Thursday, July 5, 2018

Ways in which Spaniards are superior to the rest of us...

I slept pretty well last night, not sure about Laura maybe check out her blog at villawalla.blogspot.com. Went out for a run first thing this morning a.k.a. about 8:30am. The path along the canal is wonderful for running and was very busy with walkers, joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers. Along the canal, club rowing teams were out on the water or putting their boats in for workouts.

The big event of the day was Mario visiting us and getting us all the additional details of our flat. He was joined today by his wonderful wife, Palma. Mario is a secondary ed science teacher. Palma is a secondary ed english teacher. They had a lot of good advice and are very willing to help with our Sevilla project. I don't think we could have found better here if we tried. They have two children that are both competitive swimmers. Mario too is a competitive swimmer. Palma proudly noted that Mario won a gold medal recently in a Sevilla masters competition. At the end of our conversation, about 2 hours, our table was covered with notes about everything from beaches to visit, how to dispose of our garbage, to where to purchase bus cards:
In addition to that, Palma tried to explain the daily clock that folks here in Spain live on. The day starts at around 7:30am with a light breakfast, then off to work around 8am. A "second breakfast" (hobbits would love this place) would be around 10-11am. Work or school will break or end between 2-3pm and a large-ish lunch meal will occur. Many businesses are closed from 1:30pm-3:30pm. Things resume at around 4pm-ish and continue on into the late evening. A light snack might happen at around 5-6pm ish. A full dinner may occur at 9-10pm ish. Folks typically go to bed around 11:30-midnight, and the whole thing starts again.

We've definitely noticed this because there is a cafe/bar right across our street that runs from about 10-1pm and then 8-midnight and it's pretty packed with people eating, drinking and conversing. Mario had special windows put on the flat to dampen the noise. You can still hear the ruckus, but it's just a low background murmur and if you have the TV on or are playing music you don't really notice it. Here's a shot of the place as seen through the window in our living room:
We walked deeper in to the Sevilla side of town. The people in our neighborhood, Triana, kind of think of themselves as their own city with Sevilla across the bridge. Regardless, the maze of streets over there is mind-boggling. I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have Google maps to show us around. Also, every little alley and street has stuff going on. The city is clean and bustling everywhere. I think it'll take much of the year to really get to know these streets.

OK. Ways in which Spaniards are superior to us. Shouldn't all Pringles cans be this big?
 And, every dustpan, even those in regular homes, have long handles?
 And, the dishrack, be in a bottomless cabinet above the sink so you can put the dishes away wet and they just drip into the sink?