Thursday, December 2, 2010

Different timing

I arrived late afternoon yesterday in Barcelona. I still can’t believe it was so last minute I couldn’t arrange to stay at least 1 day to visit the city. Well, next time.

I may not have seen much of the city but I for sure experienced the different lifestyle of people in Spain when it comes to eating.

Last night, around 7:30pm Brent and I entered a restaurant. Brent woke up at 4am that day and was tired and hungry. What you need to know is that people in Spain have dinner later… more towards 9:30-10pm. This means that at 7:30pm, you cannot have dinner because the chef is not there yet! Waiter offered us olives and a few chips until the kitchen was open. I’m not a big fan of olives and I’m on a diet so I patiently waited for food to come around 8:30pm, and it was really good, so worth waiting.
Brent is American and told me that in Cincinnati, by 9pm restaurants are empty. So by the time Americans are going home after their dinner, while north Europeans are in their main course, Spanish will only get started :)

Today in the office, lunch was at 2pm. I was expecting a late lunch like in Italy around 12:30-1pm but once again that was too early. On top Spanish usually eat a lot at lunch as it is the main meal of the day. Food once again was great, especially the “croquetas de jamon”. Now I understand how they manage to make it all the way until a dinner at 10pm. If you have lunch at 2pm, at 7pm you are for sure not hungry… yet.

Tonight, I will try to explore a bit the center between work and dinner. Hopefully this will get me on Spanish schedule.

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