بیرون رفتن برای ناهار

Chapter 10

OUT TO LUNCH

A big meal and a long nap is still a way

of life in Madrid.

By Joe Robinson

from Escape magazine

Birds do it. Cats do it. And Spaniards most especially do it — every day, in broad daylight. They nap. Grown adults — executives, teachers, civil servants—— wink off in the middle of the workday.

From 1 or 2 o’clock to 4:30 or so every afternoon, Spain stops the world for a stroll home, a leisurely meal, and a few z’s.5 Common Market technocrats have informed the Spanish that this is not the way things will get done in a unified Europe.

At a time when productivity is the worlds largest religion, the siesta tradition lives on.7 In Spain, work operates under the command of life,8 instead of the other way around. No task is so critical that it can’t wait a couple of hours while you attend to more important matters like eating, relaxing, or catching up on sleep. When the midday break hits, offices empty 10 and streets clear. Befuddled foreigners quickly learn that they have entered a new circadian order.“

“At first, I kept looking for things to do in the afternoon, and I just couldn’t believe that nothing was open,” recalls Pier Roberts, an Oakland writer who lived in Spain for several years. “I walked the streets of Madrid looking for somewhere to go. It was a thousand degrees outside, you could see the heat waves, and it was like a ghost town.

Taking a long break in the middle of the day is not only healthier than the conventional lunch; it’s apparently more natural. Sleep researchers have found that the Spanish biorhythm” may be tuned more closely to our biological clocks. Studies suggest that humans are “biphasic” creatures, requiring days broken up by two periods of sleep instead of one “monophasic” shift. The drowsiness you feel after lunch comes not from the food but from the time of day.

“All animals, including humans, have a biological rhythm,”

explains Claudio Stampi, director of the Chrono Biology Research Institute in Newton, Massachusetts. “One is a 24-hour rhythm — we get tired by the end of the day and go to sleep —and there is a secondary peak of sleepiness and a decrease in alertness in the early afternoon. Some people have difficulty remaining awake, doing any sort of task between one and four in the afternoon. For others its less difficult, but it’s there. So there is a biological reason for siestas.” Unlike the average lunch break, the siesta is a true break in the action because there is no choice but to come to a full and complete stop. You can’t do errands; the shops are closed. You can’t make business calls; nobody’s at the office. Most people go home for lunch, or get together with family or friends for a glass of wine and nod out afterwards.

The Spanish need their sleep. They’ve got a long night ahead of them, because another key component” of the siesta lifestyle is its nocturnal orbit.18 After the afternoon work shift, from 4:80 to 8 p.m.

or so, they may join friends for a drink. Dinner starts at 9 or 10 p.m., and from there its out on the town until one or two in the morning.

“Its a bad night in Madrid if you get home before six in the morning,” laughs Roberts. The siesta’s origins lie in climate and architecture. Like people in other places around the globe that are blast furnaces2° much of the year, Spaniards turned to shade and stillness to avoid incineration” in the middle of the day. At night, packed, simmering dwellings drove people into the streets to cool down.

While climate is still a factor, the siesta lifestyle today is driven primarily by the social imperative 22 of Spanish life, which places an equal if not greater emphasis on life outside the office. “We are not so .39 obsessed only with Work,” says Florentino Sotomayor of the Spanish Tourist Board. “We take a break and have the opportunity of having coffee or beer with friends and thinking and talking about different issues, not only Work.”