Thoughts on spain. 3 weeks.

So I'm coming to the end of my third week in Spain, and I thought it may be a good time to start developing opinions, criticisms, and other random thought about thoughts concerning this country.

I should first say, though, that whatever I end up saying, I'm not hating on any one, any place, or any people. That is to say, over all, what I say is what I see, and nothing more. 

So first, lets consider where I live. I live in Granada, Spain. It's an ancient city that was part of the late Muslim expansion into Europe before being taken over by the Catholics many, many hundreds of years ago and the city was the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, indeed in all of Europe. Its located in the southern province of Spain known as Andalusia, which was of course the last region controlled by the Muslims and it includes the cities of Cádiz, Malaga, Córdoba, and Sevilla. 

This is where the Muslims fled to after being expelled or forced to convert to Catholicism. 

There is a common misconception, I think, about Granada and all of Andalusia for that matter; the Muslim population here is not as dense as people might think. I mean after all, the Reyes Catolicas did banish them after they finally won the war. After the Alhambra fell (without a fight) the Muslims had to either leave the country, or convert. Some stayed and practiced in hiding, some left the country to Africa, and some went into the Mountains known as the Alpuhara, as seen above ;) . No, the only Muslim population has been from relatively recent immigration; both legal and illegal. There are places in the region that have massive populations of people of the Muslim faith, but Granada, nor southern Spain is really one of them. There is simple a Muslim population here. 

I've been here for three weeks, and although it may be a little premature to say this, I don't think I would ever live in Granada. This city is ancient, and its full people who have lived here for generations and generations. At this point in history, I think that the absence of that in America is one of its greatest strengths. Without the constraints of ancients customs, habits, and age old beliefs, there is a a potential for strong fluctuations in societal behavior. Which means yes that societies can turn from neutral to bad rapidly, but it also means that the society as a whole can turn from bad to good very quickly. And maybe not all aspects of a society, but certain behaviors that persist. 

One example that I can easily talk about is the ideology that  smoking is Ok. Now there may be many perspectives on the morality of smoking, and maybe even the ethics of smoking, but it is undeniable that smoking is harmful to the health of the human body. However, regardless of how damaging the chemicals in cigarettes may be, nearly everyone in the city of Granada, (based on the method of random assorted polling principals......that I just made up), smokes. If I had a nickel for every time I saw someone not smoking, and then took all that change and converted it back to Dollars... I STILL wouldn't have more than a few bucks. Its that bad. Its a way of life. The other day I got into a heated debate (in Spanish) about the harmful effects of smoking. 

The main points of the argument from my side were; very bad for your health, damages your skin, and it bugs the hell out of me, makes you cough, can kill you. 

Main arguments from her; the air outside is just as polluted as cigarette smoke, my skin could get burned in a fire, and I could die from something falling on my head or getting hit by a bus, and that people who don't like it can deal cause everyone does it. Oh, and she also quit clearly articulated that everyone smokes because all of the advertisements make it seem so cool and excellent and because there are enormous amounts of imports and, of course, that the number one importer and promoter of the use of cigarettes was...yup, you guessed it. United States of America.

With my limited range of verbs, nouns, and conjunctions, I attempted to, in vain, explain the difference between a country exporting goods and advertisements, and a country ALLOWING those things to be exported. Then I attempted to point out that Spain also allows these things to come IN to its country, and that it's many small businesses aid in the promulgation of the popular conception of what it is to smoke.  And of course there is the underlying fact present that, yes, a bus COULD kill... but cigarettes WILL kill you.

Finally, the argument that really bothered me, however, was that she felt that she had to keep smoking, because her ancestors had smoked for hundreds and hundreds of years. I said, but we brought tobacco from the Americas, and she said, before that, we smoked potato skins, and before that, some other food. 

There is a lot of history here that these people hold to. At times it fills the people with pride, and at other times it fills them with anger. These are things that will never change because people will always have feelings about what their ancestors have done in the place they live. And you obviously can't change what's happened in the past. 

My friend John. Very Hippy. And very cool.

This will more or less be my rant on cigarette smoke here in Spain. It drives me nuts, and I can't get away from it. I'll talk about other stuff in other blogs because this one is starting to get long. As the Dude said, " The Dude Abides."

'tal Luego.    Paul