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On Sat, 5/3/14, Carlos <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [TML] On the testing bandwagon...
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Saturday, May 3, 2014, 9:14 AM

  Phil
 Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:

 p.s. when Dad was still on active duty (USAF pilot) we spent
 some time in Spain. This was back in the '60's &
 it took a while for us to get used to the 'siesta'
 culture (we lived in a hotel in Madrid). The entire city
 would shut down in the early afternoon & then come back
 to life much later in the day. I still remember cruising
 around w/ the family in taxi our 1st night there trying to
 find a restaurant that opened before 8PM! Later on I worked
 one summer at a Furr's Cafeteria. In order to get more
 hours I worked a split-shift. I would come in at 1100 &
 leave (so-called lunch break) at 1400, & then come back
 at 1700 & leave at 2200.

 Things have changed a bit in Spain but not
 much. Many small businesses still close from 14:00 to 17:00,
 but the big ones and the mall-like areas don't. Proper
 Restaurants serving dinner before 21:00 are still rare (hey,
 there is no demand, hence no supply), but there are
 restaurant chains with other standards. The siesta has
 mostly disappeared, but sleeping patterns have not changed.
 Which means that practically the entire nation suffers from
 sleep deprivation (might explain a thing or two) and Sunday
 mornings, where many people "catch up", are very,
 very quiet in most parts of the country.

 I was back in central (deep)
 Spain for a couple of years around 2002 (I mean working
 there at University---I am quite frequently in Spain). My
 Department colleagues would go for lunch at 14:00 and have a
 long, heavy meal with red wine, which made working again
 before 17:00 kind of hard. I had lost that particular custom
 already. After a while I switched to eating a sandwich over
 my keyboard, and social contacts be damned. However, even
 today, and even if it is a light lunch I prefer, I will not
 get hungry until 14:00. When I need to have lunch with a
 German colleague, I just call it breakfast.

 Btw, and back to the Trav
 discussion, it is argued that the reason for this problems
 is that Spain is in the wrong time zone. And, believe it or
 not, that seems to be the fault of our last dictator
 aligning the clock with the last German dictator. Wait, let
 me find an English version of the news... there:

 http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/29/inenglish/1380456922_121699.html

 So if you impose an
 external calendar on a planet, you might end up with a
 permanently jet-lagged population, at least on some
 areas.

 Carlos Alos-Ferrer
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Thanks for all the info & the link too.

It's fascinting & brings back even more memories;

When we lived on a small isolated USAF airbase in Morocco (about a hours drive from Casablanca on a paved 2-lane road),
schoolchildren were actually bussed home for lunch which we would have all together as a family.
Also, we always, always sat down for dinner at 1800 sharp.
Mom would get really pissed if we didn't drop whatever we were doing & get to the table.

After dad was rotated back to the 'states we lived off-base & attended neighborhood schools were most of the kids walked home for lunch (their was a cafeteria avail for those that chose not to go home). However, dad didn't come home for lunch anymore & since, to reduce crowding on the playground, different grades had different luchtimes, I found myself now eating lunch all by myself as Mom was busy w/ other things (there was still a baby & 4-year old around the house at that time). Mom still insisted on getting everyone together for dinner at 1800 though. As a result, I never got to watch 'The Outer Limits' on TV. I can still remember that right when the introduction would start, Mom would summon us, just like clockwork. She tried to keep up that custom even after Dad retired but things eventually broke down & 'dinner time' began to shift later & then swing back depending on circumstances.