A Time for Everything

We've been adjusting to differences in time in many senses. We've now gotten over the initial jetleg but it took a couple days of little sleep, waking up in the middle of the night, and in some cases sleeping pills. But that wasn't the only time change we had to get used to.

Because of the oppressive heat in the summer, Spaniards have developed a tradition of siesta where much of the population takes a couple hours off anywhere from 2-6. The beaches and sidewalks clear up as everyone heads inside to spend time with their families and nap. The stores and restaurants close and things get pretty quiet. The restaurants don't open again until around 7:00 for dinner and most people don't have dinner until 8 or 9. Even then the dinner is pretty light- often just tapas (an array of appetizers and small sandwiches). While we were on vacation we decided to check out the night life and were dismayed and surprised to find that places don't get hopping until 1-2 in the morning. We talked to one girl who said she stays out until 5 or 6 in the morning then sleeps all the next day!!

The culture of time is also different. I've noticed less of a sense of urgency and rush here. While we were exploring Sevilla it seemed that people walked more and at a slower rate than we Americans took. There is also less emphasis on getting places on time. Rachel Schmitt (a gustie grad we met up with), explained that if you saw a friend on the way to meet with someone else it would be considered rude brush off the friend in order to make it to your previous engagement on time. We've seen some of this attitude in the classroom as well. There are few clocks around the school and unlike many of our previous placements, the clock does not dictate classroom movements. There are no bells, even for the end of the day. When Ashley asked the IT teacher how long the class stayed at the computers he shrugged and said until the next class comes in. We talked with a teacher who said she likes this system because it makes the students more independent and less reliant on an outside source (a bell) to dictate when they should be places. They just have to go and take responsibility for their timeliness.

The time difference is 7 hours ahead of Minnesota. Though there was a strange aberration last week. For some inexplicable reason Spain has daylight savings time a week before the united states does. So from October 30^th to last Sunday we were only 6 hours ahead. Go figure! If anyone is looking for skype dates the best times are in the early afternoon. We don't get back from school until 5:00pm here (10:00 am there) and usually go to bed around 11:00 pm (4:00 pm there).

-Alyssa