Siestas and Fiestas

I’ve heard a lot about the siesta in spain, but never really thought too much about it. Siestas are real and are taken very very seriously here. From about 2-5 pm everything in Granada is closed. The few big stores that are kind of like macy’s and walmart are the only things open during this time. Everyone goes home to take a siesta. Sure enough, if liz and I come back to the apt between that time, our host sister is back from work and sleeping and our host mom is sleeping as well. After siesta our host sister gets ready for work again and is off to another job. Our resident director, paula, told us that the only people on the streets during siesta are the weirdys and the Americans. The siesta is something I can definitely get used to and once we get settled in I for sure will take advantage of it.
On our first Friday night in Granada about 15 girls from the group (I think I have only met about 3 guys from AIFS, they are way outnumbered here) went out for tapas. This is something I also read about before coming here, but couldn’t fully understand it till I tried it. When we told our host mom we were going out for tapas, she was thrilled because they, along with the siesta, are such a huge part of the Spanish culture. With every drink you order, you get one free tapa, which is kind of like an appetizer. For 15 people ordering one drink we got four plates of tapas. We were told that the more drinks you order, the better the tapas get. Good for me, a diet coke counts as a drink  our first tapa was potato salad and four pieces of bread with a very thinly sliced piece of beef? Maybe? On top of the bread, per plate. The second one was pieces of meat, again, not quite sure what kind, and slices of this egg/potato/onion bake thing. Lastly, the group got these baby fried salmon…which pretty much still had eyeballs, and this salsa salad. The salad was probably the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. It was a very comfortable atmosphere to be in. We were sitting outside for three hours at the tapa bar. After dark is a nice break from the extreme heat of 100 plus degrees that we have been having.

Siestas and Fiestas

Granada, Spain