An Island Apart

There are some interesting parallels between Hawaii and the Canary Islands. One is that kids typically live at home until they are around 30 or so because housing is really expensive. Also similar is the fact that a lot of jobs here are tourism-related and don’t pay well.

The other day, I saw a sign with the graffiti “Canaria no es espania” on it (“The Canary Islands are not Spain”) which I think also adequately sums up the feelings of a lot of people living in Hawaii who feel it is drastically different from the mainland.

There is definitely a difference in the way people speak here on the islands and on the peninsula. There is more of a pronounced lisp sound on the TV shows. For example, in Tenerife “gracias” sounds like “gra-see-us” whereas on TV it sounds a lot more like “gra-thee-us”. I think my favorite word at the moment is “guagua” for the bus as opposed to “autobus” that is more commonly used in the rest of Spain. “Vale” (ok, sure) is a close second but I think that one is used everywhere.