I shall start this by stating an obvious fact that anyone would know. Spain is geographically larger than the UK. Very roughly put, it is about twice as large. Which, to the average Brit, is bloody humungus.
Spain also has a much smaller official population that the UK. Below I include figures and stats for those of you who care but, Spain’s population is roughly 1.3 times smaller than the UK’s.
Basically this should tell you that, in the UK, we live really close together and don’t have a lot of space to spread out. (Jeremy Clarkson talked about this very thing in his column in this week. He plans to invade France apparently).
I have to say that I noticed this long before I moved to Spain. When I was on my gap year I noticed that you could drive for hours without passing a house or a village, try doing that in the UK.
The Spanish are (obviously) used to the scale of their country. This is reflected in their language. To me, if you say something is ‘next’ to something else it means that it is, at most, a 5 minute walk. Here if they say that it means it’s roughly a half hour drive.
Every summer (mainly August) Madrid literally empties of everyone who is not a tourist as it is considered too hot for sensible people. I make no judgements on the tourists but the Madrileños are correct, it’s bloody hot. Anyway, the roads fill with people heading out of the city for the coast or the Sierra nearby (that’s the Spanish definition of ‘nearby’ btw, so roughly an hour or so). Off they drive on their hols, to the various coasts and they think nothing of a 3 hour plus drive, in fact, that’s considered to be pretty close really, all things considered.
I know people who drive 6 hours every other week to go and visit their families back in their pueblo. At least they have the decency to admit that 6 hours is a bit of a step.
I wonder what they (meaning anyone from a larger country than the UK) make of the UK. This is a place in which the farthest you can ever be from the sea is 80 miles. They must have constant vertigo. I mean, they have barely started driving and there it is, looming in front of them, The Edge. It must be very disconcerting.
I on the other hand consider any drive over an hour and a half to be really rather long and tedious. An hour or, at a push two, seems a perfectly reasonable time in which to reach the edge of the country and have a look over, just to see how the sea is and things.
I often had the sensation in the UK that I couldn’t get away from people. That wherever you go, you are surrounded or never far from people and things and noise. I may have been exaggerating slightly. I definitely didn't have that feeling in NZ or SA so I know what it is like to have a bit of space for your thoughts, a bit of peace. The sky also seemed bigger outside the UK, somehow limitless. You could really breathe it all in.
It is interesting to note that Brits are a pretty antisocial lot in spite of our proximity, or maybe because of it?
I could go on to comment on the sociability of the Spanish but that will make a post on its own so I’ll leave it until I can be arsed to write it.
Here’s a pic taken a 40 minute drive from the very centre of Madrid to give you an idea of how quickly you can get away and be largely alone here.
The stats
Spain’s population (as of Jan 08 which was the latest census) is 46,157,822. The UK’s 60,944,000 (projected population based on 2001 Census growth figures). Spain’s size: 195,884 square miles. The UK’s: 94,600 square miles (inc NI).
