No eres en el mundo anglosajón

To be sure, being in the Basque Country is not overwhelmingly foreign-I'm not upside-down on Mars, or China, for that matter, it's still the West. But there are some cultural differences that throw me for loops-the biggest being the bureaucracy. Today I went on a Bill and Ted-style adventure up and down regal marble staircases in a stately municipal building overlooking the Concha. It was no doubt all the more adventurous because I was slaying the functionaries with my stunning mastery of 'vosotros' verbs (for the uninitiated, 'vosotros'=y'all, and they don't use it in Latin America, so I ignored those verb forms in school, believing that I would never in my life (ha ha!) have the occasion to speak Castilian Spanish). What was I trying to do on my arduous journey? Get a permit to build beach houses in an ecological preserve hosting an array of exotic endangered species? Why no, actually. I was...going to collect a document that proves that I went to high school. Truly. When you are a foreigner here, it is very important to show that you actually did what you say you did on your c.v. I shan't detail what it takes to get the government to verify your education, but I will refer you to a video provided to me by the good and noble Dr. F-please note that Depends may be required:


Other differences:

Different norms about nudity-on break I'll be innocently browsing the newsstands only to be confronted by a half-naked lady. They don't cover skin mags in brown paper here, or restrict their sale in any way-it's just all out there in the public view-there are somewhat different ideas about what you should protect children from, for sure. Also women sometimes sunbathe topless on the beach. Initially a little uncomfortable, but since nobody else cares, you get over it.

Everything is later-eating, sleeping, showing up for appointments. I attribute this in part to the fact that we are situated as far west as possible in our time zone, so the sun doesn't rise until after 8 a.m. But people also will wait until like 10 p.m. to eat supper on weekends, which of course forces me to gnaw off their arms.

People are more kissy-when you introduce yourself or greet someone, you do this sort of kissing both cheeks thing where you aren't supposed to actually kiss them, but you sort of brush cheeks. This rule does not apply in church, where people give (bone-crushingly, mule-wrasslingly) firm handshakes.

Until the next post, send me your inspirations about how to break the bureaucracy, Asterix-style..