EXPAT OBSERVATIONS: THE SPANISH SCHEDULE
/The Spanish schedule is…how do you say...special. We got a preview of its distinctiveness as tourists in 2014, but it’s a whole different ballgame to real-life live it. Four weeks in and we're still trying to figure out how the days are supposed to work.
For one, there’s the siesta. Mythbuster: people don’t take 2-hour naps in the middle of the day. But they do take excessively long lunch breaks that necessitate the closure of nearly every store you’d want/need to visit between 2:00ish and 5:00ish. (My colleagues eat an early and much abbreviated midday meal that begins promptly at 1:00 and ends always with coffee at 2:00; I’m in the process of retraining my stomach not to start growling at 11:30.) While the siesta seems like an okay idea in concept — who doesn’t want a little midday break? — it has a domino-like effect on the rest of the day.
For instance, the siesta isn't just an informal and unspoken lunchtime ritual; it's a legally mandated break. Rather than the American nine-to-five, the typical Spanish workday incorporates the 2-hour siesta and instead goes from 9:00 to 7:00. Great if you have two hours worth of lunch-eating to do everyday; less great if you want to, say, see your kids. And there's a political movement afoot to say sayonara to the siesta for precisely that reason. (Note: I do not have to keep Spanish work hours, so consider this observation, not complaint.)
But it doesn't end there. If you just ate lunch at 2:00 and didn't get home from work until after 7:00, when are you going to have dinner? Evidently, not until about 10:00. Aaron and I made dinner reservations on Spain's version of OpenTable last weekend (see below). There were no 8:30 reservations (because the restaurant was obviously not yet open), and they were offering a whopping deal to any suckers who'd take the 9:00PM early bird slot. Welp, suckers we were, and totally uncool we felt. We were the very first people in the restaurant by a solid 45-minute margin.
I'm just not yet sure how people here do it. Spanish days are way longer than I'm used to, but schools and jobs still start at 8:30 or 9:00. It's like no one ever gets tired. Eventually (maybe?) our Circadian rhythm will adapt. Until then, I'm just pretty grateful that the Spanish schedule seems to have rubbed off a bit on Owen and Eliza, who now eat dinner with us at 7:00 or 8:00 and stay up till 9:00 or 9:30. Better still, the kids we used to fight so hard to keep in their beds until 6:45am now routinely stumble out of their rooms at 8:30 or 9:00am. So fine, Spanish Schedule, I don't get you but I do kinda like you.
