I like Spain. A lot!
Emily and Miguel have been wonderful. They have opened up their apartment to a stranger (well, a good friend of a good friend) and they have included me in on their social events. Wonderfully refreshing people.
Spain, is by far, culturally the most different country I have been to yet. Things are just different here. But, in a good way.
For example eating. Lunch in Spain often starts around 2-3pm. Often it is broken up into at least two dishes that are served separately. Often it involves ham or sausage (chorizo) or beans. Often it is underspiced (too my tastes).
Dinner is often served around 9-10pm.
Seafood and pork seem to rule the day here. One of the more popular items here is Jamon, or the leg of the pig. Literally, they cut off the leg, dry it and let it hang for about two years. Then you prop it up and slice thin layers off and eat it on bread or with cheese or cook with it. Its quite tasty. And its EVERYWHERE! So you walk to the market or go into a bar, very often you will see Jamon (hoof and all) hanging on the walls or from the ceiling.
In Spain, quality of the meat is very important. Many of the markets have small butcher shops with all sorts of fine looking cuts of meat. And note, that in Spain they don't waste any of the meat. You can order yourself up a package of pig ears, hoofs, bull tail sliced into sections, etc. And of course you see lots of little cute baby pigs just laying in the ice. The butcher shops can be quite scary for a butcher sheltered American such as myself. Actually it didn't bother me too much but I think it would some others. But, overall you got the feeling that the quality of the meat was very high. That often, the steak you are buying was probably walking around yesterday.
Another popular dish is, well best way for me to say is just various types of sausages (chorizo). Lots of them. I have yet to try the blood sausage but I said I would, so possibly later today or tomorrow.
And obviously there is a lot of fish. I don't eat fish or seafood and must admit, walking through the markets, the smell is just about overwhelming for me. And the idea of putting a full bodied little fish in my mouth is a bit more then I can take. Yuk! It is also common to find a large octopus at the fish stand.
Tapas is the common way of eating in Spain. This seems to be just smaller dishes of various types of food that you order to make a meal. You might get like 6 tapas and share them with your group.
Drinking in Spain is different too. A common term that is unique to Spain is Caña (I will need to double check this spelling). It means a small cheap beer on tap. So, I might order dos Cañas and I would get two small tap beers. But, often you also get a small free tapas order with this. It might be a plate of cheese or chorizo and bread. Just something small to munch on while you drink your beer.
So, culturally what they do here is you head out to a bar, order a couple Cañas, which will come with something to munch on. You socialize with the people at that bar, then after a couple rounds you head to another bar. Order a couple Cañas and eat a bit of food that comes with it, socialize... and repeat the process in a new bar. Its bar hopping basically but seems like everyone does it. In these types of bars you see young people, whole families, and elder couples, all enjoying their Cañas and tapas. Its quite fun and social.
Also, on weekends, it is not uncommon to start your dinner at 11pm and then head out to drinks and stay out until 5-6am. As we did last night.
A common drink here in Spain is Sangria, which is a sweetened wine with fruit in it. Its quite tasty and you can order it by the large jug for pretty cheap. It seems quite common that people dilute their alcohol here with soda water or lemonade or something. People often order a beer with like sprite in it.
The Metro system here (subway) is very nice. I really have the hang of European mass transit these days. :)
So, I have spent most of my time with Emily and Miguel. Friday I went to El Pais and got a tour of their offices. It was a great visit and I enjoyed seeing how they do the multimedia magic that they do. We intend to keep in touch and that makes me happy.
Friday evening me and Emily went out for Sangria and some tapas, then 'bar hopped' to a jamon bar where hundreds of legs were hanging from the walls. We ordered dos Cañas and got a chorizo plate and olives with it. We talked politics and nasty state of things in various parts of the world, then headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe to meet some of her American friends. It was nice to be around americans (wow did i say that?) and the food was pretty decent too. Emily's friends were very nice. It was a 'girls night out' but Emily was able to persuade them to allow me. Though I think some of them said I had to wear lipstick and a skirt. Next time, possibly.
Unfortunately, one of the girls at the table had her purse stolen while we were sitting there. It was on the back of her chair. :(
Saturday, we all got up around noon and slowly managed to get out of the house and head to the market. I am planning on cooking a pot roast for them today and so we got ingredients for that. Miguel was cooking a lentil soup and steaks for lunch (which meant it would be ready by 3-4pm). We had a couple bottles of wine and it was a delightful meal. Some of their friends came over and we all sat around and chat until probably 7pm.
Our plan was to join Emily and Miguels friends for drinks, then dinner at 10pm. So we head out and was sitting and eating at about 11pm. For dinner we went to a french crepe restaurant, which I was actually pretty excited about because I thought crepes were only desert and was anxious to see how you make a meal out of it. It was great, they brought out many plates of cheeses and bread and many plates of different types of salads. So you could sample all types of things in preparation for your main meal. I ordered (probably a very typical american choice) the hamburgo crepe, which consists of the crepe breading around a hamburger patty with tomato, ketchup and mustard. It was actually the least pleasing part of the meal but was good enough.
Most of their friends are from Spain (makes sense) and so a majority of the table conversation was in spanish, which i know only a little of. I was able to sometimes pick up words and could sort of figure out they were talking about their apartment or something like that. But often I sat and smiled in ignorance... which was fine. It was a good time with friendly company. Often different people in the group would fill me in on what the conversation is about. Sometimes, the person on my left would tell me, then a bit later the person on my right would tell me, then the person across the table would tell me. So I was in the loop pretty good I guess. :)
We finished up dinner around 1am and was on the way to the bar. It was (I think i was told) a pretty typical Spanish dance bar. Not really a club, but a bar. It was nice. At first they played a lot of american music, but later they played almost all spanish music. It was nice. Often a song would be on and everyone in the bar would be singing the lyrics and I would be there completely clueless... having never heard it before. But it was nice. It was Spain and that is what I am here for. I had a great time and everyone was really charming.
I am pretty sure we got back to the apartment around 4 or 5.
So I am moving a bit slow. In a bit, I will put in a pot roast. One of the few dishes that I can cook well. Then I am heading to an art museum in downtown Madrid. Excited to see another good museum, its been a while.
Tomorrow, I fly back to London in the afternoon. I will be staying at Renee's apartment until Wednesday when I fly to Denver. Very hard to believe that I am 72 hours away from flying back to the states.
Also, started looking for a place to live in Portland this morning. Checked craigslist and sent out a few emails. I definitely want to make sure I find the right kind of place. I will probably be picky. Its got to have a good karma for me ya know. A healthy environment. But, clearly this is a sign that my mind is starting to move past traveling. I am starting to exit travel mode. And am excited to get back to the states and see my family and my dog and start to get situated again.
On a very sad note. My grandmother has cancer again. (dad's mom). She is getting major surgery Thursday. Dad will not be able to make it to Denver to be with all of us for obvious reasons. I am VERY concerned about her health and will miss dad very much in Denver. We will all be watching the situation in Indiana very closely.
More photos to come. But check out my flickr account.
I have set up my desk and computers and am for the most part capable of working without problems. Except that I lack a desk chair and currently use my bed to sit on. I might have found myself a chair I can borrow for a bit until I buy a nicer one.
