Adjusting to the Spanish Timetable

I landed at El-Altet¹ at about 11:00pm. Actually, I landed in Europe and here that is 23:00. This wasn’t the first adjustment that I had to make upon arriving in Spain; the first adjustment was dealing with 17 Celsius at 23:00 on the 4th of February. People in the plane – mostly British folks coming down on holiday – actually clapped when the pilot announced that little detail. I must admit I actually laughed out loud.

When I moved to Spain I had no idea what things were going to be like. You hear about the siestas and know that they play good futbol. I had heard of paella but truth be told, I had sold my condo in Vancouver and moved all of my stuff into storage (hello Kits Mini-Storage!) and come to Spain following a woman; I sincerely overlooked the fact that there would be some cultural issues.

It was quite a shock, trying to order that first coffee

I recall waking up in an apartment we were staying in for the first few months wondering how I could find a coffee. Jetlag had set in and the woman (heretofore known as Sonia) had to get to the university. We were steps from the central market and even closer to a croissanteria² which was just across the street. Sonia set me up with some strange words that were supposed to get me a coffee. And that was the start of it all.

A typical working Spanish person will be up and out of the house between 7-8ish in the morning. They have a milk or other simple thing like that and get to work. At 10:00 they have a small breakfast; a sandwich or something significant enough to get them thru to 14:00, which is lunch time. It is also when most of the local shops close up for either the day or until 17:00 (if you’re lucky).

This adjustment, moving lunch from noon to 14:00 and closing up shop was a hard one to swallow. Time and again I’d get up and work for a bit, thinking I had time later to get out and shop for food or whatnot and then, bam, it would be 13:00 and I’d have to hurry to beat the lunch crowd to Mercadona. Its taken years to adjust to that schedule and I still find myself hurting at around 16:30 for shops to open ³.