I was waiting at Plaça Universitat last week and noticed all the other waiters.
How many of them were British I wondered?
When I first arrived in Spain I spent a lot of time waiting for friends. I would arrive 5 minutes early and still be there, standing alone, or sitting drinking my second coffee anything up to half an hour later. Sometimes even more but usually then there would be a text explaining that my friend was delayed.
It is a cliche but I think there is truth in it – people here are more relaxed about time.
But not everyone.
I also have Catalan friends who arrive on time and sometimes they have to wait for me.
The trick is to know which ones are which because usually it is the same people who make you wait, and the same ones who are there waiting.
I don’t have a pattern so sometimes I am my usual punctual self, and at others I decide to relax and I don’t leave home in time to get somewhere at the agreed hour. It’s a bit random and sometimes I get there on time for the latecomers – as I did last week in Barcelona – or I arrive late for those who are punctual.
I need to get more organised and just be late for the latecomers. But will they then surprise me by arriving on time? Or will they somehow know and arrive even later?
I live with someone who makes people wait so unfortunately I have got into the bad habit of not getting ready to leave in time. If I try to leave the house punctually with him then I am doomed to at least half an hour of frustration – waiting , waiting, waiting for him to be ready.
I love this post!!! Great shot of the “waiter”. I, too, am usually early – I can get quite snarly (who, moi?) when I think I am going to be late. I have heard that it can be part of a culture to not stress about showing up on time. I live with someone who marches to his own drumbeat and so I have learned to prep myself and then catch up on some reading whilst I wait for a common departure. Ah, it’s all about juggling some days. But it’s part of relationship life.
Ooh this seem to be a common subject for us foreigners, eh? I arrive cronically early or exactly on time and it seems I can’t make myself arrive late. Well, sometimes the metro is hard to calculate, but I normally don’t arrive more than 5 minutes late(which I have understood is not arriving late at all by Spanish standards)!
Ooo, this is so frustrating for we punctual folk. Bodhi Chiclet has the right idea. Her post reminded me of a leader at an Exeter Weekend Workshop about dealing with difficult people.
He told us his wife was chronically late. He’d wait in the car and she would show up 30-45 mins. late and then they would row.
He thought he’d try the paradoxical approach and as he loved reading so much, he settled down to his book while he waited. In no time at all, the rows disappeared and his wife began to show up earlier and earlier! When she began to show up on time, he began to get irritable because he couldn’t read! He was demonstrating how one person’s change of behaviour can affect another’s without that intention. I don’t know what the moral is really, but it’s a good story.