45 Fun Facts about Spain and Spaniards

Disclaimer: The below fun facts about Spain and Spaniards are my own opinions, reached upon studying a semester in Spain, traveling through the country several times, or from my Spanish teachers. They are not meant to offend anyone, nor are they a rule.

• They have funny looking sandals – especially in Barcelona
• They say joder, coño, madre mia, vaya putada, ostia, gilipollo, esta de puta madre, hijoputa every few words. They all mean pretty much the same – damn, f…,  Jesus Christ, wtf (palabrotas as the Spaniards call them)
• They eat very VERY late – lunch from 2 to 4pm and dinner beginning with 10pm
• Having breakfast at home is not common
• Madrid’s tap water is one of the best ever, it’s actually drinkable
• Surprisingly, the older population goes out very often, and are always extremely elegant
• Older women love their long natural fur coats
• Madrid has the smallest metro cards I’ve ever seen (similar to the Paris ones)
• Football is their second religion
• Playing the lottery is a national hobby
• They treasure their free time above all; most stores close for 3hrs after lunch time
• Spaniards like to party (no shit?!)
• Spaniards do botellon before they go to a club (drinking much cheaper drinks in someone’s house or in a park rather than paying triple inside a club)
• Only Cyprus surpasses Spain in the highest number of bars per inhabitants !!! (1 bar for 129 people; Romania has 1 bar for 1295 people - quite a difference, isn’t it?) Spain has the highest number of bars, restaurants and coffee shops, in the European Union, more exactly 344.426 !!!

• Presenting oneself at a party at 12 or 1 am is ridiculously early; Spaniards start the night around 2 am and finish at 6-7am, after which they go to eat churros
• On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, at 6-7am, the subway is one of the most crowded spots in Madrid – everyone is going home and they are still very much alive
• Alcohol and tobacco are part of their culture – they almost never ask, while with a group of people, if they can smoke
• To demonstrate just how much tobacco is part of their culture, you can only get subway passes for a month in an estanco, which is where they sell tobacco
• Spaniards smoke a lot and a bit of everything
• Not only that, but, strangely enough, even if it’s only a country of 4o something million people, Spain is number 1 in the world in consuming cocaine
• Smoking is also perceived as a family activity, I have never seen any other culture of young people smoking along their parents, very at ease
• A few years ago years ago, you could practically smoke anywhere and everywhere in Spain: in class, on the plane, on the subway, in hospitals, etc. Now you can only smoke in bars
• The Canary Islands are a fiscal Paradise, they only pay around 5% taxes - they are closer to Africa than Spain and their main resource of living is tourism
• Spaniards are always complaining, they talk a lot and very fast
• However, Spaniards are some of the nicest kindest people you will ever see – when asking for directions in the street, EVERYONE will thoroughly explain the way, regardless of how busy they might be

• Most Spaniards I’ve seen are dark haired with dark eyes, peludos (hairy) and not very tall
• Spaniards, men and women, have the most eccentric, bold, funny looking haircuts I’ve ever seen
• The waiters are generally rude – understandable considering they work for almost no tips
• Mahou  is the no 1 best selling beer in Spain, however I think Alhambra is the best beer I’ve ever had
• Seat is the only Spanish car brand
• You don’t have to leave any tip in Spain – this is a common mistake of Americans, being used to the traditional 15% tip in the US
• When you buy a coffee, the waiter always brings something that looks like an expresso, and then they ad, in front of you, a ton of milk
• Spaniards kiss on one cheek when meeting someone, as opposed to kissing on both cheeks as Romanians do
• The Spanish hymn has no lyrics – did you notice the winner of the Euro Cup mumbling when listening to their national hymn?
• Each regional country of Spain – Pais Vasco, Cataluña, Galicia – has its own language, hymn and flag
• El Castellano is the main language

• Spaniards are not very good at learning other languages
• Every English word is made into a Spanish one (freak turns into friqui/friki, iphone turns into ifon, CD turns into cede, DVD turns into deuvede, etc)
• For 40 years, between 1936 and 1975, Franco ruled Spain in the form of a dictatorship
• Spain transformed itself from a traditional modest society to a modern one, reaching second place in the most visited countries in the world, with 59.2 million visitors a year (France is on first place with 81.9 million visitors, while the US is on third place, with 56 millions), as well as the second fastest growing population regarding immigration
• Barcelona has 15 million visitors per year, while Madrid has only 6 or 7
• The Madrid-Barcelona route has the highest number of flights per week in the world
• The Madrid subway system is the third in the world, by number of kilometres covered, after London and New York, even if Madrid is barely the 50th metropolis
• Spain has been the biggest donor of organs in the world, for 15 consecutive years !!!
• Spain is the third country in the world, after the US and Brazil, adherent to plastic surgery!!!

And I love them!