Thursday, April 21, 2011

Decalogue to recognize Spaniards in AEGEE

How to recognize a spaniard in an AEGEE event

Ok, in this Agora it's gonna be easier than ever to recognize the spaniards. Wherever you look there will be one spaniard at least (organizers, chair team, WGs, Project Managers, candidates, etc...) But sometimes it's not that easy... that's why we offer you some tips to follow:

1) Loud speaking

I still remember one time in a hostel in Amsterdam, when a guy came from nowhere and ask my friends and me: why everytime there are 2 or more spaniards in a room, you speak so loud??? Well... the answer I gave to him was pretty clear: Because we all have many interesting things to say but we can't wait the other to finish, so we just raise our tone to make it clear :)

2) Two kisses

This never fails, in the moment you introduce yourself to someone and he/she tries to give you two kisses.... well, that's a spaniard! In Spain we always introduce ourselves with kisses... well, not always! There is a simple rule:

woman - man   : kisses
woman - woman : kisses
man - man: hand shaking

But anyway, if (s)he introduced him/herself probably (s)he has already told you his/her country, so you already know his country :P

3) Spanglish

I've already talked about this in a post before, but I'll give you some rules now:

· Every word starting with S and not vowel right after, should have an E before: ESpain, EStupid, ESchool... But if the S is followed by a vowel, then we can pronuntiate it good: SUn, SOrry, SEa...
· We have the same sound for B and V: /b/, so don't worry if you hear Bideo, Batican, Biagra, Bocabulary....
· For us the vowel U has the sound /ʊ/, so again we have problems with pUblic, bUs, pUnish...
· One of the funniest thing for everyone is hearing a spaniard saying Gym, Jam, Gin-tonic, etc. /dʒ/ is pretty hard for us
· But the bestest among the best is when we make direct translation of typical spanish proverbs because we don't think there will be the English equivalent: check the post about it!

4) Sangria

In ESpain we have maaaaany different drinks, maaany delicious dishes, millions of sweets... but when it's time for the European Night, what do we bring??? SANGRIA! Yes, that's all. And notice I put "bring" in italics. Why? Because Sangría it's soooo easy to prepare that actually we don't bring anything anywhere, we just put one euro each of us and then we buy the ingredients and mix it... and yet all the people love it! Why? Because it's not an alcohol with 39568036853 degrees that burn your mouth when you drink it... Take note about it!

5) Party animals

Indeed, if there is something characteristical for every spaniard in the world, is that we love FIESTA! But of course following the Spanish timetable (trying not to go out before 00:00, when cinderella is coming back) that's why we always fill the last bus for the parties and you can hear us singing loud in the bus! And after that, if we can't find the party we'll do it by ourselves! It's not strange to find us signing and dancing in the streets all together. Ok, we don't know very good the lyrics, but "la la la" it's enough for any song!

6) ESleeping

Where do you think that we find so many energies for being so active? Of course we need to rest and we love to sleep... That's why we need a good waking-up team: good music, a lot of noise and "encouraging" us to leave the bed is the best way to wake us up. If that doesn't work you can try, at least with the guys, to say: "you don't have balls to get up" Surely we'll get up inmediatly :)

7) We love intercultural exchange

Allright, most of the time we are together speaking in spanish (we are lazy to speak english and we admit it), but when it comes to relationships... we love the intercultural exchange! Few times you will see a spaniard trying to flirt with another spaniard when, in front of them, there is a sea of possibilities of "meeting a new culture".

8) Food

As I said before, in Spain we have many different dishes and drinks, and as chauvinist as we are, it's the best of the world for us. So don't get mad or dissapointed if you offer us some tasty stuff and we say: in Spain we have better things... It's not our brain talking, but our patriotic pride.

9) Camarero and chumba chumba

Any time someone starts the game of camarero or chumba chumba, few spaniards will resist the temptation of joining!

10) But over all friendly

Yes my friends, you can call us whatever you want, but there is an inalienable truth: whoever spends his time with a group of Spaniards will have the time of his life. We are open people and very friendly, our main barrier is the language, but if we manage to avoit it, for sure we are good work mates, travel partners and party wing men! Moreover we like to be the best hosts ever (maybe inherited from the Arabs that lived here in Spain for 700 years), and that's why this Agora it's gonna be unforgetable!

(Of course, there are always exceptions, as this is just a bunch of Estereotypes!)

               Posted by Juanola


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