I grew up with Spanish and took it in school, but I never went to Spain, although I did visit Puerto Rico when I was a teen.  There are different dialects of Spanish all over Latin America, and many of them incorporate words that Castilian Spanish speakers will not recognize.  Some of them are native American words.

 My family who came from Puerto Rico (via Spain) speaks this weird Americanized form of Spanish  that we call Spanglish.  In our dialect, a "bodega" is a small grocery store, something like a convenience store with ethnic food.  In Spain it means something else.

My friend, who is a Spanish teacher in a nearby school, is not familiar with our dialect.  When I spoke to her about Puerto Rican Christmas food, I mentioned something called "pasteles", which are a dumpling made with plantain dough filled with meat.  She thought I was talking about cake, which in the Puerto Rican dialect is called "bizcocho."  

Thanks for sharing your experiences in Spain.  I should have visited the place where my ancestors came from.  Maybe I will, in another lifetime :)