Hola!

My first post, about my first few experiences in Spain. While I've been terribly busy running around, trying to legalize myself, find an apartment and doing sundry other things, some initial few observations.

a) People here are super friendly. I've lived in India, France and the US, and without a doubt the people here are the friendliest I've encountered. True, its only been a week, but in this week, I've had dinner with completer strangers two nights in a row and had a great time (despite my near-zero Spanish skills), had random people walk up to me asking if I was alright when I looked lost (which is pretty much most of the time) and have been given great advice on places to stay by random people. Maybe this is common in other cities too, but I haven't experienced such behavior anywhere else. Either way its great!

b) Two Surnames: People here generally have two surnames. It is so common, that it is expected that you actually provide a second surname for everything, bank accounts, cellphone contracts, apartment leases, medical insurance, life insurance etc etc. I was sorely tempted to take on Obama as a second surname but I resisted. I just repeated my own surname.

c) Food: The food so far has been great. It would appear that the Spanish cuisine primarily consists of very simple dishes, but the ingredients used are very fresh and creative. While food will be an ongoing research topic on this blog, suffice it to say that the food has been awesome so far. The lunch is the most important meal of the day and people eat heavy meals for lunch. Dinner is a more relaxed and a scaled down affair. This practice is a departure from all the places I've lived so far. Paris has heavy lunches but also has heavy dinners. US and India - light lunches.

More to come, stay tuned!