One learns a lot about the culture of other people when traveling. Especially when you get out of your comfort zone, and travel to other countries. This happened to myself and two friends when we made our trek across Europe. We had started our journey in Spain, and needles to say, as Americans who had never been outside the U.S.A., we received a culture shock in Spain.
The first thing we noticed there, was the weird (to us) customs as regards when businesses would be open, especially restaurants. We had arrived in the morning, and figured that after settling in our hotel, we would go out and explore the neighborhood around the hotel, and perhaps eat lunch. But, to our dismay, we discovered that every restaurant that we went to, was closed.
When we asked why, we were told that lunchtime had passed, and now we had to wait until six o'clock to eat! As we were really, really hungry we thought, oh no! we are going to pass out from sheer hunger! So we went back to the hotel and asked the concierge about this strange custom. He explained to us that businesses closed until six so that after lunch, people could go home and relax.
But what about us? What about people like us who are hungry, but all the restaurants are closed? He laughed and told us we could always go to the bars and eat "tapas". We asked what the heck were "tapas", and he explained to us that these were like little appetizers that were served in places like bars, so that people could enjoy themselves, and at least the bars were always open.
So, we looked at each other, and off we went to a nearby bar, were -- sure enough -- there was a whole basket full of these "tapas", which looked like little round pastries, with different kind of fillings. We proceeded to make pigs of ourselves and ate the entire basketful of "tapas". Needless to say, this brought on the waiter or bartender who scolded us, and told us not to be so selfish!
After getting out of there, an idea occurred to us: as soon as a supermarket opened, we went in there and bought ourselves each, two bottle of water, one of those long loaf of french bread, some cheese and some fruits. So that no matter what time it was we would always carry something to eat with us. This way we wouldn't be dependent on the crazy eating schedule they had there. And it finally cleared for us the question we kept asking ourselves -- about why we saw so many people walking around with a bottle of water, a loaf of bread and a fruit or a chunk of cheese. These people had gotten smart -- they wouldn't go hungry! And now...neither would we!
