Hi! Nice to meet you and by the way...I like your shoes.
One of the major differences between Europe and the United States various cultures that I started noticing in the Frankfurt Airport was shoes. It sounds a bit superficial, but honestly the manner of dress seems pretty important partly as a sort of indicator of how people regard each other and themselves. In the U.S. it’s cool if you’re wearing sweats and a pair of Nike tennis shoes out shopping or for a brisk walk on the street. But here, if you’re wearing tennis shoes, you better be on a professional sports team or you just look out of place. On a similar note, the clothes people around my neighborhood wear are what I would wear for very dressy events at home, like an interview or a nice, professional job. And these are the types of clothes worn everyday, for shopping or going to coffee.
Another thing I have noticed here is that people just look at me and start speaking in English, or I open my mouth and say one thing, albeit a bit slowly and the person I’m talking to replies in English. I think the proper response for me is to continue speaking in Spanish, but I can’t be sure. I’ve decided my goal is to be able to talk more briskly in Spanish and sound more fluent so that I receive that response less often. I notice when I’m outside of my flat (which is very beautiful, by the way), I get very nervous and avoid conversation as much as possible; I’m working on this!
Also, I'm not sure how to upload photos, because I think the internet somehow can't handle my photos (they're very large files! and the internet is a bit slow here)