Coffee on a Saturday morning in Spain

I'm sitting in a bar in the Barrio san francisco, quietly enjoying a coffee and a pastry slice, listening to the world around me. The weather outside is hot, but with a gentle breeze coming through.

People in Spain rarely seem to pay attention to the foreigner in their midst so it's a great chance to see how people here interact amongst themselves. I've always known people all over the world are the same, and a bar is the perfect place to see this for yourself.

In the corner an old chap is playing the one armed bandit, next to me two women are gossiping about a friend who just got married and who is looking forward to being a mother.

Very normal for anywhere in Europe. The differences are surreal, everything is in Spanish. The music is Flamenco. The air is heavy with cigarette smoke. And I'm very conscious of being the stranger even though the people around me seem to be as unaware of my attention as you'd expect them to be.

This is Spain, a land that sucks you in and makes you fall in love with her like a beautiful temptress oblivious to your attention. Part of the reason I love Spain is that the country is so different from back home, yet at the same time reassuringly the same, and the people here haven't yet forgotten that living is more important than working.