#SwedeInMadrid: A scary sound

When my parents visited us in Madrid, we were sitting in our small garden. It is surrounded by a high fence and there are houses on both sides so you cannot see very far.

My mother listened to the screaming, laughing and shouting and said:

"When we drove here, I did not see that you had an amusement park close to your house?"

There is no attraction park close to where we live. But there is a school. What my mother heard were  Spanish children on a break.

Children all over the world scream and shout but here in Spain they do it several times louder than Swedish kids. (See Turning a perfect Spaniard into a Swede .)

It's not just the kids of course. Adult Spaniards are also loud, even though they do not scream and shout as much as kids.

I can deal with the loud volume. What bothers me is the inability to be quiet.

The school that our children go to has a music profile and often arranges concerts.
Children of all ages perform in front of their friends and family. Often, far too often, the parents in the audience talk so loud it is hard to hear the children who have prepared much and long. The teachers ask the audience over and over again to be quiet, but the only thing that happens is that the talking becomes slightly less loud for a few seconds but thereafter the volume goes right up again.

It was during one of these concerts that it hit me. The loudness, the continuous talking, the interupting, the lack of ability to just wait and listen... It seems that to Spaniards: