Day 18: Breakfast

It's 3:33pm and I am yet to have breakfast.
I can count the number of times I have eaten breakfast in the last month on one hand. Comfortably.
I "get" breakfast and its ever-en-vogue sister brunch, but it simply doesn't factor in my alimentary arsenal.
It being the 'most important meal of the day, perhaps I am missing something, (or just enjoy being contrary) but I never wake up hungry.
If I were, or ever am, hungry at whichever single figure triggers my alarm, I would eat, but as someone who is perennially late anyway, I'm not sure where I would find the time.
Food, drink and mealtimes can form a massive part of a culture. In Spain, for example, the late evening meals preceded by the cornerstone of Spanish life that is tapas and drinks with friends, sees the proper ceremony and habitual, unspoken importance afforded to that beautiful combination of good friends, good food, good booze. Rent is cheap in Madrid, and with good reason: I can't imagine anyone spends any time at home. Instead, they are drawn together as the light fades, in simple celebration of the day, and seemingly of life itself, the warmth of the day diffused somehow more slowly among the huddles of laughter and familiarity, spilling out on to squares and street corners with the overwhelming feeling of there being nowhere else in the world that any one, or anyone, need be.
I get the distinct feeling that in Madrid, no-one does anything alone. From couples, to huge groups of friends crammed noisily around cafe tables, or scattered companionably across any spare space on the ground, Madrid is for lovers, both romantic and platonic.
Perhaps my distrust of breakfast nods to an affinity with Madrileños and their culture of later-in-the-day. There is a sense here that time spent with friends and for yourself is the most important of all, and that anything else has its place, and its function, but that's it. Instead of a feeling of frantically wringing every last minute from the precious hours between work, it feels very much more a case of life, punctuated by work, and not the other way around.
I might just stick around. At least for breakfast.