hola fellow travelers mark here with
voltar's world and we're on the beaches
of spain
enjoying the shocking loveliness of this
country and today we have for you are
the 10 things that are going to shock
tourists
when they come here to spain and the
first thing that shocks people is just
how wonderfully
awesome the spanish people are look they
know that their economy is based off of
tourism
and they treat the tourists right
they're fun they're friendly they give
you directions they tell you jokes
they're crazy awesome they'll party with
you and if you get to be friends with a
mama
a grandma an abuela expect to eat the
best food of your life
and then double that food times like a
thousand because she'll just keep
feeding you
and that's the first thing that shocks
people just how friendly and fun
the spanish people are so that's the
first thing you should know now the
second thing you should know is
you're going to be shocked that even
though the people are super friendly and
fun and they will talk to you
they will not talk to you in english the
second shock is
the lack of foreign language here in
spain
yes there are some young people that do
speak english but in general
you're going to have a tough time
finding english speakers when you are
going you know 20 miles outside of
barcelona or valencia or madrid
so just know you want to know a little
bit of spanish or katala when you're
here in barcelona
to kind of communicate with the people
but the thing is the lack of foreign
language
isn't just the spanish people it's also
the foreigners that move here to retire
if you go to costa del sol like by
malaga you will have more chances to eat
an english breakfast than you work
you will tapas because so many brits go
there to retire
and they don't learn any spanish you go
to mallorca the zip saint of bundesland
or the 17th german state
there's so many germans there that the
main street is called shinkenstrasse
or ham street i mean it's crazy so if
you're gonna come here just know
you're gonna need to know some spanish
when you come to kind of get around
because it will make things easier and
those really friendly spanish people
when you speak a little bit of spanish
that opens it up so much more and
they're gonna want to talk to you
even if you only took one year of
spanish in high school they will open up
and be so
friendly and just share so much that
you're gonna love it now the third thing
that's gonna shock you about spain is
the siesta is real it's not just some
legend you hear about oh siesta
where they just stop working for a few
hours in the afternoon no
it really happens now in big cities like
barcelona no it doesn't really happen
anymore
but if you're going to be traveling to
some of the smaller towns you're going
to go to santiago de compostela and do
the the cabinet of santiago
are you going to go to ronda and see the
stuff there expect stores to be closed
from two until five in the afternoon so
get your shopping done before or after
because that can be a problem and if
you're going to be doing government
business or you got to get a visa or
stuff like that
that can affect it as well so the siesta
it is real
don't always expect things to be open
all day long and that kind of goes into
the fourth thing that's going to shock
you is
time in spain notice i don't have a
watch because time is kind of irrelevant
here in spain
you know they talk about this manana
attitude yeah we'll get to it tomorrow
and stuff like that
but the time here is kind of funny
you'll ask people when should we meet
oh let's meet at lunch time what time's
lunchtime ah lunch time
well here in spain that could be one two
three four o'clock in the afternoon
it can mean a lot of different things
and it kind of shocks tourists when they
don't have a really set
time period and for a tourist how that
also affects you is
look you need to know as it's not just
the the siesta of
two to five o'clock closing restaurants
might not open till noon
they might not serve food until one in
the in the afternoon
but also dinner times they might not
have their dinner menu until seven or
eight o'clock at night
and the spaniards eat at nine or ten
o'clock at night as well
so you do have this kind of weird
spanish time frame when you're here
and when they go out at night man you
don't even think about going out to what
one or two in the morning
i mean it is a different world when it
comes to time here in spain
so if you got your swiss watch just
leave it at home because you don't need
it when you come here okay
because spanish time will shock you how
it's eating late and doing things later
and things are mixed up and when is what
and manana is manana
but it also means later i don't even
know and so that's something that does
shock a lot of tourists
i've seen so many like dutch guys and
germans like pulling their hair out ah
but it is kind of funny so the fifth
thing that's gonna shock you when you
come here
is the lunch menus now i know we think
lunch what's the big deal
everybody has a little bit of a deal at
lunch time here in spain
they have a law that actually goes back
to the franco times that says look
all restaurants have to have a
two-course meal
that can be affordable to the average
man or woman
or whatever and what's cool is you can
go to some of the nicest restaurants in
barcelona or madrid or santiago wherever
and get a good meal two course meal for
a good cheap price so imagine
great food at a great price at a great
restaurant that's awesome
but the thing is for tourists sometimes
they might
forget to mention that to tourists so
make sure you ask hey
what's the lunch menu today and usually
it'll be at the back of the manual to
have an extra piece of paper
or it's an extra menu they'll bring out
make sure you ask because i've seen more
than a few tourists
who didn't know about it they didn't
tell them so be careful with that
now the sixth thing that's gonna shock
you also deals with food
and that is how disgusting the paella
and the sangria
is if you were thin i don't know four or
five blocks
of a tourist site for some reason i
don't know why
i do know why but if you see a tourist
site they're going to make sure there's
paella
and there's sangria there but the thing
is it's not mama's
it's not paedo mama it's not homemade
it's like a microwave version of it and
it's
horrible that's why when people come to
spain they say oh paella is horrible
well yes if you have your microwave
white castle in america
all of the food isn't good either look
if you want to have good paella
go to a real restaurant and they're
going to serve it to you in a thing
they'll say
you have to have two or three people
minimum to have the paella because it
comes in this huge huge
pan and not the stuff you get at one of
these you know restaurants that are by a
tourist site
the same thing with sangria if you're
getting sangria and it comes in a
pitcher
with straws probably the only thing
you're going to get out of that is a
horrible hangover the next day
so make sure you go to a little bit
nicer bar and get sangria there
and if you're in a place like here in
barcelona get it sangria made with cava
the bubbly
champagne kind of bubbly sparkly wine
they have here in catalonia
it is fantastic okay so watch out for
those tourist trap places
now the seventh thing that's gonna shock
you is also about food and that's
the tapas culture okay or tapas and
pinchos if you're here in catalonia
and the thing is tapas are these like
little snacks you get
while you're drinking your wine or while
you're drinking your cruise compo beer
or san miguel or whatever your sangria
and sometimes you can get this food for
free i'm going to drink some beers oh
they might bring some
some calamari or they might bring
potatoes bravas these potatoes with a
with a red sauce on top it's to die for
you have to have potatoes bravos when
you come here just just do it okay
and you have this and it's such a cool
aspect of their culture
that you sit back drink beers and stuff
like that get some free tapas
and things like that to enjoy the
culture meet people great way to talk
the thing is when you're getting tapas
sometimes you do pay for them
sometimes they are free if you want a
bigger plate you get what's called a
racion
so tapas is like one or two haracion is
like seven or eight or ten okay so
you're gonna obviously pay more for it
but you will be shocked that whole
topless culture of
going to a cava bar here in in barcelona
and having the snacks and stuff like
that the tapas
and your cava talking with friends it is
so awesome and it's shocking how much
that is such a part of the culture
that you have to do okay now i've talked
about the free food like the free
tablets you can get sometimes
and how friendly the people are but one
of the thing is the eighth thing that's
going to shock you is the service here
in spain
that manana attitude look things are not
going to be going speedy here you're in
a hurry it's not going to happen your
bill
you're going to have to ask a few times
for it to come and you will see that you
know what service in spain isn't that
great
they are super friendly though but don't
be surprised if they're going to finish
their conversation with five other
people
before they bring you the bill and the
one thing i kind of see
whereas the the bad kind of side of this
bad service stuff is
when you go to restaurants and tourist
places they're going to ask you oh would
you like our
fish of the day and then they never tell
you the price or they'll show you a
price like wow that looks like a good
deal
and you'll get your your king prawns for
oh it seems like it's only ten dollars
for five of them
no that's per gram or per kilo or
whatever
and you can get really screwed i know
for us we found out the hard way
we went out to eat and they said we
looked at the fish they say oh you want
to get the fish of the day we said sure
i looked at the price like oh that's
actually a good deal i got the fish of
the day a big one
it turned out i thought it was going to
be 10 euros it was 80
euros so when they say oh would you like
the fish of the day
make sure you ask what it is what is the
price per gram
and how much are they going to bring you
out because that's where they can really
shockingly
screw you over big time and i'm sure
there'll be a lot of comments below
without happening to people so the ninth
thing that's gonna shock you about
coming to spain
is the bull fighting and the running of
the bulls stuff if you've never seen a
bull fight before you need to realize
this is not for the faint of heart you
will see lots of blood you will see a
lot of stuff that may
really disturb you i know when i went to
a madrid the guy was horrible the people
in this in the
plaza de toros they were throwing their
seat cushions at the matador
because he was so bad and there was
blood covering everywhere it was really
a traumatically shocking experience
and that's one of the things if you
think oh i'm going to see romantic bull
fights
don't don't be shocked if you are
shocked by the amount of blood and just
intense thing that theirs but that is
it's a cultural thing here
and it can kind of continue on with that
ninth shock is the running of the bulls
is not just in pamplona hemingway talked
about pamplona so that's why the
americans go there
and you'll see every year some americans
will get gored or get too drunk and fall
from a fountain and get themselves
killed and stuff like that
it's horrible but you need to realize
the running the bulls happens in a lot
of towns a lot of small towns
around the country and bull fighting
isn't legal in every part of the country
okay you should know that so don't
expect to see
bull fighting everywhere but it does
exist and the running the bulls
does exist in a lot of places so if you
want to see the running the bulls you
want to
watch the running but not be running in
it there is a lot of opportunities for
that okay
now the 10th thing that's going to shock
you about spain
is not actually in spain it's when you
see spaniards
when they travel outside of the country
whether you're in france or italy or
england
you'll see a big group of spanish people
together and they'll be singing
see americans we just scream real loud
and talk really loud
the spanish they like to sing together
and don't be surprised if you're in
front of the
the duomo in florence or at the spanish
steps in rome and there's a group of
spanish teenagers
with their spanish flag singing a song
getting their picture taken
that is one of the shocking things about
the tourists from spain is they do love
their singing it is kind of a funny
thing all right
and a bonus 11th thing for you about
some of the things that'll shock you
about spain
is the fact that spain is very different
spain is not a homogeneous country they
have multiple languages yes we have
spanish castellano or espanol
they have that here in spain but also
here in catalunya they speak catalan
in galicia they speak galician there are
different languages there's different
cultures the basque culture
all kinds of stuff out here you think
spain is just
beaches and great weather i'm in
barcelona and it's cold and it's windy
and it's not supposed to be this way
because i'm on vacation here in the
summer
but it does have that you go to madrid
in the winter don't be surprised if you
need your full winter gear on because it
does get cold
snow and avila hey it can happen the
thing is spain is so
variety there's so much variety here
yeah see your white houses
in andalusia and go to galicia to see
the
the windows and vigo and stuff like that
and la coruna and all kinds of stuff
and what i just want you to know is when
you come to spain don't be shocked
because of each different region you go
to you see something completely
different
with food with people with language and
what's cool is it
all those different parts are fantastic
so those are my 10
or 11 things that might shock you by
visiting spain what are some of the
stuff that
shocked you about visiting spain please
put in the comments section below
and i tell you have a good time in spain
but i already know you will because this
place is fantastic so
adios from spain i'm gonna go enjoy some
tapas and some sangria
and a great time with some of my spanish
and non-spanish friends here in spain
adios