Humor:
The sense of humor here, with my Spanish family, reminds me of my humor back home. We fondly tease the teenager about always being on his phone and the computer. My youngest brother is sarcastic and makes the same jokes I can imagine from other 10 year old children. I don’t know why I expected the humor here to be different, the more I think about it the more ridiculous of a notion that seems. For example, every single meal is served very hot, and every single time my youngest Spanish brother, Gabriel, immediately bites into the food and then freaks out about how hot it is. One time, he did this, and I asked him “Oh, is it hot?”, and he stared my right in the eye and deadpanned “No, it’s freezing”. In this moment, Gabriel could’ve been me, or any of my sibling or friends, as we have all made this exact joke in the past.

Free Time:
It may just be my Spanish family, but I find how the pass the time at home extremely strange. The watch YouTube. A lot. Occasionally they’ll have the news on, but most of the time they’re constantly on YouTube. They watch a lot of video reviews of amusement parks and rides, as well as a YouTuber playing a video game with the split screen set up. They also watch a lot of comedy club clips on YouTube. For the first week I was here, it was an endless list of YouTubers rating various amusement parks around the world all day every day. The whole family would sit around and never get bored of it.
They also play a lot of video games and play on their phones a lot. But, unlike my family, do not hide in their rooms to do so. They all sit in the living room (the only room with air conditioning) and have their individual head phones on. This is interesting to me, because they’re all doing separate things, but at the same time, all together.

Food:
I’m a picky eater, and among some of my most hated foods are tomatoes and onions. So, coming here, I made it my goal to try everything my host family served me. So far, some of the most notable new food items I’ve tried are: nectarines, peaches, pears, sangria, sherry, fish eggs, margaritas, whole fish, gazpacho, pirinaca de cebolla, tortilla, salmorep, and much, much more. Some I hated, some I love, but, overall, I’m proud of myself for fearlessly trying so many new and interesting things.

Leg Hair:

Nobody in Spain has leg hair. Nada. Even men, it’s common for their legs to be smooth as a baby’s bottom or only lightly feathered with a little very thin hair. Our showers here, specifically in my house, have to be under 5 minutes to conserve water. Mine are typically around 3 minutes. I had no clue how I was expected to shave my legs in 3 minutes, or how my house mom did. I have never ever seen one razor in my house either which makes things stranger. It’s a small and insignificant mystery for me, but a mystery nonetheless. Professor Matz later told us (6 weeks after this mystery began) that it’s extremely common here for everyone to wax. Entonces, the mystery is solved at last!