Food for Thought

Last night, after returning from our day of Spanish touring, about 10 of us decided to embark on an even more Spanish quest: a dinner of homemade tapas. It´s remarkable what you can create with a baby-sized kitcken, a Mercadona spree and eager CASB chefs. We had tortilla española (a french fry omelette, basically), chicken croquettes, pa amb tomaquet (Catalan speciality; calling it bruschetta would be an insult), pimientos de padron (pan-fried green peppers), sauteed mushrooms and patatas bravas (potatoes + spicy sauce = yum). It took a lot of olive oil - and a lot of love - and was delicious.

Today though, we were on a different bent. All week, Paige and I have been bemoaning the lack of free refills (and fountain soda for that matter) in Spain. We wanted a diner. What we really wanted was Meeting Street, but we were willing to settle.

This week marked the second dip of the choque cultural chart. The initial plummet came from a frustration with Spanish disorganization and the difficulties of navigating a foreign system. I think I´m totally past that - and actually starting to get to the point, remarkably, where I can understand Spanish without trying too hard. This piece of the evolucion emocional came more from the missing-home angle.

And so four of us caved, and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Ok, we were touristy, and we overpaid for our burgers, but they were delicious, and we just smiled at the waitress as she judgingly asked if we wanted another refill. Yes please.