Your experiences in Madrid

The first training I did, I proposed the 'usual' daily agenda, which means more or less:
. start at 9 (usually 30 mn late)
. do a pause at 11 (usually 10 to 15 mn)
. lunch between 12 and 13: I knew this would be early for Spain, so I said we stopped between 13 and 14 and go to lunch all together
. start after lunch and make a pause in the afternoon
. finish at 17:00.

At 11:00, when I proposed a pause, everybody looked at me like 'finally...' or 'I thought he would never let us go'.

I did not know that spanish people do not take a breakfast at home but have a 15 to 45 mn breakfast in the morning. I must say that the 9:00 starting hour was respected every day.

Which reminds me off this: spain is listed as one of the country in europe where labor day is longer but also among the less productive country. I worked with people who looked at me as not working hard because I went at home at 19:00 while they were taking 30 mn for breakfast, 2 hours to go back at home for lunch and one dozen breaks during the day to go outside and smoke a cigarette.
One friend who was used to work until 20:00 told me once that in fact he was just surfing the web at that time, and when I asked if he would not prefer to go back home, he said me 'no, because I would have to help my wife on domestic tasks'.

There is a lot to say about the difference of culture