Tag: churros

Spain–He Is Risen!

Now that I’m Greek Orthodox, I’m not supposed to say this, but today is Easter. And you’d think that would be a day of rest in Spain, right? I mean, teams of 40 men have been carrying immensely heavy statues through the streets nearly all day, every day for a week. There was a special 100th-anniversary-of-something procession yesterday with all of the statues. Today everyone kicks back and eats, right?

Yeah, no. Three more groups are parading today, starting at noon. Como se dice ‘overkill’?

But to be fair, even last night I was still stunned by a procession. We caught one coming up a hill, without much of a crowd around. There’s this great super-slow Doppler effect with the band, which follows behind the statue. So the music’s getting louder and louder, but if you’re around a bend you can’t really see anything. And then the music is bouncing off the walls of the buildings super-loud just as the statue, surrounded by candles, emerges from the side street.

And then, as the statue goes by, and you’re boggling at how heavy it is, the band finally emerges and it is even LOUDER. And the bass drums go by last.

I saw this effect for the first time a few nights ago, with a statue of Christ hauling the cross, surrounded by centurions with huge feathers in their helmets. When the statue emerged from the side street, with the band blaring, all we saw first was the feathers. By the time the whole statue was visible, I expected Jesus and the soldiers to be doing a big kick line routine.

On the research front, things have gotten a little easier. We’ve figured out the route to break out of our little procession island, and know better to avoid bars right on the routes, because they’re mobbed and are basically pulling tapas out of their asses. “Beer coasters? Toss ’em in the fryer! Forty more people just showed up!”

Yesterday was a good day for research–I checked a fair amount of stuff of my list, and it even felt a little easy and like I was ahead of the game.

Then I looked at my watch, and I realized I’d been walking, with Beverly tagging along behind, for ten hours straight.

We started out after our churros and chocolate–the logical thing to eat when it’s 44 degrees out. But apparently the rest of the city thought so too. I have never seen bars so frenzied, even at night. The place where we did finally get our ch-and-ch fix–an excellent rec from AV–looked like a war zone inside, with empty chocolate cups four deep and two high stacked all along the bar. So we sat outside, which was for the best, since we were wearing every layer of clothing we packed (six each), and it would’ve been too difficult to adjust to a heated room.

The chocolate was thick as pudding, and the churros actually had a little ridgy texture, which I have seen only up in northern Spain–down south here, they’re usually they’re just smooth round tubes. And they were so perfectly fried and light they were almost empty inside. We shared a table with an older Spanish couple, the only people we saw all day who were as bundled up as we were.

Later, I admit, we did stop for a fairly nice lunch. Lovely baby beans with ham, and some nice fancy mushrooms. A real live green salad. And some too-creative-sounding veal with cardamom that turned out to be good. Finished with a little dab of orange wine that the waiter, who looked like Peter Dinklage, gave me for free, because apparently it was available only by the bottle. Crazy.

And later we took a 15-minute break in a bar that went from funky-neighborhoody to totally skeevy in the time it took for the foam to settle on our beers. While I was looking in the kitchen and noticing that when the sign said “food cooked with love,” they really meant “food cooked with cigarette butts and dirty wads of paper towels,” the older regulars at the bar were replaced by strung-out hippies, one of whom was doing the junkie lean into his beer. The review I was writing in my head was quickly discarded, and I pushed my octopus tapa around, feeling bad that it had died in vain. We fled up the street and took solace in a church with a very strange collection of artifacts, none labeled.

Which reminds me–earlier in the day, we saw an honest-to-God shrunken head in another museum! Why that museum is not listed in the guidebook I cannot for the life of me imagine. I can’t wait to rectify that oversight, and type the words “shrunken head” in the manuscript! First I will have to figure out what the whole point of the museum is, though–the guided tour was in Spanish, and while I thought I understood what the guy was saying most of the time, when I strung it all together at the end for Beverly, I realized it made no sense at all.

I’m sure a million other funny things have happened, but they’ve all been beaten out of my head by those bass drums. Monday is going to be quiet, right?

Spain–First Impressions

Estoy aqui. Jet lag in full effect. But all went smoothly, considering. After the passport hurdle, there was the connection-in-Madrid hurdle: very tight, aggravated by slack US Air rep who said he couldn’t check my bags through to Almeria. Not true, of course, because they’d even been able to pull this trick off in Albuquerque, on my mom’s bags–but I didn’t know this for certain at the airport, and couldn’t dig in my heels.

At least I got to stew about this in the business-class lounge in Philly–Star Alliance Gold status in full effect!

As it happened, my bag was the very first one off the belt in Madrid. When does that happen? I feel like it should be the subject of a business-motivation book: First Off the Belt: Someone’s bag has to be–why not yours ?

I’m gratified to find that my impression of Spanish women, forged years ago, has not changed at all: they have terrible hair!

This is great for me–I fit right in! Last time I was here, I had just “gone blonde,” except the salon lady failed to tell me until after the job that I really needed a double process. So I had that distinctive orange hair that Japanese punk kids (and undernourished children) often sport.

With that, and my tight pants and my glasses, I got asked for directions all the time!

I did a little henna on my hair about a week ago, in preparation for this trip…and the magic is working! I already had to beg the stewardess for an immigration form.

Also, when I saw the chick on my Almeria flight with the big green square glasses and the super-tight bright-pink pants, I knew I’d made the right decision when I tossed my kelly green skinny-leg cords into my suitcase at the last minute.

This ramps up the pressure on my Spanish, but it’s worth it just to feel like my fashion sense is appreciated. Unlike in NYC, where poor grooming and bright colors mean people edge away from you on the subway.

As for my mom, she fits in OK–she’s wearing lots of black, and a scarf. But the dead giveaway is that she has white hair–not brassy orange or jet black. Also, she’s about a head taller than most of the older women on the street, and that’s something that pretty much never happens. In most other settings, she’s often mistaken for a gelfling.

After a big nap this afternoon, we immediately fell victim to Spanish dining times…roaming the street, starving, while waiting for tapas bars to open. We would’ve had a little sweet treat to pass the time, but all the seats at the cafes were already crammed with people enjoying their post-siesta pick-me-up, with churros and cafe con leche and juice on all the tables. Another reason to love Spain–two chances for breakfast!

And, once we got into the tapas window, I truly appreciated how great it is to be doing guidebook research here. Here, it’s totally legit, even expected, to have one drink in a place and leave. Everywhere else I go, I have to steel myself for the evening reviewing session, to cover as many places as possible: drinks and apps in one place, mains in another, maybe dessert in a third. But if I drink too much at the first place, and the food is good, my plan goes to hell immediately.

Tonight, I checked three places off my list in just a couple of hours, without feeling a twinge of regret or having to shrug apologetically at anyone when I asked for the bill.

For the record, my body is humming along on a diet of: blood-sausage stew on toast, bacalao fritters, green olives, delectably bouncy baby meatballs and octopus in garlic mayo so blindingly white it looked like whipped cream.

Hmm. Maybe I shouldn’t have made that list.

I also ate half a clementine. That counts, right? Still, Beverly has the advantage: she ate the lettuce-leaf garnish that came with the fritters.