December 17, 2003 (2nd edition)
The siesta thing is totally outrageous here in Spain. We went down to the ancient center of town on Sunday afternoon. I´m looking in a book store window and am about to go inside when the lights go out and the door locks. I look inside to see a sales clerk get down on her knees and curl up into a ball and go to sleep. I look at Tommy and say, "What the Espanole is going on here?"

"It's siesta time, Dad," my son says like I'm some ingnoramous from Kingman, Arizona. I look around and the streets are empty, like in some science fiction movie where a nerve gas has been dropped by terrorists, well let's don't go there, but you get the picture.

We wander around and look in windows. We go into a cafe (still open) and have a cafe leche (coffee with cream) and about an hour later we come outside and it´s starting to get dark, and besides it's Sunday night so I'm expecting a late Scottsdale kind of thing, but noooooooo. The town is swarming with people. It's like Christown on Christmas Eve, everywhere. Little ol' ladies walking arm in arm, all the stores full of people, cars buzzing. This goes until 11 at night!

They work until around two, siesta until five, then shop and party until dawn (on Sunday!!!!!) What do these people know that we don't?

"Inches make a champion."
-Vince Lombardid