Gwyneth Paltrow says Spain has “became a second home.”

“It is so different from the United States. It seemed to have a history, and the buildings are years and years and years old. Here in the United States an old building is about 17 (years old), and over there it’s from 500 B.C., it’s incredible,” she tells the Associated Press.

“Also, the way people live over there. They seem to enjoy life a little bit more,” she continued. “They aren’t running around as much as in New York. They enjoy time with the family. They don’t always have their Blackberries on.”

(It’s not the first time she’s praised another country. In 2006, she stirred controversy for telling a Portuguese paper that she liked “the English lifestyle” because “it’s not as capitalistic as America. People don’t talk about work and money… they talk about interesting things at dinner.” She later said she was misquoted.)

Paltrow – who shot the PBS show Spain … on the Road Again with chef Mario Batali – says she visits Spain at least once a year and remains close to the family she lived with. She calls them “my Spanish mother” and “my brothers.”

She also says that she makes sure her children can speak Spanish.

Says the actress (who took her first trip to Spain as a teen), “Moses speaks
a little bit, but understands everything. Apple speaks a lot.”

Paltrow says she is also writing a book on U.S. cuisine with Spanish influence that is due out next year.

” … I love food, I love to eat,” she says. “I can’t go on diets. I have to do a lot of exercise.”

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