Lauren: Eating Standing Up.

Aneya and I live near the bustling downtown area of Santiago, Centro, and there are tons of pedestrian-only streets filled with shops, grocery stores, restaurants, movie theaters, a ballet school, the opera house, peanut vendors. Eating out in Centro though you immediately notice there are tons of business people, mainly men dressed in suits, who eat standing.

There are usually seats (although sometimes it's just counters), but they prefer to have their meal on the go standing at the counters and rushing out the door. It's quite a bit like the legs cafes, except seats are available and they're having more than just coffee. People eat full meals on their feet.

This is an interesting juxtaposition compared to the other neighborhood we boarder Bellas Artes, which is filled with small coffee shops, and lunch is leisurely, often with a fixed menu of a drink, salad or soup, and a sandwich, panqueque (crepe-like thing filled with veggies), or quiche, and maybe an after lunch cortado (a small cup of coffee), and a pastry. With all that eating you're not going anywhere fast.

I know that sometimes you can be in a rush to get back to the office, but not even enough time to have a seat? I usually consider a meal out as a time to relax and enjoy your food. At the very least take a seat. And it would seem that most jobs have between one and two hours for lunch, which is at least twice what is the norm in the U.S. and we still take the time to sit down.

Maybe with all that sitting around an office, people want to get out and stretch their legs? It kind of reminds me of horses standing at a trough. I keep meaning to try standing to eat a meal, just to see what it's like, but when I get into a restaurant after running around, cleaning the house, doing whatever it is that Aneya and I wanted to do that day, all I really want is to have a seat.

-- Lauren