My friend Pol, and spanish nightlife -or the very little I know of it!

Pol:
With krinkly, smiley eyes and a friendly demeanor, Pol is one of those authentic characters who lives in a world unlike any that you have experienced. From the eighteenth story of our seaside apartment complex, he has a splendid view of the mountains, sea, and city, including what he calls his “two elements:” sunshine and water. Every morning, Paul rises with the dawn to enjoy his half-liter cup of café accompanied by homemade brown bread -complete with nuts, dried fruits, garlic, and pumpkin seeds integrated in it-, and topped with a mixture of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and, again, his beloved garlic! He then whips out his hiking shoes and walks some 30 miles –even though his age more than doubles that! His house is full of crustacean fossils, cristals, fossilized shells, and interesting rocks –proof of his many expeditions along the coast and through the mountains. He speaks his Spanish with a lilting cadence that you might associate with an Italian pizza-maker (Ayy, Bam-bii-no!). His accent is due to his early life in Galicia, in the North of Spain, but looking at his extensive bookshelves, you will find more tombs, from dictionaries and encyclopedias to photographic journals of wild animal and foreign countries, written in German than in Spanish. He has spent the bulk of his life in Germany working as an investigator in a lab where they test electric appliances before releasing them to the general market. In that trend, he loves science of every kind: geology, biology, chemistry… He has a whole shelf devoted to CDs of classical music, but he also has MP3s and other modern devices, proving that he has changed with the times. He is quirky and fun, open to conversation with anyone and always up for a good laugh. While looking through his collection of white crystals that he has brought back from the mountains, he sat one up-right and said to me, “Stand back, and lets see if you can see it…a penguin!” I remark, between laugher, “Yes, a very chubby penguin!” Looking at this opaque crystal, I doubt that anyone else in the world would have connected it to those cute, arctic animals. He even has an open-air shower set up on his expansive balcony, consisting of a hose suspended from a higher part of the wall and controlled by a cord, that he can use when he fancies! Art decks his walls and wild-animal documentaries display on his TV. Everything is meticulously organized and tastefully decorated in the house who has long lived alone. He bathes in the sun, absorbed in Beethoven’s symphony with the daily newspaper draped over his lap. This is my friend Pol. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

QUESTION FROM A FRIEND: "What do you think of the night life? I’ve heard that the dinner hours are very late and everyone hits the tapas bars until midnight/1:00 a.m.ish. It seems like most of the kids that I’ve talked with that have been there/done that really like this lifestyle!"

MY THOUGHTS:

I am not an active participant in the night life, quite frankly, but I know something about it. 1:00amish is an understatement. Usually, the youth don´t get back earlier than 3:00am on the weekend, and a lot of them stay out until 7:00am before returning to sleep until lunch at 3:00pm. Yes, everything happens later here due to the workschedule that is split into halves: before lunch (8-2:30ish) and after lunch (4ish-8:00pm). Since everyone gets home later, they don´t eat unitl 9:30 at earliest, and many dine even later. You´d think that this would be compensated for by a later wake-up hour, but no; the Spanish do not lay as much value in sleep as other cultures do, so they tend to sleep less. Spanish culture places more enphasis on having fun, relaxing, and just living, contributing to this "late nights" cultural trend. The tapas bars are a good indicator of how everything is Spain takes place outside of the house. Everyone has social hour in the frequent bars, on the beach, in the plazas, and most anywhere that isn´t inside an apartment or the rare house. The youth even drink on the streets -called botellon-, which has led to a recent call to change due to the misuse of public space. (On a side note, Spain has a a big drinking problem amonst the youth that probably results from the wide acceptance of drinking among adults, returning us to the ever-popular bars.) I can see why the other young people you know would like this life-style because it is the ultimate partier´s paradise, and I myself have been a night owl most of my life (thanks to my flexible independent sutdy schedule which has allowed me to sleep-in most week days) but I don´t stay out late here because, during the week, I have to get up for school, and on the weekend, I rise with the sun to head out to the mountains for a good day´s climbing. This schedule doesn´t really lend itself to late nights partying or dancing. Plus, I don´t drink, and watching my friends get drunk gets old fast.

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