More trouble for Americans in Spain
People are just people, and these are stodgy Europeans.
Some misconceptions of what life is like in general are more applicable to Central America, Mexico or southwestern U.S. than to Portugal, Spain or Morocco. (And Africans can be stodgy and officious as well as Europeans, for that matter.)

The whole spirit of Cinco de Mayo and Mexican independence from Spain seems to be lost somewhere.
There's a yeast culture of too much wine and hard cheese in Spain just like there is in Italy and France.
People are just people. Whatever is traditional in your family, that's what your culture is.
All Western "common law" states of the U.S. actually do adhere in many respects to the old Spanish laws, customs and culture, obviously with the substitution of English as an official language since the Mexican-American War.