I am officially in love with Spain. The vast majority of the people are very welcoming and will speak a bit slower when they realize that we are American, but my ear is already getting better at picking up what they are saying when they speak at warp speed. Apparently we sound the same when we talk in English, although I don’t feel like I talk all that fast, but to them it’s extremely fast. Our madre is an AMAZING cook, almost as good as my real mom, who I miss dearly (love you mom!) We have had some really really good meals, our first lunch was paella, a standard Spanish dish that has rice, olives, peppers, soft boiled eggs, and any kind of meat or shellfish that you want to put it in it. I wanted to make it a bit spicier, but we couldn’t figure out how to say hot sauce in Spanish! Those little words and phrases that we take for granted in English are the toughest to translate to Spanish. She also made this potato pure with croutons that was delicious, and perfect after a night of bar hopping.
She also grows all of her own vegetables: potatoes, onions, melons...all really fresh and delish. The meat here is lamb, it was breaded with something but wasn't bad.
In English I say, “I’ll try to…” a lot, and there is just no way to translate that to Spanish. Aside from that I am doing OK with speaking and understanding it, it’s getting easier by the minute. In a week or so I think I’ll be pretty used to listening to it and will be able to understand it very well. Speaking will take more time.
There is another set of students living in our building, Kelsey Whittleton and Meghan, and Kelsey is conveniently from Richmond and was a friend before Spain. They live on the first floor with their madre and a younger married couple, Pepe and Jitmal. Pepe is 26, I believe, and from Sevilla and Jitmal is 24 and from Jordan, and they are THE BOMB. Last night Tim and I went down there and smoked hookah with all of them before we went out, and Jitmal and Pepe showed us the ropes, they knew where to go and what places will be good each night of the week.
Pepe and Jitam! Pepe studied history too, so we talked for a while about that, got our nerd on.
Paulaner! SO good, it's sweet and hoppy with a great flavor. Unfortunately my taste is expensive usually 3.50 eruo, but I am already thinking of how to get some of this back in the states.
We started at two Irish Pubs, just to hangout and talk, then at 2, we went to La Chupiteria for 1 euro shots! It was PACKED. There were people from every part of the world in the bar, and I talked to a local for a while who was a nice dude. The euro shots saved me, because beers were either 3.50 or 4 euro, very expensive. The exchange rate right now is $1.40 = 1 euro. Yikes.
This is La Chupiteria, which was pretty much a shot bar. It's the place to go take shots and then move on to the club.From La Chupiteria, we went to Camelot, a Discoteca club that was also packed and a lot of fun, thanks to Jitam and Pepe we were at the place to be! It’s very peculiar though, in all of the bars they play American music more often than Spanish music, which I found interesting, but it’s the same way at pretty much every bar. The same popular songs and late night club classics.
Changing subjects a little, the plaza mayor is the main plaza of the city, right in the center. There are a bunch of restaurants on the inside where you can sit outside, and the bars and clubs are all pretty centered around la plaza mayor, there's a picture of it below. It's pretty darn cool.
This is what the typical street heading into plaza mayor looks like, restaurants all have chairs that they put outside where you can sit and have a tapa or a tosta and a cerveza. There are a million little shops and stores that have everything from clothes to little trinkets and gifts and whatnot. It's a really cool city! I'll blog more midweek about classes and other goings on!
No comments:
Post a Comment