Learning not to smile

I think I found something that may be just as difficult as learning Spanish: learning not to smile. The last few days, I have accumulated a record-breaking number of strange - and sometimes downright mean - glances from the people here. After exhausting every option (Is there something in my teeth? Do I smell like America?) I was just about ready to diagnose all of Bilbao with incurable unfriendliness.

And then yesterday happened. My host sister, Irati, and I were making a trip in the funicular, a sort of train that takes you all the way up to the top of one of the mountains that surround Bilbao (the view was AMAZING...when I can upload photos I will. You could see the entire city and surrounding area! There's a picture of the funicular at the bottom of this post).

Aaanyway, Irati and I were sharing our compartment with another man a few seats down. As she and I were chatting, she suddenly froze and whispered something to me in frantic Spanish. After asking her to repeat it about 27 times (I do poorly enough understanding her Spanish, let alone when it is extra rapid and hushed) - which completely defeated the purpose of her whispering anything. She said, "That old man next to us just SMILED at us." By the look on her face, I thought I was mis-translating and she really said, "The man next to us bathed in a bucket of snot and now he's reading a porn magazine."

The moral of the story? Here, unless you know somebody, you don't smile when you make eye contact. You look away. If you smile at a stranger, it means one of two things:
1. You're nuts.
2. You're flirting.
Well, I guess, 3 also: You're a clueless American. Guilty as charged.

So from now on, no smiling when I'm going on runs - because I'm not crazy, I'm not clueless (anymore) and I'm CERTAINLY not interested in the 70-year-old man with a cane that I flashed a friendly smile at on Thursday.

If any of you know me, this new rule is going to be a tough habit to break!


La funicular :)