Spanish hours

[shewhomust]

On Sunday, we had guests, and a leisurely lunch, after which we were all so relaxed and happy that when durham_rambler offered to demonstrate his new internet-enabled DVD player by showing us his holiday photos through the television, we didn't try to dissuade him. Some of us may have been relaxed and happy enough to fall asleep, but that's another matter. For my part, I enjoyed his pictures, and they were a reminder, too, to carry on sorting my own (of which there are many)

A factor that coloured our entire trip was that we never really came to terms with Spanish time. "We should have stayed on British Summer Time," said durham_rambler, and certainly subtracting an hour from the time on clock gave the day a more familiar shape. It wasn't an entire surprise: the siesta has entered the English language, and Spaniards notoriously dine late - we would arrive at the dining room as it opened at eight thirty, to be greeted in English by the waiters (because only the English eat so early). It wasn't that we were starving - we lunched late, too - but invariably by the time we reached the dessert stage, we were nodding off. One reason why there are fewer reports of fine dining from this trip is that we just didn't have the stamina.

The long, late lunch break caught us unawares most days, but not always in a bad way: a leisurely breakfast took us into the dining room at an unhurried holiday hour by our standards, early by Spanish standards. We'd still have a long morning left for sightseeing, because although everything closed for lunch, it didn't do so until two o' clock. As I said, we lunched late, and didn't hurry, but still found ourselves ready for the afternoon's entertainments well before they reopened at four or more likely five.

If we were travelling, this was fine: because our next hotel would not be expecting us until the evening, we could take our time. But we had ridiculous difficulty, for example, in getting to a post office during opening hours. We did very little shopping, partly because we were mainly in small medieval towns in which we didn't see many shops, but also because by the time the sun was setting we'd have returned from our explorations to our hotel, and settled down to read or do battle with the internet, Meanwhile, the shops would be opening, and trade would be picking up. Gradually we worked this out, but knowing it wasn't enough to override our normal time settings.

Only on our very last evening (the one we inadvertently spent back in Santo Domingo), having spent a long day driving up and down major roads, and determined to squeeze the last drop out of our evening, did we actually find ourselves in a town full of lively and inviting shops. And this is what I bought:

biscuits commemorating the local saint's most famous miracle.

Comments

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I think I was lucky - I was contemplating the street plans at the time to sort out stuff about worldbuilding and about the Middle Ages (why people live where they live, what convivencia meant in daily life etc). If I went back and wanted all the insides, I would find it frustrating.