Having recently had occasion to re-read it, I thought I’d post today this positive comment about Spain. Just to redress the balance a little. It comes from my Initial Observations on Spain, which you can find on my web page colindavies.net

If there is one thing which defines Spanish culture, it is - of course - the approach to time.

Someone has written that no people deal with time quite like the Spanish. To him, these admirable people have an exquisite ability to eat time - to simply enjoy themselves; to take hours over a single drink; to relax in the sun. To the Spanish the delayed arrival of something you have ordered is of no great consequence. Possibly even a good thing in that it allows you to get on with other enjoyable activities such as taking hours over a drink, sitting in the sun, etc., etc. True, this can be a tad irritating on occasions but, on balance, it is an eminently sane and healthy attitude to life. And I am trying very hard both to adapt to it and to adopt it. And such is the range of good things on offer in Spain, the turning of lemons into lemonade is surely more easily done here than anywhere else.

One aspect of the Spanish attitude to time is that people simply have the inclination to do things that seem to have dropped off the earth in other, faster societies – to wait for you so that they can give you a lift home, to chat to you about the quality of the wine they have just brought you or to stop and have a coffee with you, even if it means keeping someone else waiting or missing a train. Until you experience (or re-experience) these little things that add up to so much, it is hard to take on board just what they mean for your quality of life. To the Spanish, all time is ‘quality time’. The notion that you might specifically create it would be too ludicrous for words.

More humbly than arrogantly, the Spanish believe that they have the secret to the good life (La Vida) and they are probably justified in thinking so. This is the sixth culture in which I have lived and easily the best. If you are bored with hearing that Spanish have a sense of vitality and that they know how to live, then you need to know that repetition does not vitiate accuracy.