Spanish Stuff: Volume 1

Happy 1 month-iversary to me and my new love, Barcelona. It's going well, I think we are going to last. Just thought I'd fill you all in on some stuff I've noticed and / or learned about Spain and the Spanish culture so far, in case you are coming here, or just want a good bloody laugh, because some of it is hilarious. 

Firstly, they drive on the other side of the road. That's quite apparent pretty much as soon as you get here. You probably knew that already if you're not a retard like me. But when you've been here a month and you still try and get into the drivers seat instead of the passenger seat literally every day, you start to look pretty stupid. 

If you've never heard a Spanish family have a full blown conversation, it sounds pretty much exactly like the Eminem song 'Rap God' when he's doing the super super fast bit. There's no way an English person will ever be able to keep up so my advice is just smile and say 'Sí'. It's served me pretty well so far. 

When writing in Spanish, accents are very important. 'Si' with no accent actually means if. Not yes. Also año (year) with no accent means anus. As in arse hole. Watch out for that one.

Spanish men are soppy as fuck. Your tinder will just be full of kissy faces and heart eyes emojis. This is not my cup of tea, I'm English and am used to dating men who use 'banter' as an excuse to be  utter cunts. If I can't moan about how much of a prick you are to my girlfriends I'm not interested. Although sometimes their names are hilarious... 

Lols. 

Also I highly reccomend South American men, and there are no shortage of those here. Why do I reccomend them you ask?? Weeeellll I'll just leave this chart here.... 

I'll say no more.

If you're a low key alcoholic or an asthmatic smoker like me, then Spain is literally heaven. 50g's of tobacco is EIGHT MOTHER-FLIPPING EUROS, and you can get a 12 pack of beers for €2.85. I'm never coming home. 

Sangria hangovers literally feel like Satan hammered his way through your skull with a butter knife, took a shit on your brain and left a gaping hole in your head. Don't ever drink it for 14 hours straight (guilty). I've watched them make it and there is like 3 tablespoons of sugar in every glass . You've been warned.

If you go to the beach in Barcelona, you will be harassed every 30 seconds by people selling beers and blankets. DO NOT BUY THE BEER. I've heard a rumour they keep it in the sewers at night when they're not selling it - VOM. And if you do want a blanket, we managed to haggle a guy down from €30 to €7 so don't get ripped off. (We still didn't buy it, it was just for bants) If you don't want either of these items, I find screaming 'coño' at the top of your lungs to be pretty effective. Or just say 'Tengo un cochillo' quietly and I imagine they will leave pretty abruptly. 

Spanish people shout at each other a LOT. Don't be alarmed, this is just how they communicate. They're usually not having an argument, but sometimes it's hard to tell. 

Spanish people think English people are all alcoholics. Although in most cases this is true, try not to start bar fights or vomit in the street - athough this is normal and socially acceptable behaviour in London, it is not here. Weird. 

Spanish trains are by far the most bizarre 

I've ever encountered. Sometimes they just don't turn up. No announcements, they just never come. There are no boards showing the next trains at most stations outside the city, and a lot of the trains have no announcements on them either. And if you're sitting anywhere that isn't exactly in the middle of the train you will rarely see the station name when you pull into the platform. I have panicked several times and just guessed where to get off. It has usually been wrong. 

They also don't have bridges to cross over the platforms, you literally just walk over the tracks. Health and safety at its finest. 

Back to the positives - this is a place where my sleeping schedule is perfectly acceptable. I can sleep in the middle of the day with absolutely no judgement, because everyone else does it too. God bless you siestas <3

And finally, EVERYTHING on Spanish TV is overtly sexual. I was watching some Spanish sitcom with the 9 year old and 11 year old girls I au pair for at about 7.30 in the evening and someone threw an enormous pink dildo out a window which proceeded to hit a pedestrian on the head. There's an enourmous billboard we pass on our way into Barcelona that advertises a sex toy warehouse and condom commercials are on in the middle of the day. None of that is exaggerated for comic effect - it is very bizarre coming from a land where my mum still thinks I'm too young to have a boyfriend at nearly 24 and if someone so much as kisses on TV while you're in the same room as your family everyone becomes visibly uncomfortable. But hey, I ain't complaining. My crudeness fits right in! 

This will no doubt be volume one, I'll keep y'all updated with the weirdness and wonderfulness that is the Spanish culture.

Happy adulting peeps X

Veganing

It's almost been exactly six months to the day since I made the decision to go vegan. I didn't do it in stages, I did a full 360 overnight, from the girl who ate McDonald's and KFC three times (OK four times) a week to a fully plant based diet. You'll all be very shocked to hear I have not made a single slip up in those whole six months. No drunk nights out where I had a nibble on someone's burger. No secret snack on a bit of ham. Well, no conscious slip ups - the only slip ups I've made were accidentally eating fucking milk proteins which are in EVERYTHING - one of the things I accidentally ate that contained milk proteins was fucking vegetable flavoured dried couscous - come on!! (Oh and the night I thought I had broken my ankle my mum made me a cup of tea and in her state of panic about my ankle accidentally put milk in it, and In my state of panic about my ankle I accidentally drank several sips before realising. But that's it, promise)

I said in my initial post about going vegan that I would write about my experience after the first month, the draft of which I wrote, then rewrote, then deleted and wrote again. I totally put it off in the end. And that was because everything I drafted just came across as so angry. And I'm not angry. The whole vegan way of life is the oposite of angry. It's a lifestyle based around love, and peace. 

The diet change wasn't hard. I actually found it really fun, cooking became a new hobby, and cutting out the majority of what I ate before somehow managed to broaden the variety of food I ate. I know that sounds like total BS - but I was the kind of person who found a pizza place, or a microwave meal, or a take away joint that I liked, and instead of experimenting with different items on the menu or new places I would just stick to what I knew and would have the same stuff over and over again. Suddenly I couldn't have macaroni cheese anymore, or a Big Mac meal. I couldn't even do my home cooked dishes (which was basically one of two meals, either spag bol or chicken stir fry). So I started making soups. One pot pastas. Curries, vegetable fajitas, homemade pizza, salad bowls, vegan burgers, vegan roasts. It showed me I had a talent for cooking which I wasn't aware of before, it showed me how much I loved to cook too. And I've read a few posts by vegans who have said you have to stop seeing food as a luxury or an indulgence and just see it as fuel for your body in order to be vegan. And I have to respectfully disagree with that - one of my biggest pleasures in life has always been food, and I don't want to have to give up that pleasure - and I haven't had to, not one bit. Vegan food can still be rich and indulgent and just as satisfying as any dish you've had before. 

And more than that it kind of gave me a purpose. Yes, I am very dramatic, and yes that is quite a dramatic statement, but I mean it. Every day I feel like I'm living life by what I truly believe and changing the world just a little bit one day at a time. Up to 300 animals lives are saved a year just because of little old me (I know that sounds like a lot, but google it, no shit), and that is awesome. Even the days I'm sat on my lazy butt watching films and not achieving anything visible to anyone else, I have achieved something that's important to me.

It wasn't the diet part that made me angry. (Although sometimes the cheese cravings on a hangover may have made me a little short tempered, I'll admit that). It was the unbelievably negative responses I received. Freak, hippy, the grunt laughs, people telling me there's no way I would last, the 'eew why's', the people telling me how extreme it was, 'why don't you just go vegetarian?'. 

Someone told me they had recently read an article about veganism and how it was 'just a trend' and it would pass. Not only did that person basically tell me they think I'm incredibly shallow and pretentious, but they just trod all over my beliefs, that are nothing but unarguably kind, and quite literally do not hurt anyone or anything. 

How can you argue with 'I don't want any living creature to suffer for my benefit?'. How is there an argument for that? I make a point of not being remotely forceful about my decision. I don't share graphic videos online, and I don't introduce myself with 'hi I'm Sophia I'm a vegan'. I can laugh at a joke about veganism if it's made in good taste and not viscous, I've always been able to take the piss out of myself. I'll talk about my decision if it comes up in conversation or if someone asks why. I don't tell people they're gross and wrong for eating meat. I'm not being aggressive, so people don't have a reason o be defensive about eating meat, but for some reason they still are. 

I like to think that the reason thy are so defensive is because they know that animals being tortured and murdered is wrong but I sadly think that I'm being incredibly optimistic. It's sad to think some people genuinely don't care at all, not one bit. I don't judge anyone, not even the people that don't care, because it's not my decision how they live their life or what food they put on their plate. I can't force them to believe what I believe. It disappoints me, but I can't waste my energy being disappointed for the rest of my life and I have to live with the faith that I'm doing something that makes a positive change. 

The reason I don't judge others is because we are brought up to see the milk and the mince meat and the steaks and chicken breasts on the supermarket shelves as food. We are told where they come from and we know they had to die, but we are conditiond to disassociate the lives of the animals with the food on our plates. The reason I don't judge them is because I dissasosiated that food on my plate with the animals that suffered for 23 years. We are told it's just the food chain. The same as lions that hunt in the wild. 

But the difference is we aren't creatures in the wild hunting out of instinct. We are creatures with consciences, and the intelegence and resources to find alternatives and make our own decisions about what we eat. Please don't tell me we have to eat meat to survive - the millions of vegans living in the world are proof that that is not true. 

Now, if you can educate yourself on exactly how the food on your plate gets there and you are genuinely ok with it, you feel no guilt and it causes you no sadness at all, then although that is not ideal for me personally as it doesn't line up with my beliefs, then you do you. It is none of my business and that's you living your best life. But if you educate yourself fully on how it gets there and you feel any sort of sadness or guilt, please, I urge you, just give veganism a try. It is not as hard as you will think it's going to be. I'm lucky that a lot of people actually have been very supportive of my decision too and said things like 'that's wonderful I wish I was strong enough to do it'. You are. You can do it. And I can promise you, when you can say you live by what your heart truly feels you'll be so much happier, and you can pet people's dogs in the street with no guilt or sadness in your soul. 

I'm not going to educate you, but I am going to encourage you to educate yourself. If you see a video of a dairy cow crying out as her new born baby is taken away from her minutes after birth, or see a bull being hung upside down with its throat slit, then you can tell me which lifestyle is extreme...

I shan't babble on for any longer, but I ask you if you are a non vegan reading this, whoever you are, please think about the reasons you find a lifestyle that doesn't support the suffering and death of living creatures so bizarre. If you don't want to do it yourself, that is fine. But please don't criticise something that leaves no room for criticism. I get no shit for supporting the gay community, for supporting equal rights for all races, for all genders, so why would I get shit for fighting for the rights of creatures with no voice of their own? 

Just some food for thought. 

Happy adulting friends X