Siesta time!

I used to hate to take a nap. There’s too much to do, too much fun to be had to sleep! And in the daytime! As a child in nursery school, we were required to take a nap. It made me furious and I would seethe with anger as I lay on my mat with my eyes wide open. But, with age comes wisdom, and I now treasure taking a nap and even resent it a little on days when I don’t have time for one. Often, I don’t actually sleep, but I do get horizontal and zone out for 45 minutes or so. Also, besides the effects of age, drinking with lunch (as one does here!) when I go out with friends leads to a very lovely pause in the day.

Here in Spain, the siesta is used to be a sacred ritual. Nowadays, many businesses have switched to a more American time schedule with no midday break. I read that workers in cities like Madrid want to get rid of the siesta during the business day because they live in the suburbs and going home for lunch makes little sense. In smaller towns, however, the siesta is very much alive and well. The problem for me is that every business makes their own siesta hours. Stores choose to close from 1:00 to 3:00 or 1:00 to 4:00 or even 1:00 to 5:00, or 1:30 to whenever, or 2:00 to 4:00, 2:00 to 5:00…you get the drift? In the States, there is some variation in opening and closing hours of course, but not in the middle of the day! It’s very hard to plan my outings. The grocery stores generally (but not always) stay open all day, thank God, but the gas station (there’s only one in my town) closes at lunch. Bizarre. And the pharmacy closes as well. Kids are released from school for two hours. They’re picked up and dropped off again after lunch.

My Russian neighbor is still up to some funny business. When I first arrived back, his Russian car, now with Spanish plates, was in his garage. Then, it was gone, and there was a Ford with Spanish plates for several days, and the windows at his house were all shut tight again. Now, there’s a Mercedes with plates from the Netherlands. I’m documenting everything. I have photos of all the cars. It occurred to me that maybe I should try to gather his DNA. Sometimes his trash is on the curb… And I now suspect that the house next door is involved, but more observation is required.

In the States there are certain items at the store that are under lock and key, so to speak. They are locked in some type of hard plastic that needs to be removed by a store clerk. In Spain, until today, the only items I’ve seen so guarded were higher-end wines. Today, however, I discovered that people must have been stealing the anchovies, because they are now behind the plexiglass! I don’t think they would be a high risk item for robbery in the U.S.! I adore anchovies, but it is not a fondness that is shared by the majority of my countrymen and women.

This past week I went to see a doctor about an issue I’m having – hopefully nothing. Anyway, I was given the appointment through my insurance and I didn’t know the doctor’s name. When I was in the examination room, I asked him his name and he said “Alejandro.” Ok… They are quite informal here!