Rebajas and Siestas

They say that the 'siesta' is dying out in Spain. Well, if it is, I haven't seen any signs of it in Salamanca. Yes, the siesta is alive and well in Salamanca, sometimes to my utmost annoyance and frustration. I am slowly becoming accustomed, but being an American who has never had to deal with the complete cessation of activity in the middle of the day, I feel the need to complain about this tradition.
Here are some examples of stores that close for siesta for 3 hours in the middle of the day (usually from 2pm-5pm):

Grocery stores
All retail shops including clothing, bargain stores, art supply stores, home goods, book stores...etc
Tobacco stores
Real estate offices
Cell phone stores
Banks
A lot(but not all) of restaurants

Now imagine that you are accustomed to running all your errands in the middle of the day, as I'm sure a lot of Americans are. This can become quite an obstacle. As I said, I'm getting used to it, but today I was particularly annoyed because I couldn't recharge my prepaid cell phone. I wasn't able to do it on their website because apparently you have to use your credit card to recharge your phone at an ATM first (for security reasons). So I went to the ATM, which denied me! I went to another one...denied there too. I couldn't figure out why, so I went on a search for a Vodafone store and yep, you guessed it...it was closed. So defeated, I went home, to wait. Half an hour later the Spaniards had finished eating and resting and went back to work. I think it should be mentioned that not many people actually sleep during siesta, they just take a little break.

Anyway, I finally got my phone charged, after a two hour long adventure. The nice man behind the counter informed me that I would not be able to use my American debit card to recharge my phone on the internet or at an ATM, I would have to get a Spanish one. Well, I don't know if I want to do that. I guess I'll just have to plan my phone recharges around 'siesta time'.


If they don't have a job to go back to after siesta, it seems like the typical Spaniard goes shopping instead, especially right now. It is a special time here in Spain. It is the season of Rebajas! Rebaja (which means markdown) season begins after the Dia de los Reyes and typically ends the first week of March. That's two months! That's like...two months of Black Friday! The deals are awesome. Well, they would be more awesome if the doller were stronger, but they're still pretty damn good. Every evening, from about 5pm to 9pm the streets are crowded with people lugging around large bags of purchases. They like to get all their shopping done before dinner starts at 10pm.
The best part about Rebajas is that they just keeping getting better with time. As the season wears on the prices get lower and lower and by the end, all the sale items are discounted by 70%-90%. Oh yeah, that's what I'm waiting for!