Sunday Feast

Sundays are always the best days to eat in Madrid. Elvira always cooks something incredible. 

To start, we had little, teenie-tiny fish that looked like chopped off legs from a small squid cooked with garlic. We ate it like spaghetti and it was INCREDIBLE. Next, we had rabbit, blood sausage, roasted peppers, salad and french fries. 

It definitely ranks as one of the best meals I've had in Spain. 

Body Odor, Yoda, Father Time, Yoko Ono, Tripe

As I'm sure you have surmised from the title, the last two days have been full of revelations.

1. I'm becoming more European with each passing day - for better or worse. How so? Well, it starts in the shower. Since Europe is so strict with their environmental laws and water is a precious resource in the arid plateau that is Madrid, I've cut down my shower time immensely. And as a result, I have had to forgo many modern day conveniences, such as soap, shampoo, and water, on occasion. This is not to say I never use soap nor shampoo. Just simply, that it's become more of a option. Viola. You have my European transformation. 

The odor really gives away the tourists. They wear too much deodorant, perfume, etc. Since I've lessened my use of soap/shampoo/tooth paste/floss/toilet paper, the bums have stopped asking me for a donation, something that only truly Madrileños can achieve! 

In all serious this though, when I got onto my bus tonight, I did not think twice about the overwhelmingly repugnant scent of farms, farm animals, farm workers. 

2. It's a damn travesty, Yoda. The Madrid Metro system has not failed to mention -The Star Wars Exhibition has just arrived in Madrid. Posters are all over the place tempting the general public to go and see the sights. Unfortunately, I don't think the ploy has worked so far. 

My problem is I find myself thinking about things, dwelling, ruminating on things without any importance. It was one of those weeks. I kept on thinking about the Yoda that had been on the posters in the Metro and I kept thinking to myself, "How the hell would the translate Yoda-talk into Spanish?" Linguistically in Spanish it is impossible to say something like "Think we will about the rise of the Syth." In Spanish there is only "We will think about the rise of the Syth." It's really pretty limited as far as translating Yoda-talk. And that, my friends, is why the Star Wars Exhibition will fail - Spanish-speakers have never experienced Yoda in his full glory. It's as simple as that.

3. Ah, yes, Father Time and Yoko Ono. I was waiting in the Plaza Mayor for my friends, when all of the sudden, I realized that a very, very old, think man with a long scraggly white beard had creeped up behind me. I was definitely alarmed to see the Father Time/Mr. Sandman wannabe shuffling toward me, but what was even more disconcerting was the woman he was pushing in a wheel chair. Like him, she was ancient, Asian and had loooong gray hair. I quickly moved on and that was that. In retrospect, they were probably nothing more than con-artists. That's to say they were probably only twenty or thirty years old and were just wearing wigs, masks, makeup to play the part.

4. Oh Cripe. I've seen this flemmy, fleshy, gelatin-like meat on sale at a number of markets around Spain. I always thought it was some sort of processed brain. Last night, however, after we had gone to see a Spanish documentary on the Basque Country, we decided to grab a bite to eat at one of the neighboring restaurants. We ordered rations, I ordered peppers stuffed with a stewed shredded beef  and my other friends ordered croquettes and callos. My friend that ordered callos had no idea what they were. Even after ordering and hearing the word tripa, she decided to give it a try. My suspicions that she had ordered tripe were vindicated when a casserole of piping-hot tripe and garbanzos arrived at our table. It was funny, because when our waiter was explaining the dish before having ordered it, he said that it was better to try it without knowing what it was, although I doubt this would have helped.  The sauce was good, but the texture and appearance of the tripe was pretty awful. You'll have to try it for yourself. There is no way to describe the experience except that it was an experience. You should be informed that I did eat the majority of the tripe, however, since I was paying for it and all.

Highlights of Morocco

1. Moroccan Tea. Stop reading this right now. Go to the yellow pages in the telephone book and find a Moroccan restaurant. When you get back, you can read this. The traditional moroccan tea was amazing. It was a green tea with sprigs of mint serviced in a glass tumbler. The mint leaves really did the job. It was great and although we were in a relatively touristy area, the tea was phenomenal and has to rank up there as one of the best teas I've had.

2. The Bazaar. After lunch, we entered the labyrinthine bazaar made up of crooked streets, fallen buildings, and eager albeit toothless faces. The bazaar really was incredible and other worldly. Morocco, or maybe I should say Tangier, as a place was not particularly beautiful. It was a run down city which had  had better days. The culture which is so different from that of the West was truly amazing. It's hard to believe that a culture so different can literally be so close to Europe. I believe Spain and Morocco are only 9 miles apart at the Straight of Gibraltar. Bazaar was fully of people, women wearing the burkah, women with covered faces, leering eyes, men wearing suits, wearing the traditional dress-like robe. In places, you could not walk through the hidden ally ways without having to squeezing your way through a mass of people. I saw Berber women, wearing their traditional clothing selling recently picked thyme, rosemary, parsley, mint. Berber women peeling potatoes, washing carrots, hoping to have a good day at the market before going back to the village. In the Bazaar, we went to two 'established' stores, the first a rug store and the second a spice/homeopathic remedy/voodoo store. The rug store was quite a sight. The walls were lined with rugs of all sizes and varieties. The men working in the store gave us a quick demo of all of the types of rugs offered, which ranged from traditional berber rugs to more modern rugs, from runners to vast carpets that could fill ballroom. No one bought a rug. So our guide quickly shuffled us off to the next establishment. Getting to the second establishment was a little more tricky than the first. Most of the group had already left when we exited the rug store, which left us a little confused as to how we would get to our next destination. One of the women from our group told us that we were supposed to continue to the left. Going in that direction, we didn't see anyone familiar and that's when I began to suspect foul play. A tall, young Moroccan appeared in front  of us and beckoned us to follow. 'Oh shit. This is Al Queda.' Well, we followed him. What else was there to do? Taking us down curvy streets and windy roads, I really did suspect that we would end up in the back of a truck, held hostage or executed for the sake of radical Islam. It's a shame to report this helper did in fact work for our guide. So no great dilemma emerged from the experience, leaving me without a scintillating story of death, agony, bloodshed. Talk about a money making memoir. "My life as a Moroccan Prisoner." Or how about... "The Good Years: Finding Hope, Faith, Love through Trapped in Morocco." We can only hope that that will be the next adventure. The second store looked more like Willy Wonka's candy land on crack than it did a naturalist store. Huge glass canisters lined the walls, filled with mysterious pink powders, brownish green lumps - hash, perhaps, and orangy yellow saffron. Like the previous store, the Moroccan owner/drug lord gave a 10-15 minute demo of his products. Never had I seen a demo so interactive and so potentially life-threatening as this one. I've seen people eat fire. I've seen people walk on nails, but never have I seen such a disregard for the spread of disease, germs, death. The aforementioned owner/drug lord would show us an item. Let's say it was rose petal lotion. Upon applying the lotion on his own hands, his helpers, probably drug lord hopefuls, scurried about the room applying the lotion on all of our hands. He showed a number of tame items like saffron before he arrived at the most shocking of all, lip balm. After giving the demo, he and his aides went around the room forcing the lip balm on all of us. Fortunately, I was avoided the lip balm. Really though. A tester tube of balm is not on my list of things to experience nor share with people while I am in a 3rd world country. The worst, however, was the snoring remedy. Our drug lord and recent friend, put some ground up root, twig, herb combination in a linen cloth, twisting and making into a ball. He then sniffed the powder ball with vigor. And voila no more snoring. I have no idea how all of the helpers were able to make this anti-snoring balls so quickly, but before I knew it, they were wandering around the group literally forcing us to sniff it.

All in all, however it was an incredibly positive experience. Morocco was the 3rd French speaking country that I've been to this semester and the first Arabic speaking country that I've been to and the visit has only given me more resolve to learn French next followed by Arabic, of course.

I was fairly mesmerized by Northern Africa and look forward to going back whenever that may be. (I almost bought a ticket to Tunisia this week.)

Taking Care of Sickness

Not to be forgotten.

When I returned from Barcelona, I was ridden with a cold/flu/rainy weather sickness and the drugs that I bought at the socialist pharmacy proved entirely useless. So, in that sense, returning the the tender, warm, loving care of Elvira was something I looked forward Monday night. When I turned the key and pushed the old oak door open, the pint-sized Elvira welcomed me not with open arms nor with a crooked smile, but with the sniffles and hacking instead. We were all sick Rafa included, all taking drugs, all not getting better. Elvira's pervasive cough seemed particularly threatening come meal time. Hovering over my food and letting rip a few good flemmy groans never sounded more appetizing. Some how, I got better without the help of the or much sleep.

The few days that I was sick proved particularly interesting in that a cultural exchange of sorts was able to take as we all started trading various do-it-yourself wellness remedies. My favorite from home has to be the salt water gargle. When I told Elvira that she should try it, she gave me a look of blatant sceptism directed both at the suggested and my mental well being. Obviously, she never tried it. She simply smiled and nodded with looks of 'how many more months do I have with this loon' every time that I suggested it thereafter. I must mention that it has been 2 weeks and her sickness is still has a rather strong hold on her. One positive thing from my initial suggestion - I learned how to say gargle in Spanish. It was a little difficult to say gargle with salt water, simply because I lacked the rather pivotal word - gargle. I began by saying 'you should (imitation of gargle) with salt water. In Spanish this roughly translates into, Debes (imitación de gárgara) con agua y sal. When that didn't work quite as well as planned, I tried translating gargle into Spanglish. (Thank you Latin-based languages.) I began with garguar, which really is a fairly good guess, unfortunate it didn't. Eventually between my imitating and spanglizing charade, she caught. Laughing, she said hacer gárgaras. How simple. I should have known it would have been something so literal. Hacer - to do/make. Gárgaras - gargles. To make gargles. Wow.

There was one other moment of relative educational productivity upon my arrival into the house of illness. I got to learn a Spanish sickness remedy. Warm milk with honey. You should try it when you have a cough, stuffy nose or sore throat. You should also try it if you like milk and honey. It's pretty surprising, although again I don't think it really did much to abate my sickness. 

How can I possibly follow up that post? - Barcelona

The problem is I can't really follow up my Paris post. I didn't vomit, sleep in the streets or get pickpocketed and therefore have nothing worthwhile to report. I might as well give up here. 

Here are a few worthy contenders:

1. Tetas. There was one moment of relatively exciting "cultural exchange" on our day trip to the towns of Figueres and Girona. We went to the Dalí Museum in Figueres, which was really incredible. It was sort of strange because he had actually designed the building and the museum himself. Unlike most museums that are dedicated to one artist, Dalí had something to with the planning, construction, and placement of the art. As a result, the museum itself is like one giant sculpture/painting. Anyone a fan of existentialism? Anyone?

After Figueres, we headed to Girona to see a famous market and visit the cathedral and the old town walls. Up until the visit to the walls, everything had been fairly interesting, but nothing that too ooohhh-aaahhh. That came later, when we began our descent of the wall. The wall itself was probably around a mile long. So when we did finally start our descent at the end of the mile, it was a relatively momentous occasion. Unlike the beginning of the wall, we exited in a more urban section. (Urban section = people and by people I mean women.) So we were all in the process of the the wall and descending the steps, when I looked across the courtyard to see an open apartment window with two people, remember what I mean by people, standing there watching us. I didn't really think anything of it at first. As people-watcher, I definitely sympathized with what I thought were kindred spirits watching a group of Americans. I was wrong. I hadn't but just finished thinking about the two women in the window, when I glanced back to their apartment window, suddenly realizing that they had lifted up their t-shirts flashing us. Urban beautification?

2. Gaudí's Architecture. Words really cannot describe all of Gaudí's architecture. His parks, apartment buildings, office buildings, and churches are otherworldly, looking like something from a Dr. Seuss book. It was incredible and fortunately, I was able to see nearly all of his major monuments in Barcelona. When you see an image of barcelona, it likely contains one of Gaudí's creations.

PARIS

Since time is of the essence and since I really don't have any free time right now, I'm going to another quick summary of Paris. Ranking my top 3 experiences.

1. Drinking. Going to happy hour is extremely popular in Paris, much more so than in Madrid. It is much more than a pastime or addiction for some, it is a way of life. I am fortunate enough to have a number of friends abroad in Paris this semester/year, friends that  you might say are in the know concerning this aspect of Parisian culture. After having been out until 4 o'clock Thursday night/morning, we followed Friday up with the same thing. A group of my friends from Davidson met up to go to happy hour at bar and then go to dinner. My fraternity brother, Joel, chose well when he took us to one of his favorite's, which just happens to be open 24 hrs a day. I wasn't sure what to order until I saw Gin Fizz on the menu. My friends had mentioned how great it was and I knew that I needed to try it in all of its/my alcoholic glory. It proved to be the perfect beginning to a great night. The bar itself was incredible. It was 8 stories, located in the Latin Quarter and drinks were in the neighborhood of 11 euros, which is pretty normal for any bar nice or crappy in Paris. (Thank you happy hour.) From there we found a little restaurant to have dinner, where everyone will be glad to know that we rehydrated with water! Unfortunately the carafe was rather small and I only had 2 small glasses. Not good.

From there, Joel gave us a tour around the city we visited Notre Dame, the Hotel de Ville, the Mareis, and a few other sites before meeting up with my friend from Saint Stephen's and Davidson, Katherine, who is living in the Mareis near the Pompidou. We met up with her, went to a typical French cafe, and began our cigarette-smoking, wine-drinking marathon. For starters, we began with a bottle of the wine of the month, the cheapest thing on the menu. We drank that, drank another and then headed to her apartment, which was about 4 minutes away. In her apartment, we drank another, hanging out, talking, and still smoking a little. To put things in perspective, by the time we met up with Katherine, our group had dwindled down to three people. In other words, three people were doing all of this drinking, smoking, joking, and toking. (Kidding.) By the time we left Katherine's around 3:30, we had each had our own bottle of wine and had each smoked at least half a pack of cigarettes. Not bad for a day in Paris, I suppose.

So this is where the hydration part comes into play. I hadn't hydrated myself much or really at all Friday. I had had a small bottle of Evian and maybe four thimbles of water what the French might call a glass. So the next day, I woke up not feeling so hot. At first, I was fine and then I was blah. (Barfing sound.) So I barfed, felt well afterwards and decided that we should still go sightseeing in the morning. The moment that the metro doors shut, I knew that sightseeing had been a bad idea. I gave Caroline a wince of we-need-to-get-off-asap, which she aptly understand and we both quickly disembarked at the next metro stop. Unfortunately by the time I was walking through the metro, I had already started blah. (Visualize barfing in a Parisian metro station) I barfed in the hallway, in a garbage can, and on the stairs. Not bad. Talking about the event afterwards, Caroline told me that nobody really seemed to pay any attention to the scene, indicating that its really nothing to unusual for Paris. So this time, after I had barfed, I was sure that I was well. I all I needed was some food. So we went to a crêperie and I had a fanta and sugar crêpe. Everything went fine, and I didn't barf again. Although, I ended up being incapacitated for part of the day, it really didn't hinder me too much although we did joke about taking a picture of me barfing at all of the major sights in Paris. I'll have to work on that one for the next time. 

2. The Building Covered in tropical plants. After my second barfing incident, we headed to the Eiffel Tower and then to this building covered by tropical plants that I really wanted to see. I know that reading it sounds fairly lame, but this building was designed with a special irrigation system that has permitted its entire facade to be covered in mosses, vines, and shrubbery. It's incredible especially considering a majority of the plants are not native to France and cannot usual survive in that climate.

3. Cafe Marly. Cafe Marly is right outside of the Louvre with sights of the Eiffel Tower and the Tuileries. It was by far the best meal I've had any where this semester. The lamb was as tender and as tasty as any that I have had. The gravy was delicious and the mashed potatoes rank right up there with Grandmother's. If you go to Paris it is a must, it is also open until 2 daily.

Something Forgotten and a Madrid Update

I seem to have forgotten to post a few particularly exciting moments in Belgium. 

The first night that I was in Brussels, there was this huge baptism party with people running around in the streets covered in food. It seems a strange tradition - to follow up a baptism with a pseudo-food fight. So Caroline and I were walking around (after having crêpes) and some girl ran up to us asking if we wanted to pay 50 cents to break an egg on this girls head for her recent baptism. I was sort of shocked and a little concerned that this was another pickpocket ploy, but no sooner had I began to question this girl covered in food when a Belgian couple came over and asked if they could crack the egg on her head. It seemed legitimate enough. So, we paid and began the egg-cracking process, which is more difficult than you may imagine. Since we did not want to cause any bodily damage and give our newly christianized friend an egg-sized lump on her head, proceeded to tap the egg on her head, to no avail. Caroline gave up not wanting to hurt the girl and I took over. A few taps later and the egg had been cracked after a rather forcefully slap of the fist. She smiled bid us adieu and continued off into the night raising money via egg cracking. (Definitely ranks up there as one of the top 10 experiences of my life.)

So here is the update on Madrid.

This past weekend was relatively low-key. I went to Toledo for the day with my art history class and ended up visiting a church, a cathedral, two synagogues both of which were built by Muslims, and a mosque. Mazapan, the local specialty, was incredible.

Another food related note - I've become a huge fan of blood sausage.