España, Good On Ya

Now that our appendectomy adventure is over (I’m knocking on wood now because technically one of us still has an as-yet-ungangrenous appendix), we thought it was about time to write about the non-medical-emergency parts of our month-long tour of Spain, also known as the Country That Never Met a Part of the Pig It Didn’t Want to Eat. This is my first trip to Spain, and for all intents and purposes, it’s Dustin’s too. (He was here briefly a few years ago, but in what now appears to be a prophetic case of bad luck, he came down with the flu shortly after arriving and spent the entire time in his hotel room.) 

One of the many street performers on La RamblaWe started our vuelta a España with a fantastic week in Barcelona, where a combination of perfect cool, sunny fall days and an adorable little studio apartment right off the main promenade through town (La Rambla) made it very difficult to leave. After that, we hopped in yet another rental car and headed northwest through the dry, desert plains of (Patrick) Aragón for an overnight in the Catholic pilgrimage city of Zaragoza (I think they have a saint’s toenail or bellybutton or something there). Then we were on to Basque country, where we spent three days in San Sebastián in another little studio apartment right on Gros Beach. After a quick overnight in Bilbao and a cheap Vueling flight to Seville, we arrived in the southern coastal region of Andalucía, where we spent three sunny days in Seville, three days at the parador in Mazagón, and then five days in a quaint boutique hotel known as “Hospital Juan Ramón Jimánez.” After that, we were on to Granada and finally Madrid, where we are now enjoying a lazy, relaxing week in another fantastic one-bedroom apartment just a few blocks from the Prado museum. (We’re wondering why we haven’t been doing apartment rentals all year – they’re cheaper and bigger than hotel rooms AND they usually have a kitchen and free laundry. Divine!) 

Rather than try to document everything we’ve done and seen here over the last month, I think I’ll just highlight a few of the things we’ve loved about Spain (I’ll give you a clue, one of them rhymes with “wapas”), and maybe also some of the stuff we haven’t been as crazy about. If you want more of a blow-by-blow account of our Spanish adventures, check out our Spain photos page, which has albums for all of the places we visited.

The Good: People

This is a really friendly country. As two non-Spanish-speaking Americans traveling in fairly touristy parts of Spain, we were expecting to be treated with the kind of annoyance/impatience that we’ve encountered in other countries in Europe when we don’t speak the language (yes, we’re talking about you, France). But so many of the people we’ve met here have been patient with our attempts to speak with them despite the confusing amalgam of English, Italian, and barely remembered junior high Spanish that comes out of our mouths. (“Donde sono the pomodori in the supermarket-o, señor?”). And unlike Italy, where the locals jumped at the first chance to speak English with us even when we were trying to speak their language, many Spaniards, whether by choice or necessity, don’t bother trying to speak English with us. In some weird way that feels like a compliment – almost like they see us as one of them – except maybe for those times when I was trying to find out whether or not my husband had gone into emergency surgery yet. Then the Spanish-only conversation lost some of its cultural charm.

Alcohol-free beer at the Barca match. Blech!I think it’s also safe to say that Spanish people know how to have a good time. This is a country that thinks nothing of drinking several beers before noon (although strangely, they only sell alcohol-free beer at Champions League soccer matches) – or partying in the streets until 4AM on a Tuesday. (At the risk of sounding like a boring old grown-up… don’t these people have jobs to go to??) Try as we might, we can’t quite get used to their festive nocturnal lifestyle. Even with the shorter autumn days, 9PM is about the earliest that dinners start here, and it’s not at all uncommon to see a restaurant filled to the brim with diners squished in together like sardines (which they’re probably eating, by the way) well after midnight. I always thought Italy had a late-dining culture, but this seems kind of ridiculous. Haven’t they heard that it’s not good to go straight to bed on a full stomach?? It’s bad for your digestion! Oh wait, that’s right. They don’t go to bed at midnight. They go to bed at 4AM. On weeknights.

Well, our inability to stay up late with them aside, the bottom line is that we really like Spaniards. If I had to pick the friendliest countries we’ve visited this year, Spain would definitely be near the top of the list, right next to Bhutan, New Zealand, and Vanuatu. That means a lot, especially when you’ve been on the road as long as we have. After 10 months away from home, the difference between having a good day traveling and a bad one can sometimes come down to something as simple as receiving a smile from a local. It makes the foreign place feel a little less… foreign. And here in Spain, despite having to endure a scary a medical crisis, we’ve had a lot of good days thanks to the warmth and friendliness of our hosts.

The Good: Food

Who needs Michelin when you’ve got this?Sure, we’ve been to our share of tapas bars back home. We’ve had gazpacho and paella. I’ve even made sangria a few times. But let’s just put it out there: we never really had Spanish food until we came to Spain. In fact, we’d never even heard of the incredible little pieces of delectableness known as pinxtos (“PEEN-choze”) before we arrived here. For those of you who share our ignorance, pinxtos are not unlike tapas with their small portion sizes and incredible variety, but they are different too. Usually laid out on the bar in a rainbow of colors (without a sneeze-guard in sight), most pinxtos are served on a thin baguette slice for easy two-bite consumption. Unlike with tapas, you don’t sit at a table or even sit at the bar when eating pinxtos – everyone stands, and if you see a pinxto you want, you just politely push and squeeze your way up to the bar until you can reach it.

We had our first foray into pinxtos in Barcelona, but that was just child’s play compared to what we found in San Sebastián, the undisputed Mecca for pinxtos in Spain. There are literally dozens of pinxtos bars around town there, all of them good, but to figure out the best ones you need look no further than the amount of trash on the floor in the bar. The locals tend to wad up the little napkins served with their pinxtos and drop them on the floor when they’re done with them. More napkin trash = better pinxtos.

Initially we were hesitant to dive in to the pinxtos scene due to our confusion about how the pinxtos bars in San Sebastián actually work. Fortunately a friendly English-speaking bartender took pity on us and explained the procedure:

1. Stand at the bar squished in with locals, ask for a shared plate from the bartender.
2. Hand-pick your cold pinxtos from the cornucopia laid out on the bar and place them on your plate.
3. Give the plate back to the bartender so he can add up what you’ve selected.
4. Order any hot pinxtos you want from him [usually off a Spanish-only menu, if there even is one].
5. Pay the bartender and get your small free glass of red wine (“tinto”) from him.
6. Eat these tasty treats as quickly as possible so you can start the process all over again. Or better yet, head to the bar next door and see how their pinxtos compare.

Mmmm…. pig earPart of the fun with pinxtos is not really knowing what you’re getting. You select what you’ll eat based on what looks good on the bar without worrying about silly details like what’s actually in them. And even when you DO know what you’re getting, the small portion sizes and low cost of each pinxto ($2-5 each) allow you to be a little bit riskier than you’d be if you were ordering traditional full-sized entrees. The best pinxtos we’ve had in all of Spain were made of things we NEVER would’ve ordered as main courses off a traditional menu, but at $4 a pop, we decided we could afford to take some chances. And after sampling the incredible flavors and textures of stewed Iberico pig’s ear sauteed with tximi-txurri and croquettes of milk-fed veal sweetbreads, we were glad we did. Best edible glands and ears we’ve ever tasted. :)

Of course, there is a lot of other really good stuff to eat in this country besides pinxtos. We’ve had incredible tapas in Seville and Madrid, delicious crusty paella in Mazagón, and savory kabobs in Islamic-influenced Granada.  And while I wouldn’t recommend coming to Spain if you have scurvy (fresh fruit and vegetables are definitely the neglected step-children of Spanish cuisine), you should come to Spain hungry if: A) the basis of your personal food pyramid is pork; B) you believe mayonnaise is one of the major food groups; and C) you believe that frying food is an act of love. You’ll feel right at home here.

Our first pinxtos bar in San Sebastián – and one of the best.

The Good (and Weird): Architecture

Who knew plaster could be so beautiful?After nearly three months in western Europe, Dustin and I arrived in Spain feeling kind of “old building-ed” out. I’m sure I’m not the first person to experience cathedral overload in Europe – I mean, really, how many flying buttresses can you look at before even the word “buttress” loses its adolescent appeal? But I have to say that even with our old building burnout, Spain’s architecture has knocked our socks off. We loved the stunning Islamic plasterwork and M. C. Escher-esque geometrical patterns of the Alcázar in Seville and the Alhambra in Granada. We climbed to the top of the self-proclaimed “world’s largest gothic cathedral” in Seville and stood slack-jawed in front of its ridiculously over-the-top altarpiece. We took in the shiny swirls and swooping waves of Gehry’s metallic masterpiece in Bilbao. We wandered the streets of lovely Madrid, remarking on the elaborate monuments on the tops of buildings and the elegant wrought-iron balconies that give this city an old world kind of beauty. 

But I have to say, even with all of the architectural wonders we’ve seen around this country, the highlight for me is still Antonio Gaudí’s Sagrada Família in Barcelona, easily one of the weirdest, strangest, and most awe-inspiring buildings I’ve ever seen. I posted a Facebook update after we toured the Sagrada Família that I think sums up my reaction to it: if Dr. Seuss, Willy Wonka, and John Muir decided to get drunk on sangria and design a Catholic church together, I’m pretty sure the end result would be the Sagrada Família. Bravo, Señor Gaudí. I’m in awe. We’ve put an entire Gaudí album up if you want to see what I mean… there’s really no easy way to describe it.

Um, are you sure this is supposed to be a church?But it’s not just the freakishly unique design of this church that creates its impact. We’ve seen so many OLD buildings on this trip (starting with the granddaddy of them all – the pyramids), and for me at least, it’s hard to feel much emotional connection to something that was built so long ago. Even if these old buildings are still being used, they feel a bit like museum artifacts. But the Sagrada Família is still very much a work in progress. We could barely hear our audio guides inside the cathedral because of all of the construction going on in the nave. In fact, Dustin realized that an entirely new wing of the cathedral has sprung up since he visited it in 2001. The church is literally growing before your eyes. It’s not often that you get to witness history in the making, but that’s very much what a visit to the Sagrada Família feels like. We decided that we want to make an effort to come back to Barcelona every five years or so, if only so we can check up on Gaudí’s baby and find out what’s changed since our last visit. Seeing it was one of the highlights of our entire year on the road.

The Bad & the Ugly

For the most part, Spain has been very good to us, but like every country we’ve visited, it’s not perfect. Unlike France and Italy, who somehow managed to implement public smoking bans despite having populations who still light up regularly, Spain continues to allow smoking in restaurants and bars. As much as we tell ourselves to leave our California biases at home while we’re traveling, it’s hard not to get a little grumpy when you leave breakfast smelling like you’ve spent the last hour in an episode of Mad Men. We’re also not huge fans Spain’s interstate freeways, which we’ve decided are the most expensive roads we’ve ever driven on. It seems like every 30 minutes you have to stop to pay another €15 toll. And god bless this country’s festive spirit, but the constant stream of late-night, drunken revelers that wakes us up every night around 4AM regardless of the city or the day of the week is a little too reminiscent of my days living near “frat row” in Madison when I was in college. More than once I’ve been tempted to open our window and shout at the noisemakers below to “Cállate the ‘f’ up!” I guess I’m officially a grown-up now. 

Other than those few annoyances (and that whole appendicitis thingy), España has been a lot of fun. We’re excited to be heading to South America next, where we hope to spend our days wandering around big old mountains rather than big old buildings, but we’ll also be sad to say adios to a country that has taken pretty good care of us, all things considered. Thanks to the three-inch scar on Dustin’s belly, at least we’re leaving Spain with a pretty cool souvenir. We may not have Paris, but we’ll always have that.

Comments

[Dirk]

Are you leaving Spain with Dustin's appendix as a souvenir or did they give it back? I didn't quite understand that second to last sentence. ;) Please travel safely.

[Laura Maestrelli]

Funny you should mention that, bro-in-law. I told Dustin he should've asked the doctors to give him his appendix in a jar so that we could carry it with us as a travel mascot for the rest of the trip like the traveling gnome in 'Amelie'. But for some reason he thought that was gross.

[Mom/Mary]

When we lived in Nevada, we used to love to eat at the Basque restaurants in Reno (Louie's Basque Corner) and Garnerville (Overland Hotel). Meals were always served family style at big long tables and you always drank Picon Punch. Was that just an American Basque thing or did you find that in San Sebastian also?

[Laura Maestrelli]

Mom, we didn't see the big family-style meals in San Sebastian, but my guess is that they are common out on the ranches in Spain's Basque country. There was definitely a spirit of communal eating, though, in the pinxtos bars. "Personal space" doesn't really exist there... you're just squished together with everyone, enjoying the delicious food and collective good cheer.

It looks like Picon Punch was created by Basque immigrants in the U.S. and brought back to Spain in a kind reverse cultural exchange. Check out this article I just found on it: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/07/25/1279308/a-tale-of-two-basque-libations.html :)