needed to get used to seeing while staying in Spain. That was one of my first impressions of the social life here in Seville, and I think it was definitely something that I liked a lot more versus the social life back home in the States. Another aspect of social life that differs drastically from back home would be whenever people go out to eat and socialize. Going out with some of my Spanish friends I noticed that there is rarely any phone usage at the table unless it was used to show another person something relating to the topic of conversation. Besides that, I never really noticed anyone texting at the table or seeming to be attached to their phone, even amongst the younger generations where this applies more. Visiting a restaurant in the states it would be almost the complete opposite where everywhere you look you will be bound to find someone on their phone, not socializing at all and this is a lot more common in the younger generations. Those were really the two things I noticed most about going out for food that were drastically different from the social life that follows within the United States.

Moving onto Nightlife I noticed a plethora of differences from the night life in the United States. The Night life here in Spain starts later than the night life back in the United States, in Spain I noticed that when people are going out to the club they do not go to the actual club until around 1 am which in the United States at that time the night would be coming to an end. This was one of the major differences I saw and then one of the other things I noticed was that when kids my age go out in the US people do not dress as nicely normally as people do here in Spain. These two social events were the first things that caught my eye when staying here in Spain due to how drastically different they were compared to the same events back in the US