I think having blonde hair here is a plus, and not a negative like it is in America ("dumb blonde"). To the Spanish people blonde hair signifies beauty, and because it is very rare for people to have it here in Spain. I've mentioned before that I really "stick out like a sore thumb", and I can never tell if it's because of my blonde hair or if there's something on my face when I'm waking topless down the beach (I'm kidding). A lot of famous actresses and models dye their hair blonde here, as I've seen on their drama TV talk shows. It doesn't bother me though when cars stop so I can walk across the stop-walk.
In my conversation class (1 hour/day) we talked a lot about the differences between the USA and Spain. My teacher's reaction when we told her about beanie babies was priceless. She repeated the phrase "beanie babies" in English but thought it was the strangest thing until we showed her a picture on someone's phone. They do have Barbies here though, and Monster High dolls, and Legos. When she mentioned Legos, the girl next to me, Mary from Wisconsin, got very excited and started to explain to the class that her wedding is going to be Lego themed. Even I thought that was strange, however to our teacher even more so. Her response was "The United States is another planet."
We also talked about the uses of Coca Cola. In Spain, they not only drink it, but use it to clear their bathrooms. Our teacher explained they pour it down the drain "to clean it out". There are two Russians in my class, and they proceeded to explain that in Russia, they drink Coca Cola when they've eaten something that hurts their stomach in order to clean out their system. Basically, I learned Coke is a cleaning product.
Another thing I've noticed about Spain is that the weather changes on a dime. All during class it was cloudy and only in the high 60s/low 70s. When I went to the beach a couple hours later there was hardly a cloud in the sky and it was very hot. I went with a group of students up the side of a mountain to see the ruins of a castle on top. The view was spectacular, it's impossible to describe it all through a few pictures. It took us around 2 hours to go up, walk around, and come back down, and when we were back down on the beach the water was just calling our names. I swam out with a girl in my group and a local to the line of buoys that were about 100 yards out (I'm bad at measurements, so that's a guesstimate). I didn't have a nap today either. I'm so exhausted..
Every time I ride the bus I get more familiar with where I'm at and where things are located. I have also noticed there is a lot of graffiti everywhere. It's common to drive past a fancy, black tie restaurant and the wall or gate next to it be covered in graffiti. However, I'm not dissing on it, art is art, but this speculation leads me to say that there is no rich area and poor area; it's not divided. Everything is dispersed randomly throughout the streets. It's a very different setting than how it is in America.