the siesta

so i was supposed to go into toledo today to go watch the corpus christi procession... and the phone, which i was using as an alarm, was on silent. so i woke up, ironically enough, at exactly 7:45, when the group was supposed to meet at the train station. man, i'm so disappointed... the only thing that's making me feel a little bit better is the fact that it's supposed to be raining buckets all day long over there and it's supposed to be really cold, which would be miserable. oh well, these things happen; now i'll be sure to check the phone every night before i use it as an alarm again...

anyways. i thought i would share the joy that i find from the spanish tradition of the siesta. it's something kind of incomprehensible to our american minds. it's something incredibly amazing that i hope doesn't change any time soon. it's the tradition of having everything, absolutely everything in a town shut down for 3-4 hours every afternoon so that the workers can go and enjoy themselves their lunch and take a break. seriously: businesses don't open until 9 am (which is reasonably late to me; even the panaderias here don't open until then) and then they usually close from 2:30 in the afternoon to 5ish when they open again until 8 or 9.

a part of me wants to be the owner of the annoying american large chain store that comes in and begins the competition of keeping my store open during these hours and forces the rest of them to stay open... and the rest of me likes it so much that these people still feel that pleasure and LIVING are more important than working all. the. time. and MAKING their living. and i especially love it how after lunch, it is fully, 100% understood (in fact, almost expected) that you take a nap. i usually just take advantage of this on sundays. like today, when i slept from 4:30 to 7:15... so i clearly give my stamp of approval to this tradition.