Not only is the biggest phone provider in the biggest metropolitan city of Barcelona closed on Sunday, but the process to which I discovered that was enough to cause a premature death. I navigated through the prehistoric Vodafone site (all in Spanish of course), and found the attached page. The ONLY way to contact a phone provider was scroll on an abysmal map through the thousands of providers to find the one closest to me.

How can one survive in a country where major companies, who’s efficiency affects the entire county, are closed on Sunday? That’s 1/7th of the fucking time!
I know I’m supposed to, as a frequent travel, be open minded, even appreciative of the differences in culture. And I’m supposed to realize the charm in things being closed, that people here aren’t overworked like they are in America, that there is a bigger picture lesson here and I’m supposed to make a lifestyle change and realize that I don’t actually need anything on Sunday, and that it can wait until tomorrow. And in that waiting I appreciate the little things, like the loud noise and pollution of the scooters going by, or the pretty prison looking outside of other boarded up stores that aren’t open, but the truth is that I’m just annoyed.

And all that philosophical bullshit is really just masking the one word reality in which this entire fucking country seems to be existing: inefficiency.

I also realize that one may label this as an extremely American point of view. To whom I would say, try living in a place where things close 2 days a week and four hours during the working day and tell me which system you prefer. And in the very nature of labeling it American one seeks to write off the ideology as if it’s narrow minded. But there are some things about America that are actually virtues. One of them is that it’s extremely fucking efficient.

What the traveler must do is evaluate things critically. And this siesta shit is just behind the times. If someone want to take time off to enjoy the flowers on Sunday, on every Sunday, I think that’s great. Work like balance is important. Extremely important. But the individual should have that choice.

But sometimes I want to get shit done on Sunday. And in a modern society I think that should be the option of the individual, not the will of the corporations.
End rant.