Spanish Rhythm

This is our first experience with the Spanish rhythm of living. I had read about Siesta in the guidebooks, but, wasn’t familiar with the details. Compared to Amsterdam, few people here speak fluent English, and it is hard for us to strike a conversation with them and get information. After observing the locals for a day, I asked the owner of Hostal Hill, a Japanese man from my hometown of Kyoto, about the inner workings of Siesta. Even after this detailed explanation in my native language, I still don’t have a full understanding of it.

According to the hotel owner, Spanish don’t necessarily take a nap during these few hours in the afternoon, but rather take their time eating a late lunch, and chatting with friends and neighbors before going back to work until around 6 or 7pm. Typically, they eat their last, small meal around 9:00pm before retiring for the evening. The Japanese hotel owner felt that this eating schedule wasn’t very healthy according to up-to-date nutritional knowledge.

Sunday morning, 2AM. The excitement of Saturday night is far from over. So many people were still on the streets. A family with a young girl, about 4-years-old, was enjoying their night out. The girl was wide-awake running around the sidewalk. As travelers here, we need to adjust to their rhythm.

We moved to an apartment near Estadi Camp Nou, the home of FC Barcelona. There are two different church bells that we can hear at this spot. Like any church in Europe, they let us know the time of day. Between these two bells, there is a lag of three to four minutes. I am warming up to this neighborhood with this lag, that I hear every hour. I would imagine, however, that there are no such lags in Switzerland where we plan to visit about a month from now.

Right across an alley from this apartment, construction of a building is going on. They start working around 8AM and, needless to say, we don’t need to set an alarm clock. Around 10AM, the noise quiets down for about a half an hour. During Siesta between 1PM and 4PM or so, nobody is at the construction site. The end of a day comes after a couple of hours after Siesta. When would this building be completed? In any case, I would say this is the pace of life for the people of this city. By the way, we also heard that there is no Siesta for the employees of American multinational corporations who have offices here.

The sun is definitely of the Mediterranean, really bright. We will spend next ten days in this city, hopefully in the sunshine.