Posted on 04/04/2016 8:29:38 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
The Spanish Prime Minister has announced moves to cut the working day by two hours and bring an end to the siesta, in an attempt to bring the country into line with its European counterparts.
Mariano Rajoy, the head of the centre-right coalition government, wants to scrap the universally-observed three-hour midday break.
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That’ll be popular.
It will. They'll take siesta anyway and get off from work 2 hrs early.
The nations of the world must conform to the ‘world order’.
When I was working I only got a half hour lunch break and then didn’t want to go back to work. If I had a three hour break I really wouldn’t want to go back to work. Most of the time I worked through lunch anyway.
We’re planning on visiting Spain next year.
One thing we were told is that if you want to buy anything or get some food in the afternoon, you could pretty much forget because everything is closed.
The Spanish should tell their "counterparts" to go fly a kite.
The Ten Controllers will know what’s best for the rest of us.
This will not happen. I don’t care what this fool decrees.
Very true. I went back in 98 and Spain was magnificent and beautiful. Madrid was fantastic. I have heard it’s since took a turn downwards after years of leftist rule but it can’t have derailed that badly. It’s very hard to get something to eat during Siesta but the streets are jammed with people at 9:00. The people from Madrid love to eat outside at restaurants since it’s temperate year round. Great food, great people, very vibrant city. Youwill have a great time. Just carb up before noon.
I’m still planning out the trip. We’re not spending too much time in Madrid, basically we’ll do a tour bus tour, but we plan on spending more time in Seville, and then a few days on the Costa Del Sol before going to Barcelona.
I was trying to figure out where the best place to stay on the Costa Del Sol is, either Malaga, Torremolinos or Marbella.
The other thing is that Spain can be very hot. Their midday sun (wrong time zone so think closer to 2pm) is much more intense than the sun at noon or 1pm in Berlin or Brussels or Paris. A lot of Spanish culture is aligned with avoiding that sun. The streets are close together to encourage shade. They use tile and white washed brick/plaster for construction to reject heat. And socially they evolved to do more of their living in the cooler evening hours after sunset, which because of the wrong time zone thing can be as late as 9 or 10pm in summer. If you spend any time there you will find that they will not eat dinner until well after 9pm, and you will see even children playing outside close to midnight. Many compensate for this by having their main meal at 2pm rather than at night AND/OR they often like to take a nice nap in the afternoon before heading back to work.
Trying to cram Spanish culture into a German clock won't work, IMHO. The Spanish will gladly go home at 6pm but they won't give up their 2 hour lunches. One man's opinion.
I liked your reply. Very well put!
We were stationed in Spain in the early 80s—my younger son was born there. It was wonderful. Plus, the fact that we worked American hours, but lived in a country that worked Spanish hours meant that everything was open when we got off work. We used to go to dinner at 8 or 9 pm.
The siesta is so much a part of Spanish culture, I just don’t see it going away without a fight. I suspect that effort will go over as well as the switch to the metric system went in the US (even though the metric system is *so much* easier to use).
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