"No dejes el bolso en el suelo porque pierdes dinero."

The secretary at my colegio and a friend of mine, Noemi, told me this on my first day in Archena.  I had entered the office that Monday, found the chair in front of the computer, and sat down next to Noemi; promptly and purposefully letting my bag slip to the ground beside me.  But then, I'm American.  When I take my clothes off after a long day, they may or may not make it into the hamper, depending on how much I'm rushing.  But a Spanish person would never drop their clothes to the floor like me.

The floor in Spain is untouchable.  The ground is where you drop your napkin, empty chip bag, cigarette butt, receipt, empty glass, broken umbrella, etc.  The ground is where people walk and spit and pee.  And not just people, but dogs and cats too.  You never, ever, ever touch the ground in Spain.  Even in your own home you wear zapatillas or house shoes.  I hate house shoes.  In the summer I did without and had to wash my feet every night before getting into bed.  When winter came I started to wear fuzzy socks like I wear in the states.  That lasted about a week.  In the states we have carpet.  The floors are for sure dirtier because they´re carpet, but they feel cleaner and they're certainly warmer.  Here the floors are tile or wood or something along those lines.  Without a proper sole on your shoe, your feet are going to freeze.  I live in my zapatillas.  I won't go to the restroom in the middle of the night without first slipping into my house shoes.  I love them.  When my sister came to visit I was almost overwhelmed by the temptation to buy her a pair.

Things like this, like the untouchable Spanish floor, are really subtle.  I adapted to this Spanish habit without thinking too much of it, but as time goes by, I see that it's a mentality.  Every day Spanish people throw their little bits of trash in the street and every night a whole crew of people clean the streets.  To me, this seems abominal.  There are plenty of trashcans.  We don't really have street cleaners in Texas.  We do, but infrequently.  Maybe twice a year outside of the city.  I will stick trash in my purse just to not throw it on the ground because I don't like the way it looks, with the city always so dirty.  For Spanish people, the trash and the floor are the same exact thing.

I was with some friends and one of them asked me to put two packets of sugar in my purse.  This sort of frugality is ridiculous to me and knowing that he wouldn't be mad at me (just exasperated), I looked him right in the eye and dropped his sugar packets on the ground.  In Texas, the person would have picked them up.  In Spain, the moment they hit the ground they were trash.

(I apologize for no picture, I am once again experiencing camera problems.  FML)