Ugh, the Inconvenience!
One thing I love and hate about Spain is the inconvenience. So many things are inconvenient here, like no American would ever know. Alright, well any American who has been in the Peace Corps or immigrated from anywhere would know even better than me. But I was surprised just a teeny bit that there would be this much inconvenience in a Western European country that is well off economically by global standards, and culturally integrated into American hegemony. But, especially outside of the big metropolitan cities, Spain and Morocco have impressively managed to keep a lot of their own culture. I actually think this is a wonderful thing because that is pretty darn hard to do. Just try visiting Lagos, Portugal, which is completely overrun by sunburned Brits and the English language.
So what’s so inconvenient here? The laundry is inconvenient. The siesta hour is inconvenient. Sundays are inconvenient. Well, it's not always inconvenient. It’s usually about half and half. We have a washing machine in our kitchen (convenient) but no dryer (inconvenient). We have a rooftop clothesline to hang our wet laundry from (convenient) but no drying rack for inside (inconvenient). So we have to hang our clothes on the sixth floor rooftop, which is mildly inconvenient, but we have a convenient elevator. Really the most inconvenient thing about doing laundry and hanging our clothes is – the weather!
Who would have even thought? Well, not us! We constantly forget about the weather. But finally, the other night I remembered how to be a Spaniard. I was about to do some Sunday night laundry, but then I checked my weather app and saw that it was going to rain that night and the next day. I could no longer do laundry! Very Spanish of me! The thing was I wasn’t really a Spaniard because all weekend since Friday, it had been bright and sunny and I didn’t do my laundry at all when I could have easily dried it in one day. But I forgot, because I’m a lazy American who is used to being able to schedule my chores for whenever I want, based purely on my personal schedule. The other day Josh and I forgot this and since the winds can be so extreme here, not only did it start raining on our clothes which were previously completely dried, but the wind was so fierce that it literally moved my body an inch or two. Our clothes whipped around and around the clothesline until they were twisted up and all crazy and probably we lost some socks that jumped off the roof.
Another example: groceries are convenient because we have supermarkets and we have three within a five minute walk from us. So we pick up a few little things every day on the way home from work. But they’re inconvenient because the stores close at two p.m. on Sundays. So no ice-cream or peanut butter when I forget that I needed to eat on a Sunday night or Monday morning. Also, the lovely, famous old-fashioned market is only open Monday to Saturday from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m., but really most of the stalls close at noon and we are too lazy to wake up on a Saturday and leave the house before 1 p.m.
Then there is the trash, and even worse, the recycling! My first week in the apartment I had to try three times to find where to take out the trash. First, I wandered around the building and the grounds, through the main courtyard and into the parking garage. I didn’t find it. Then I texted my landlord to ask. She said, “Oh it’s down and to the right, down the white ramp,” at least that was my interpretation of her Spanish at the time. So I went downstairs and tried to look for it. I turned to the right from the front door, didn’t see a ramp, went to the gate, turned right and saw a ramp. But it was for cars into a garage that said “No pedestrians allowed to enter.” Then I gave up for the day.
Another day I tried again, and to my luck saw a big family chatting in their doorway. I said in my best Spanish “Excuse me, I am a new tenant, do you know where we put the trash?” They said “Yes, just out the gate, to the right and down the ramp near the white building.” I tiptoed over to the gate and looked down where I had already looked before, trying to find a nearby white building. I looked back and said “Ehh, I don’t know, I don’t see it. Where is it again?” Luckily one of them, a young woman, came to show me. She pointed at the white building and a big dumpster. This explains why I couldn’t find it. It was not what I was expecting at all.
The building was a full block and a half away, and I had to cross a perpendicular street. The dumpster was indeed in front of a tiny ramp on the sidewalk there, and the dumpster was on the road next to some parked motorcycles, which nobody bothered to mention. I have never seen or used this arrangement in my life, because I’m American. Even though I lived in Costa Rica and Mexico and Bolivia briefly, I guess I had host families so I never had to take out the trash. In all the states I’ve lived in in the U.S., which are many, a dumpster for an apartment building is always located right next to the building and inside a private space like a parking lot or whatever slab of land they have that is not on the sidewalk or street. And the dumpster is only to be used by the apartment building tenants and is owned by the building’s owner.
Our dumpster is shared by tenants in apartment buildings all over the neighborhood and is owned publicly. The recycling dumpster is even further away: a full five minutes. We rarely recycle anymore because we are too lazy for that and there is no good way to transport large amounts of recycling as we can’t use a plastic bag. I’m not sure how common recycling actually is here, but I learned how to recycle correctly from a Catalan language TV show called “This is Not Sweden.” Catalonia a region in the north of Spain where Barcelona is located. The character in the show is always walking out with her one box and one bottle to the neighborhood recycling bin, and separating her recycling at that! I have no idea how to separate mine because there is no clear signage on the different bins at all. But the gist is, you have to do everything little by little, just like grocery shopping. You have to take one box and one wine bottle to the recycling bin every day. God forbid you also have trash to take out! Well, maybe that’s another problem. Maybe we make way more trash than most Spaniards, as well as being lazy. Americans who are too lazy to recycle in our luxury recycling culture, where all you have to do is throw it in a single bin and the city picks it up for you, have no excuse! But we have an excuse because we are living here and aren’t as tough as the locals yet.
There are actually so many other inconveniences but I’ve written enough so I’ll quickly summarize. The internet basically doesn’t exist in Ceuta for businesses, which is really a shocker in 2025. The border and the ferry to the mainland of Spain are also super inconvenient and leave us feeling trapped here. Because of the border on all sides, which requires a passport and passing customs even within Spain, deliveries are also very hard and mail is sometimes impossible to receive.
Our water heater is also inconvenient as we have to call someone to refill our propane tank every month and we have to make sure to have cash to pay him. Siesta is fun for me to sleep, but it’s also super inconvenient and I have been burned by siesta before. Literally, and I mean literally, no shops or businesses are open except a few bars for lunch. As our Spanish friend joked about us, “God forbid you can’t buy something at all hours of the day!” I made the mistake of calling a doctor’s office at 2 p.m. and it turns out I cannot call until 5 p.m. Just this past weekend I was supposed to bring something special to a dinner party and I waited until the last minute, thinking I could just grab it on my way. The party started at 4 p.m. and the shop I needed was closed from 2-5 p.m. so I simply could not get it. Not being able to shop and buy things whenever you want is so inconvenient! To Americans it is incredible! And this is why I love it.
It forces us to slow down. It forces us to stop being so consumerist. It forces us to think about the workers who also need their siesta time. And it makes me plan ahead more, which is simply an adjustment that I have to make and not whine about. That’s why it’s so important for me to adapt to the eating schedule here because it makes it a lot easier to get errands done. Instead of doing errands after work, which ends at 2 p.m. I must eat lunch at two p.m. and do my errands from 5-8. I have to go to the doctor and the hair salon after siesta and before dinner. And I’m forced to observe a Sabbath and do something non-consumerist on Sundays. I can go on a walk, a hike, play pickleball, basketball, clean, or cook at home or at a friend’s house. I still have trouble remembering to buy my groceries on a Saturday instead of Sunday, but at least I’m great at getting bits of groceries on week days. Little by little, I am adapting and fitting in.
You're totally right about the inconvenience! I remember going out to get coffee and had forgotten about the siesta. I had to wait an hour. Hope you're well this week? Cheers, -Thalia