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When in Rome, natives etc

106 F here today.

So, we went for a long lunch, had a good nap, got up again for the second part of the day.

Hey, why not adopt the practices of the part of the world you’re in? There might even be a reason why people live the way they do.

17 thoughts on “When in Rome, natives etc”

  1. Quite right!
    If I could get organised I should have a siesta during the heatwave (not 106F but still too hot for me).

  2. Bloke in Tejas in Normandy

    One of these days, someone will invent air conditioning…..

    (I know it doesn’t fix the problem of high temps outside, but…)

  3. Mainly because those parts of the world tend to lag behind the one I’m from in productivity, wealth, and personal freedom.

    Out here, for example, we don’t take an afternoon siesta to deal with the heat – we get up at 4 in the morning and get the work done before it gets that hot.

  4. Bi-phasic sleep used to be the norm until the invention of better forms of lighting (whale oil, paraffin, electric etc) and seems to be better for us – but doesn’t fit in with western life style.

    I lived in Spain in Alcala de Henares, birthplace of Cervantes, for several years and the shops still shut for the siesta when I arrived, but after joining the EU the trend is to adopt the 9-5 regime.

    Now I am retired and older I go to bed at about 10pm, wake about 2am and listen to the radio for a couple of hours before falling back into a light sleep before waking fully again about 6am – so maybe ipthere is something biological about it (OK – the waking involves other bodily functions – but hasn’t it always?)

    http://theconversation.com/did-we-used-to-have-two-sleeps-rather-than-one-should-we-again-57806

  5. Dennis the Peasant

    Hey, great idea… Because if there’s one thing Italians is known for, it’s productivity.

  6. Too hot to sleep at night. To hot to do anything during the day. Having a human body that has human reactions is a sinful lifestyle choice in today’s puritan society.

  7. When in Italy I fall naturally into a routine: up early, work in the morning, light lunch, sleep in the afternoon, work in the evening, sleep. Except for some reason though I can sleep readily 2–4 in the afternoon I can never quite achieve the same at night.
    Back in England, even in this heat, it just doesn’t work, I get up late, work through the day. The only constant is not sleeping well at night

  8. Clovis Sangrail said:
    “Yes but… Italy is still 7th in the world by manufacturing output … That’s ahead of India, Canada and Russia.”

    Those are 2009 figures. By 2015, India was well ahead of Italy ($298bn v £264bn).
    researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05809/SN05809.pdf

  9. One could excuse the southerner’s siestas in July & August if they were economic dynamos in the other 10 clement months. But as they contrive to be lazy, incompetent, thieving, lying cvnts through those as well…

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