Every time I travel, I am always looking for things that I’m not used to seeing or experiencing. These are some of the things I’ve noticed since we’ve arrived.

1. Dogs are oftentimes not on leashes in Barcelona, and they are no where as manicured and clothed and groomed as they are in cities like New York, San Francisco, and LA. These dogs look scruffy, dirty, and like they need a brushing. They look like… dogs. Real dogs. Not the ones that get bathed and brushed and preened every day.
2. Like in Korea, no one seems to care if you use their restaurant bathroom even if you didn’t eat or drink at their restaurant. I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.
3. Wine is so cheap here, and unlike in the U.S., cheap does not necessarily mean crappy quality. Here, cheap actually means really good wine. I suppose that’s the case in most of Europe, but it should be odd to you when a glass of extremely delicious, fruity, and easy to drink red wine is 2 euros, and your bottle of water is 4 euros. Okay, let me correct that. It should be odd to you if you are American. We really take water for granted in the U.S. in restaurants.
4. You’ll never get water served to your table unless you ask for it. And when you do ask for it, you will definitely be paying for it. So enjoy it, and as much of it as possible.
5. Here, we’re on Spanish time, so it will never be as on time as in countries like Japan or Korea. Your train isn’t really going to depart at exactly 8:22. Slow down, take your time, and relax.
6. Why is the subway here so clean?! There’s not a single piece of trash on the subway tracks anywhere. In New York, it’s laden with trash to the point where we get track fires because of dumb people’s littering and laziness.
7. In markets in New York, the common fruits and vegetables you will see are the most boring ones: apples, regular Cavenish bananas, oranges, tomatoes, carrots, broccoli. In markets in Spain, you get to see their version of “common” and “everyday,” which include cherimoyas (WHAT?!!! I’m in heaven), dragon fruit, endless artichokes, and the most beautiful and colorful tomatoes ranging in shapes, wrinkles, sizes, and colors (even purple, pink, and bright green). And the produce is cheap. It’s like robbery.
8. There’s a massive obsession with preserved white asparagus. I really don’t get that. The clear glass bottles of preserved white asparagus are literally everywhere.
9. People jay walk here. We really haven’t seen this at all in any other European city. Chris fits right in.