closed, from 2 - 4

It’s funny – you can walk onto the same street in Barcelona at three different times during the same day and see three different stores open, and never open simultaneously. I’d walk by in the afternoon, and what I thought was a one shop street was actually a three – and at night, what I thought were walls in passing were really cafes and tea houses.

Is there some kind of rotation in place? Is the schedule posted somewhere?

And I also don’t know what to think about the siesta. Not so much that it is a minor inconvenience to the foreign traveler, but that I’ve never been one for naps or midday breaks. I don’t really understand it. It seems a little lazy. But then again, the relaxed and paced atmosphere of the Mediterranean is one of the things I’ve developed a taste for – so maybe, with more time here, I too would close up shop in the afternoon and go wherever the Catalans go, and do whatever the Catalans do – in those few hours after two.

(And I’ve also seen no fewer than five women here who look like Jenny Lewis. And that I could also get used to)