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The Spanish just don’t seem to care about noise at the institutional level. I spent a week in a small Spanish city last year & the local rubbish collection went
by pja 3y ago
The Spanish just don’t seem to care about noise at the institutional level. I spent a week in a small Spanish city last year & the local rubbish collection went down the street outside the door, pouring bins full of bottles from the local bars in the back at midnight. Midnight! Just when even the Spanish are trying to get to sleep.
Co-incidentally, there was an article in the Spanish national press that week detailing all the ways in which noise in Spanish cities was deleterious to health & wellbeing and asking why no-one ever did anything about it. Constant noise just seems to be accepted as being an inevitable part of life, rather than something to be fixed.
- prmoustache 3y agoI am living in south of spain and not only spanish do not care about hearing noise, I think they actually do like being noisy and hearing noise. They are basically shouting all the time instead of talking for example. At the beginning I almost felt I should have interrupted couples in the middle of their conversations. I thought they were arguing and were about to become physical against each other, shouting mere inches from each other face with arms throwing all over the place. But no, you quickly realize they are just talking about trivial things, agreeing on something or just complaining about something external. Living there you kind of get used to it.
- circlefavshape 3y agoChileans have "spaniard" jokes reflecting this (or they used to in the 80s anyway)
- rewmie 3y ago> They are basically shouting all the time instead of talking for example. That's my experience as well. Sometimes it's hard to tell apart if there's a bar brawl happening on the pub down the road or if it's a grou having a good time. It also doesn't help that in both cases Spaniards curse like crazy.
- prmoustache 3y ago>Spaniards curse de puta madre corrected for you :)
- rewmie 3y agoTouché
- KAMSPioneer 3y agoI am living in Andalucía (originally US) and have had the _exact_ same experience. I have gotten used to it...except for when my upstairs neighbors decide to make a glorious racket every night at exactly midnight, right when I'm trying to sleep. Other than that though...!
- pantulis 3y ago> Midnight! Just when even the Spanish are trying to get to sleep. I had to chuckle when reading this, although I would point out that not all neighbourhoods are the same. Still, every spaniard knows that trying to call the local police because there is some idiot throwing a party at 1AM is pointless.
- pja 3y agoThis was midweek in the autumn after the bars had all shut & everyone had gone home. It might even have been a bit later! Either way, my point is that it was the worst possible time to be upending bins full of glassware in a residential area. That noise was far louder than the people in the bars had been an hour earlier.
- prmoustache 3y agoThe actual truck that collect those glasses pass between 2 to 4am. What does it do? It lift the glass collection tank and let the glass fall into the truck bed. So yes I don't think anyone cares that someone if binning some glassware one hour before the truck will do that same noise at much higher scale.
- pja 3y agoI was referring to the truck here, not the individual bars putting their bins out. They closed relatively early for Spain, as it was mid-week & not high-summer. The truck then came crashing down the street a little later...
- prmoustache 3y agoAh yes. I guess they do that so that it doesn't take 3 to 4times the duration because of traffic.