After living in Spain for the past year and a half without returning to America, upon entering the US I was hit with a number of cultural differences. As I think of them, I’ll post them here.

1. Large Vehicles. SUV’s, minivans, suburbans, trucks… a big difference from the small cars and motos of Spain.
2. Parking Lots. You mean in the US they actually MAKE space to park a car? Even space that is suited for a LARGE vehicle? Wow! Yes, there are some underground parking garages in Spain, but you usually have to pay to use them. Generally it is first come first serve, park on the street or double park and hope there are no cops around who feel like ticketing! If you have a moto you are more assured of a parking space, but apparently not here. We actually felt strange looking for motorcycle parking in a Costco lot, and not finding any. After thinking about it, I suppose not many people go to Costco on a motorcycle…
3. Spicy Food. Ah… true jalapeños. Not the watered-down Carrefour type that may-or-may-not be found in the stores when you need it.
4. Mexican food in general. Our favorite. Flour tortillas are so cheap!! My goodness! Not so in Spain, where I haven’t yet found corn tortillas at all.
5. Fast Food. It’s EVERYWHERE here! In Spain we have a couple of American “fast food” places, some (like Pizza Hut) are more like luxury restaurants, and none of them are fast. I was amazed to see how fast the service at Wendy’s was this afternoon!
6. Carpeting. Whereas carpeting whole rooms seems pretty normal in the US, tile is the norm in Spain. Tile is great for keeping cool in the summer heat, but not as good in the winter. I’ve gotten used to wearing shoes, sandals or slippers around the house at all times - something that isn’t as necessary in a carpeted house.
7. Indoor Heating. Along with cold tile floors, our winter in Spain was kept warm with space heaters pointed in our general direction and bundles of throw blankets. Much different than the central heating we’ve experienced so far in the Midwest. Of course, it also hasn’t gotten down to freezing temperatures while I’ve been in Málaga…
8. Dry vs. Humid. I knew it was more humid in Málaga, that was pretty obvious by the salt in the shaker clumping up and the need to run de-humidifiers constantly in the “cold season.” However, I completely forgot how much dryer it is in the US!! There was a reason I used to never leave the house without my chapstick. That reason is much more obvious now. (And we’ve noticed that salt doesn’t clump, either.)

… to be continued.

…Spending the week at Avant ISC. We have reserved a mission car and will be driving around the country for a while with it after we leave here. There are lots of people we’d like to see and catch up with, and our schedule is pretty flexible right now, so if you want our route to stop by your town, let us know!

Last week we arrived in California, and despite 19 hours of travel time, we adjusted pretty well to the time difference. During transit I came down with a cold, though it must have been a US cold since I got over it pretty quickly. Spanish colds usually take me down for about a week. Tim caught it from me, unfortunately, so he’s still getting over it.

We’ve been able to rest a lot, which is good considering how crazy the past month has been. It’s also been good to have time with family - after not seeing them for a year and a half I really needed that. I do miss our home in Spain, but I’m enjoying the change of pace we have here. Everything is so completely different now that it will take a long while to fully adjust, but we’re off to a good start.

This Sunday we’ll be giving a presentation at one of our supporting churches in the area, so we’re trying to organize our thoughts and prepare for that. How do you even begin to communicate the thoughts and feelings and LIFE you’ve experienced over the past few years in another country? How do you compress all of it to an hour’s worth of time? And then, how do you ask for others to stand behind you in what you do so that you can leave them again, and return to that second life? It truly is as if I have lived two lives, one here and one in Spain. Double are the opportunities, both to start over and to make mistakes. Praise God that His grace is enough.