top 15 things that single me out as an american in spain

I've been meaning to write this simple post for awhile, and now that I've just returned to my homestay from my final class of the program (eek! time is FLYING) I figured that now is as good a time as any to offer up my observations.

1. SHOES. I don't quite know how to characterize the shoes that the Spanish people wear, but to me this is the easiest way to distinguish Americans (and a few select other nationalities) from the Spaniards. When I walk around Duke, or Lake Forest, there are about twenty or so big brands that you pretty much can't avoid. If you spot a group of girls, however flawless their Spanish may seem, sporting Sperry's, Rainbow's, Toms, Reefs, or any non-Nike, Adidas or Puma sport shoe, their American identity is instantly revealed. On top of this, branding, as far as clothing goes, has seemed to me much less apparent here.
2. HEADPHONES, or lack thereof. To be a joven out and about on your own and not tune the world out in favor of the familiar tones of your iPod is unheard of. Maybe this is true in the hearts of the more populous US cities as well, but it has stuck out to me here the effort to which people will go to ignore their surroundings.
3. COUPLES, NOT. The fact that I will travel by Metro or walk with a group of guys here and not be clinging onto one of them seems out of the norm here. I wandered around the barrio Salamanca with one of the guys in my program yesterday, and as I looked around, it seemed we were being stared at for the odd fact that we walked with a friendly amount of space between us.
4. LARGE GROUPS. Well, this one is kind of obvious. We travel in large groups, find ourselves frustrated at our inability to speak in Spanish as quickly as our thoughts are formed in English (and at the variation in our levels of Spanish proficiency) and so digress to converse in English. This trend is especially prevalent if ever we attempt to eat in public, as was the case on our overnight trips to Salamanca and Asturias. Generally, I'm relegated to sit at the end of the table nearest the kitchen/waiter to clean up any of the awkward linguistic messes our group so often tends to create.
5. SUNDRESSES, and bright colored clothing in general are staples in my summer wardrobe. Although   on my brief shopping (more like perusing, to be honest) excursions dresses and bright colors abound, as I people watch on the Metro on the way to and from school, as well as in other general public places, it seems that grays and neutral colors predominate, along with pants. And all of the pants here taper at the ankle. Bright colors however, do manifest themselves in some places - particularly these skinny pants.
6. MI MOBIL or in English, my cell phone, here is a small and cheap pay-as-you-go-phone. Spain has not evaded the smartphone craze, especially amongst the younger generations. I will, however, note that Apple does not nearly have as much of a hold here over smartphone owners as it does in the states.
7. WANDERINGS. When I walk around, whether in a group, on an excursion or on my own, I still marvel at the architecture around me and the enormous and old buildings and monuments close enough to touch. Marcos joked the first weekend when we were in Segovia that I was going to get lost from our group because I wasn't paying attention to where we were going, but rather the ornate ironwork of the balconies and street lamps. I just can't help but marvel at the fact that so many of the buildings that people rush by in their hurry to arrive at their destinations here are indeed older than the entire established country of the United States of America.
8. DIVERSITY in our group. Not only am I multi-racial, but our program of forty contains many nationalities. To see a large group of students walking down the streets of Madrid with such an array of ethnicities seems fairly atypical.
9. MENU. When sitting down para tomar algo, as I did in the Plaza Mayor yesterday when I met up with one of my former high school Spanish teachers and his wife (originally from Madrid, so they were in town to visit her parents before heading off to Salamanca for a summer course), menus are not automatically offered. If you have to ask for one in order to decide what you want, it's generally a sign that you're not familiar with the afternoon culture of a quick coffee or beer (the juxtaposition of which, I'm still having trouble getting over).
10. WATER BOTTLES. Seem to be a particularly American thing to carry around. At Duke I think you tend to see more students than not toting around a Nalgene, or other reusable water container. That's just not the case here, which further peaks my curiosity as the food has struck me as particularly salty and salient.
11. EL FUTBOL. While everyone here cheers for la seleccion, upon listening in on the conversations of women around me while watching the games, it's become more and more clear to me that it's much more of a celebrity topic for many of them. They know the faces and the names and the lifestories of all of the major players, but few other women or girls could tell you much about the strategy of the sport or the tendencies of the team. Well, maybe that's just the way that I happen to stick out, but it's an observation nonetheless.
12. METRO MAP. Despite the fact that I'm now very comfortable bajando y subiendo the Metro, I still insist on bringing my tattered Metro map with me everywhere I go. It generally makes an appearance about once every other day now, just to be sure that I know where I'm going.
13. ATHLETICISM is just not a word I would use to describe most of the girls my age here. It seems as though up until about age 12 or so, girls are just as active as the boys, but after that priorities must change, as they marginally seem to in the US as well. Especially when shopping or perusing the stores, I've noticed that girls and their clothing here don't have much wiggle room for muscled bodies - it's just not the way that most here are proportioned - clothes, especially pants, seem to be tailored based on bone structure ranging from super petite to big-boned.
14. SNACKS also don't exist here. Well, it's not that you can't buy them, but it's more or less frowned upon to eat in public. It took me a little while to catch onto this unwritten custom as I would snack on an apple or a banana I'd brought with me while waiting for the Metro after class. Haha, the stares were almost as piercing as the hunger that the fruit intended to satisfy.
15. SMOKING. I don't do it. Period. And even in my voice you can hear a distinction because it is not something I've grown up with. To be honest, this is one of those things that I think will forever single me out as an American because despite my desire to assimilate into the culture here, my resolve not to smoke remains unwavering.