Things I missed from Spain when in the US

Before starting to narrate point by point what I missed, I want to warn you that the opinion I have of the USA after having lived there for four years is excellent: I fell in love with the country from the very first moment and I would even prefer to live there for the rest of my life rather than in Spain. I say this because the Americans who read me may be annoyed by the negative things I am going to describe, but they are concrete things that belong to a place I remember with great affection. I also take this opportunity to say that I understand that some of these aspects, such as safety or the way of life, can vary greatly depending on the state or city where you live; I lived all four years in Chicago, where the cold weather conditioned the way of life quite a bit.

Without further ado, let’s move on to the things I missed:

Food. Food above all and more than anything else; I missed the quality of the products in Spanish grocery stores compared to the American ones; the healthy food, the strict European regulation on the additives that can be used, and the huge variety of delicious dishes offered by Spanish restaurants at affordable prices.

In the USA the first thing that caught my attention was how difficult it is to know the nutritional values of a food per 100 grams, something that seems to me indispensable to assess the healthiness of a food; I saw that, there, food companies have the freedom to come up with whatever portion size they want, often unrealistic, and then show the values for that portion. Then there is the gastronomic variety in their restaurants; it is true that you have restaurants from all over the world to choose from, but the typical American restaurant is the same in Oregon as in North Carolina: meats with sauce, chicken, pasta, hamburger, mashed potatoes and little else. And finally, I was surprised by the disinterest of the population for mild, subtle flavors: everything has to have sauce, I never saw an American enjoying a white fish with a little oil or a fresh salad without ranch sauce.

Affordable leisure. This can be very specific to the city where you live, but in my case, living in Chicago and its 8 months of cold weather a year I missed the offer of entertainment at low prices or just free. In Spain it is common to enjoy weekly festivals organized by municipalities or neighborhood groups, movie tickets for less than 5 euros on the day of the spectator, bars with beer at 1 euro where you can spend the afternoon with friends, or go hiking on weekends on routes that start in the city.

I don’t think any country surpasses the USA in leisure offer, there, with money, there are almost infinite activities that one can do, but at a hefty price! Almost all the entertainment offer comes from private initiative: haunted houses, farms with corn mazes, restaurants set in certain themes … I don’t think there is a cheap option when it comes to have fun in the US; I learned that going out for drinks at night could easily mean coming back home with 100 dollars less in the pocket.

Street life. I mean being able to spend an entire evening outdoors, even without having to consume in a bar. I missed streets with wide sidewalks, and even more benches where I could sit with friends and eat pipes, something I often did in Spain. And also, of course, the terraces of bars that stretch along the sidewalks always full of people and good atmosphere.

In the USA I found public benches were scarce, I say public because I did find nice places with benches to sit, but being owned by private companies that owned the nearby buildings I always felt a little at their mercy. So I found that, when I went outside, it was difficult to spend time outdoors, especially in winter or after dark. I did notice, though, how the pandemic popularized the terraces, and a large number of bars and restaurants began to take their tables out into the street.

Walkable cities/car independence. In Spanish cities it is normal to have within walking distance (+/- 20 mins) absolutely everything except your workplace, that depends on other factors. Within a radius of a few blocks one has the pharmacy, grocery store, school, high school and even the health center, as well as bars, restaurants and stores, so there is no dependence on the car, because if there is a need to move to a more distant point of the city we have at our disposal a good public transport service.

In Chicago I found the operation of public transportation more than acceptable (a little outdated, yes), but I have read and heard people from other cities say that public transportation in their city was almost nonexistent. And that’s when we talk about cities, because if we go to the suburbs things get a lot worse. As for the variety of nearby services like the one I have described from Spain, I saw that it was possible to walk long distances, either downtown or in the suburbs, without finding a grocery store, a park or a school, sometimes along a whole street there was not even a single place to enter. And I am talking about the city, because if we go to the suburbs there were many times when there was not even a sidewalk to walk on.

Safety. Although it is something that many people mention when comparing Europe with the United States I was not sure whether to include this point, because the truth is that I never felt unsafe, except for the time I visited St Louis, Missouri.

I am not going to say that in Spain there is no crime, in the news we see the occasional murder, home invasion, or robbery with violence, but it is not the norm. There is a certain probability of being a victim of crime, but we are talking about minor crimes such as pickpocketing, bicycle theft or, with very bad luck, you can be a victim of robbery with intimidation. Violence is rare, and I would say that in 96% of Spain you can walk down the street at any time of the day without fear of something happening to you.

As I said, I did not feel unsafe in the US, but I felt that violence was very present in the environment, either by the presence of weapons, shooting drills in schools and workplaces, the lurid news that spread every week, or the fear shown in the conversations of the people around me; all this meant that, although I did not fear for my physical integrity, I suffered a certain psychological fatigue.