Bats, Roman slaves and food breaks
It was the bats that made me think of this blog. I had wondered about doing a breakdown of the PISA report on Spanish schooling. Spanish education is a bit outside my area of personal knowledge, though, and maybe a bit dry, so I needed something more mundane. I remember that when I lived in the UK we'd often say, "Shall we go out for a drink?" Maybe it's the plastic chairs, and maybe it's just the state of my liver, but I wouldn't think to suggest that here in Spain. Obviously, given my strict Wesleyan upbringing, I'm happy to drink alcohol, but it's more a situational thing than a desire. We go out to eat, for instance, and, given that I don't have to drive, I'll put away as much of the stuff as I can so that I wobble but don't topple. When I do make one of those forays from the Englishness of home into the outside world of Spain, I'm far more inclined to go out to eat than to drink—and usually for lunch rather than dinner. These days,...