It is hard to believe I have been living in Granada, Spain for over two months now! Sometimes it feels like just yesterday when I was meeting my host family for the first time and settling into my new home abroad. One difference I noticed between living in the United States and Granada is the timing of a typical day. Generally, in the United States we eat breakfast in the morning when we wake up, sometime between 7 and 9 a.m. Then, lunch comes at around 12, and we eat dinner before 7pm. In Granada, however, eating dinner before 8:00 p.m. is abnormal, and noon is when we usually eat what we call “second breakfast” with lunch happening between 2 and 3 pm. At first, I did not understand why Spaniards eat significantly later than Americans, but after two months, I have experienced the cultural context of a daily schedule in Granada.
In order to get a better idea of why we eat when we do in Granada, it is important to note the difference in the community that exists here and the one I am used to back home. Here, daily life is centered around the community, and everyone interacts with each other socially, in person, more than do people living within the average community in the United States. One reason for this habit is that there is more opportunity to socialize in Granada because most people walk about the city and are not confined to their individual cars like in the United States.
