Answering Your Questions About Living In Spain | Q&A Part 1 |

I have to say a quick thank you to so many of you that took the time to ask write out questions. There were so many really wonderful and thought provoking questions. I realized very quickly after reading them that there would be no way to answer them all in one post. So, I will be breaking this up into a few parts and intermittently posting them. Now without any more rambling from me, here is part one!

Question 1: Has the signage at grocery stores gotten easier for you?

I vividly remember when we first moved here I walked into the grocery store and just stood there with a blank stare. I wanted to buy something as basic as flour and I didn’t know the word for it, or where in the world it would be located in the massive store. I was so used to having a baking section in the U.S. stores, but in Spain that is just simply not the case. I even google translated “baking” on my phone and frantically looked for the aisle labeled “horneando”, which didn’t exist. Finally I found the flour, or harina, tucking neatly between the vinegar and the condiments. It makes no sense to me why it would be there, but for some reason that is where it exists. Another time I was trying to find active dry yeast to make some bread, and searched for 20 minutes with no luck. I finally did have to ask an employee to help me with that one. Let’s just say the exchange of my non Spanish to his non English is far too embarrassing of a story to share…but you can use your imagination and it’s probably accurate. Now after living in Spain well over a year I consider the grocery store words my most comfortable form of Spanish. Even though I joke at the fact I can speak pretty good “grocery store Spanish”, it is very true and doesn’t go far beyond that. Often times when writing out my store list I will accidentally write things in the Spanish word because in the back of my mind I guess I know that’s the word I need to be looking for on the shelf. So to answer the question, yes, thankfully!

Question 2: What do you feel has been the most positive impact on you and your family by being immersed in another culture?

My husband and I have always taught our kids that the world does not revolve around them, and that there is a whole world outside of their own in which people look, speak, and live completely differently. We have always shared with them that people from different places have different customs and traditions within their cultures. Those are wonderful things to teach children and to know as an adult, but getting to live in a country in which your way of thinking, your customs, and your food is not the norm, is truly a beautiful experience. Myself, Trenton, and our kids have grown in our appreciation for the way others think and act. We have learned so many times over that the way we do certain things isn’t as big of a deal as we always thought it was. We learned the way we worship doesn’t need to look the way it always has for us in the past. We learned that our comfort zones need to be flexible and in fact are still constantly expanding. Our kids just see their friends as their friends and they like them simply because they have common interests. Their friend group spans from many continents, languages, and faiths. I love to hear the kids talk about where their friends are from and hear the names of Iraq, Russia, Albania, South Korea, Kuwait, England and so many more. We went into this experience knowing our worldview would change, but I don’t think we quite realized how much our hearts would grow in such a life changing way.

Question 3: Have you found peanut butter or sour cream?

Truth be told there are a lot of foods that we simply cannot find here in Spain, but our pallets have expanded and we don’t miss a lot of foods like we used to in the beginnings. That being said, sour cream is just nowhere to be found. We do have cream fresh in the grocery stores here and to us it tastes pretty much spot on. In the states sometimes I would sub out sour cream for greek yogurt, and I do that here from time to time too. As for peanut butter, it is easy to find. The Spanish grocery stores will sometimes carry their version of it, but its not the same. For the real deal, one must make the pilgrimage to Costco to get the giant jars of Skippy which retails for a whopping eight euros. I had never in my life purchased Skippy brand peanut butter until moving here. I was a loyal Great Value girl. However, since Jane is faithful in her love of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and beggars can’t be choosers, I voyage to Costco and buy the peanut butter with all the other Americans in Madrid.

Question 4: What do you miss about the US?

I could list off some silly things I miss, personal preference stuff. Like Target or Chipotle. I can list a few convenience items like parking lots, and set business hours. But in all honestly, I don’t deeply miss those things. They actually don’t make a huge difference to me. In all honesty, we don’t miss living in the US. This is home to us, as foreign as that sounds. In my brain before we moved I had mentally prepared myself to be sad and have to deal with being homesick, but that just hasn’t been the case for Trenton and I or our kids, which I have been shocked by. With that being said, we do miss our family and our friends. It is sad celebrating things like the birth of your best friends baby from far away, or not getting to see your mom on Thanksgiving. I miss seeing my grandma deeply, and I would do just about anything right now to hug her and bring her a milkshake. It’s the relationships with those you love that matter most. Thankfully technology helps us not miss everyone so much. We text pictures and laugh about things. We still share our daily life things and our frustrations with stuff. The people we love are still a priority to us, we just aren’t a car ride away anymore. We are very much looking forward to the day when things go back to “normal” and when travel restrictions are lifted. We have many people who want to visit us here, and we are looking forward to being able to enter the US next time under more relaxed circumstances.

Trenton and I really enjoyed reading through all the questions you all sent in. Many of them were so thought provoking for us and led to some really interesting conversations between us in the evening. I am looking forward to getting to other questions in some follow up Q&A posts.