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Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

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Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#71

Post by mrkrabo »

mcjiggerlog wrote: post #11

Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but they are open till about 9pm which is a lot more useful than being open in the middle of the day. It also should be noted that there are actually 5 meals in a spaniard's day. There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon s…

Spaniard; can confirm. 3 hour breaks are simply mandatory for small shops. In the south of the country during summer there is literally no way you can go out until... 19 or so if you don't want to die. So if shops closed then, there would be no business.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#72

Post by mcjiggerlog »

jitix wrote: post #67
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #11

Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but they are open till about 9pm which is a lot more useful than being open in the middle of the day. It also should be noted that there are actually 5 meals in a spaniard's day. There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon s…

> It gets dark at 6pm in the winter and 10pm in the summer I dont think its natural anywhere in the world. What time is sunrise during winter?

About 0830

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#73

Post by jorgemf »

josephjrobison wrote: post #69
jorgemf wrote: post #21

This is a non-sense of article as other spaniards have commented. The only companies that close 3 hours in the middle of the day are the shops, usually small shops. They do it because for long part of the year no one goes to the street from 2pm to 5pm, because it is so fucking hot. So instead, our culture close the shops at those times but keep them opens until 9pm or later. It is very common to see shops full of peo…

Bocadillos seemed popular (in Pamplona) - are those not typically eating during lunch, or are they just created for foreigners to eat in the street?

That is not a proper lunch. You can eat them for lunch but you don't do it for more than two days in a row. It is not healthy. We have so much good food in spain that no one will eat bocadillos for lunch. We have some called lunch menu where you usually can choose among 3 starters, 3 main dishes and dessert, which also includes drink and coffee sometimes. It is cheaper during weekdays, for 8-12€ you can have these menus. A bocadillo with drink would be 5-7€, so for a little more you can eat healthy.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#74

Post by gadders »

kgwgk wrote: post #63
gadders wrote: post #56

I remember going to work in the small Madrid office of a private large bank in 20 or so years ago. Being keen, I turned up at 8.30am and then waited for an hour for someone to arrive. The office was then closed and everyone turfed out from 12pm-2pm, but the working day didn't finish until around 7pm.

Maybe you mean it was closed 13:00-15:00 or 14:00-16:00? 12:00-14:00 seems a very non-spanish time for a lunch break. Most restaurants are not even open during most of that time!

You may be right - it was twenty years ago :-)

I did find myself at a bit of a loss as to what to do after bolting my lunch in an anglo-saxon 45 minutes or so.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#75

Post by subway »

bill45 wrote: post #68
kgwgk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. [...] Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day Doesn't anybody work in those small shops? > There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon snack The mid-morning snack is not generalised and the late-afternoon snack is mostly for kids (after-school "merienda").

>Doesn't anybody work in those small shops? It's not a break if they make up that time later. Sounds more like working a shift, and then starting a second shift later.

Today I learned unpaid breaks are not breaks.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#76

Post by jzl »

franciscop wrote: post #36

I am sorry but this is totally backwards. As a Valencian Spaniard I want to set the record straight. First, siesta is not dead. However, it is considered mostly a holiday luxury or reserved for small shops. It is normal in the extremely hot summer, after lunch we stop for 1h or so. While I do not do siesta, I would say about half+ of the people I know do it (holiday times). I would also say it is highly coupled with…

Wow! I was expecting to see something much smaller in the picture. I guess it makes sense if you have very minimal/no breakfast.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#77

Post by harperlee »

jorgemf wrote: post #58
harperlee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to start the most alien flamewar in the history of HN, but if we start listing what does not go into paella we might end up with an mpty paella...

It was a joke, there were a flamewar because of someone putting chorizo in the paella: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/04/jamie-oliver-ange... The response in twitter was very funny

Sorry, mine was also a joke :).

Paella is originally from Valencia, but prepared all over Spain, and that leads to some local variations and creative results. International exposure to tourists and foreign cooks has created an even bigger variety of paellas.

But since some years ago, there has been a growing group of Valencians that have been very outspoken (with varying levels of seriousness) about what goes into a paella, and what makes it just an "arroz con cosas" (rice plus things).

They even successfully lobbied to have a correct paella icon in unicode! https://emojipedia.org/shallow-pan-of-food/ But, to great jest, a lot of implementations got it wrong (only apple, twitter, and emojipedia get it right in the previously link).

Supposedly, paella just adds chicken, rabbit, green beans and habones (big white beans) to a saffroned rice.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#78

Post by davidw »

mrkrabo wrote: post #71
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #11

Literally nobody here takes 3 hour lunch breaks. A lot of offices have 2 hours, yeah, but this is becoming less and less common regardless. Small shops do close for 3 hours in the middle of the day, but they are open till about 9pm which is a lot more useful than being open in the middle of the day. It also should be noted that there are actually 5 meals in a spaniard's day. There's a mid-morning and late-afternoon s…

Spaniard; can confirm. 3 hour breaks are simply mandatory for small shops. In the south of the country during summer there is literally no way you can go out until... 19 or so if you don't want to die. So if shops closed then, there would be no business.

Small shops manage to operate in, say, Arizona during those hours.

That said, I think Spain's hours are a more natural adaptation to the climate than Arizona's.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#79

Post by JBReefer »

davidw wrote: post #78
mrkrabo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaniard; can confirm. 3 hour breaks are simply mandatory for small shops. In the south of the country during summer there is literally no way you can go out until... 19 or so if you don't want to die. So if shops closed then, there would be no business.

Small shops manage to operate in, say, Arizona during those hours. That said, I think Spain's hours are a more natural adaptation to the climate than Arizona's.

Until recently, most Arizonans also grew English-style grass lawns, with water that had to be piped in and species that are certainly not native.

Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday.

Re: Say Goodbye to Spain's Three-Hour Lunch Break

#80

Post by davidw »

JBReefer wrote: post #79
davidw wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small shops manage to operate in, say, Arizona during those hours. That said, I think Spain's hours are a more natural adaptation to the climate than Arizona's.

Until recently, most Arizonans also grew English-style grass lawns, with water that had to be piped in and species that are certainly not native. Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday.

> Apparently that's rapidly ending, so maybe the standard schedule will change as well someday.

Those hours are pretty ingrained in US culture, though, and virtually no one (compared to the present population) would live in Arizona without massive amounts of air conditioning anyway, whereas conserving water has a direct economic advantage in the here and now.

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