I’ve lived in Spain for about two years now, yet I’m still very much a guiri in certain aspects. For those of you who don’t know what a guiri is, it’s basically Spain’s term for a laughable, pasty-white, foreign tourist who is here on vacation but doesn’t really “fit in.” Yes indeed, the beaches of Spain fill up with guiris in the summer months and in the winter a few of us — me, for example – stick around.
Don’t get me wrong, I consider myself pretty well-integrated into Spanish society; however, I’ll always have certain “guiri characteristics” when it comes to a few things. Here are the top five reasons why I still consider myself to be a guiri:
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I eat fast food: In Spain, the land of the Mediterranean diet, I eat fast food — and I eat it quite regularly. In fact, when I confess to Spaniards that I make at least one trip to McDonald’s a week, they simply cannot believe me. Eating fast food just isn’t as common here as it is in the States. I guess if you eat a lot of fast food you’re still a guiri in some respect (you’re also probably at a higher risk for heart disease, but let’s save that for a different post).
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I have a different concept of time: Most Spaniards have a different concept of time than I do (I’m not saying that that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it is something I notice). For example, if I tell a group of Spanish friends that I will meet them at 10:00 PM in the city center, I arrive to the city center a little early — perhaps at 9:53 or so. Spaniards, on the other hand, begin to arrive around 10:00 and it’s not really unusual for them to arrive even a tad later than 10:00. So, while the Spaniards are living it up with their laid-back lifestyle and arriving at their earliest convenience, I (the guiri) am nervously looking at my watch and wondering where everybody is at.
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I eat lunch at 12:30 or 1:00: In Spain, a late lunch is king. The normal lunch hour is from 2:00 to 5:00 PM and people typically eat at any time during that three-hour span. I, as a guiri, do not like waiting that long. In fact, when I lived in the USA I often ate lunch around 11:30 AM; so, waiting until 2:00 is something that I try to avoid (if I can). My Spanish housemates laugh when I eat so early and tell me that I have some very “strange customs.” Still, I persist with my “guiri ways.”
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The kissing thing confuses me: It is very common here in Spain to give kisses on the cheek when you are meeting someone for the first time or to greet someone that you haven’t seen in a while. This is something that is never done in the USA and, as a result, it’s something that has always confused me. I never know who I should give two cheek kisses to and who I shouldn’t. Sometimes the person who I’m meeting expects two kisses and other times they don’t… the whole cheek kissing thing is really a bit of a mystery for a poor guiri like me, even to this day.
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You tell me: If you’re an expat living in Spain, help me finish this post by writing how you are still a guiri in the comments section below. If you’re a Spaniard, perhaps you’d like to comment on some of the strange things that guiris do in your country. Continue reading this post…
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