The Siesta Lifestyle
Chill out, sister!
What am I? A fortune-teller? When I wrote this last November was I channeling some inner Tarot card reader who could foresee my nap-lifestyle on steroids coming with the spring of 2020? Maybe.
We went to Spain and Portugal earlier this year and I almost immediately “got” the siesta way of life.
Our trip began in Barcelona at the end of May where the weather was mild and even a bit chilly but by the time we got down to Granada and then Seville the weather was getting hotter and hotter. It was the beginning of June and we just missed the first 97-degree (36 celsius) day of the year in Seville. This is when we really began to encounter an incredibly civilized way to live. I can’t imagine how we have allowed ourselves to be forced out of our comfortable beds to go to some office or garage or construction site or schoolroom or traffic intersection or factory floor for eight unforgiving hours or more.
In more relaxed parts of the world, people do rise early and work hard. Then when the day starts warming up they do the sensible thing. They go home and have some lunch, pull the light-blocking shutters closed, and go to bed for a couple of hours (even though our places in Granada and Seville had air conditioning we didn’t need it thanks to those serious shutters).