The Worst Tourists Ever

Dear Generic Asian Tourists:

It is actually NOT acceptable to use the most GIANT flash ever and take 10,000 pictures with a telephoto lens during a flamenco performance when you are 4 rows away from the stage. Please do not stamp your feet and sing along (to an instrumental rendition of Carmen, nonetheless) when the performers are on stage and most of all, please be quiet and respectful of the performers and THE OTHER AUDIENCE MEMBERS!

Thanks for not giving a crap about anyone else in the entire building, crowding my friends' personal spaces to take a picture when they were just trying enjoy the dance, and basically ruining my already sub-par flamenco experience. Boo to you.

Sincerely,

The Only Six Americans In The Entire Building (ugh!)

-Amy

Almost Home

Well, here we are at Dublin International, about 7 hours from New York.

This trip has been fantastic, as all my Eurotrips have been. And this time I got to spend it with my lovely lass Amy.

But as always there were things that were not so good. In no particular order, here we're the 3 suckiest things that happened in the past week:
1. My shoes (see dedicated post)
2. Asian tourists in Flamenco show
3. Hotel Vilamari in Barcelona. These people should be looking forward to a hell of a review on Hotels.com.

I'll post a recap later if I feel so inclined. See you across the pond.

-ming

Seville

The temperature during the day while we were in Seville was consistently above 90 degrees. It was supposedly a dry heat but completely uncomfortable regardless. As a result, we looked for a shaded route everywhere we went.

The city itself is very aesthetic. The combination of Moorish and Roman architecture gave the place a very ancient feel.

Our first stop was the Bull-fighting museum. We got to walk into the stands and look into the ring, where a bull fight is currently scheduled for Sunday.

After this we visited the Torre del Oro, the Gold Tower. Apparently Seville used to be an extremely busy port, and centered the trade between Asia and the rest of the Mediterranean. The Gold Tower was a very important piece of the docks, though I could really figure out why.

A few cervezas later we walked into a theater where we had reserved some tickets for a flamenco show. Everything appeared normal until we walked to our tables to see that joining us were at least 3 bus loads of Asian tourists.

The show itself was somewhat entertaining. The dancers were competent and the guitarists were very skilled from what we saw. But it was difficult to concentrate with the amount of flashes going off during the performance, the idle conversations that were taking place DURING the performances, and the drunken Japanese man poorly singing along with Carmen. I felt embarrassed for these people.

After the show we watched Spain obliterate Ireland in their Eurocup game 4-0. We dined on some tasty tapas while trying to ward off the dozens of mosquitos swarming around us. I took great pleasure in ordering my meal in Spanish.

The next day we visited the Seville Cathedral. While standing in line Amy and I were accosted by some fortune tellers who gave her a random branch that we could not identify.

It took 33 ramps and 17 steps to reach the top of the Cathedral bell tower. I rushed up the last few steps in anticipation of a breeze that never came. The view, however, was spectacular as you can see below.

A short jaunt through the Alcazar Real was up next. We saw some peacocks in the gardens, who surprised us with how loud and obnoxious they can be.

The afternoon of the second day was spent sitting in the high speed train. The 5 and a half hour ride meant we had little time to do anything once we had reached Barcelona again.

-ming

Do Not Buy These Shoes

You guys. These shoes. Oh my god are they terrible. Más Terible.

I hope the Indonesian child who sewed it together is ashamed of himself. I had only worn them for 2 days on this trip and already they were coming apart. It's great that they make me look like a successful yupster but the trade off is not worth the half dozen blisters.

-ming

Madrid Cooking Class

My new thing for every vacation following this one is going to be to take a cooking class...regardless of cost. Wednesday was a wonderful experience in both Spanish culture/hospitality and Spanish cuisine. Our chef, Gabriela, took us in and shared with us some of the most delicious Spanish dishes made with the freshest ingredients you can buy. She even said she bought the seafood the day before and the fresh cherries from her own orchard.

As far as the dishes go, we made 4 of them: salmoréjo (a cold gazpacho-type soup made with pulverized bread & veggies); Ibérico pork with Pedro Ximenéz sauce; fideua-pronounced "fileguac"-(paella but with noodles in place of rice); and he last dish was an almond cake with mint sorbet. Spaniards take their lunches the most seriously. Usually, they take hours to enjoy their lunch but only eat something light and fast for breakfast and dinner.

Gabriela even taught us how to peel and prepare artichokes. I will include a good picture of Ming in her amazing kitchen doing just that. I made the cake, he did artichokes, Fred helped peel the shrimp and Ruben seared the pork. We each did our parts and the end result was a sweet, savory pork, a creamy, but light, tomato soup with bits of Iberian ham and egg, salty macaroni-filled seafood fideua, and a sticky lemon almond cake with sweet mint sorbet!

It's midnight in Sevilla and I'm hungry just thinking about it again....

Fun fact: Spaniards eat their dinner around 9pm! It's light out here until around 10 so I completely lose track of all sense of time. Siestas totally make sense since it's blazing hot in the afternoon and doing anything but napping in the A/C is crazy.

Til next eats!
-Amy

Madrid

The train ride to Madrid was mostly uneventful, with the sole exception of my backpack ejecting itself from the luggage rack and landing squarely on my cabeza. No harm done though, I was able to recite all 21 alphabets perfectly.

After we checked into our hotels, we met Ruben's mom and sister for dinner in a restaurant named Kukuruxu or kumuruxu or something to that effect. Amy and I ordered a monkfish and seafood stew while everyone else elected to split a large order of shellfish. Our soup was amazing, but it looked like the shellfish dish was more work than it was food.

We awoke Wednesday morning with only one thing in mind- our cooking class! I'll let Amy write an entry about that, she can explain it much better than I.

After the class Amy and I had some housework to do- our mound of dirty laundry had grown considerably and the supply of fresh clothes dwindled, so we decided to tour the inside of a Spanish laundromat.

In the afternoon we took. stroll in the Museo del Prado and looked at some Goya paintings. Then we walked into the nearby park for some people watching before some more tapas for dinner.

-ming

Valencia

I wrote a much longer post about Valencia but somehow my phone deleted it. Since this post is several days late already I hope you'll pardon the abridged version.

We arrived in Valencia around 3, and headed to the hotel. After checking in, we found a restaurant right next door. The place had a lot of customers, a good decor, an best of all, no pictures of the food on the menu.

When the food arrived we realized that we had chosen the right place. It was the best food we had eaten up until that point on this trip. We ordered some paella with rabbit and chicken, some meat with green beans (we are fairly sure that it was beef), and two other dishes that I can't recall at this point. But worry not, we took pictures of everything.

A little while later a man who had been having a business lunch at the table next to us came over and began speaking to us in Catalan. Apparently he was the owner of the restaurant and the man he was meeting with was a producer of olive oil. He gave us a sample and it was so good that we bought two bottles from him right then.

After lunch we decided to go to the beach to ward off some of the heat. What appeared to be a short jaunt turned out to be an hour-long trek through the poop smelling-est section of the city. We did stop at the biggest opera house in the world though (after the one in Sydney).

Eventually we arrived at the beach. Amy and I had forgotten our bathing suits, but we just ran into the water anyway. Now I can say that I've been submerged in the Mediterranean Sea!

The rest of the day involved dragging out soaking asses back to the hotel, some more tapas for dinner and some much needed sleep.

The next morning we explored the town some more, stopping at the Cathedral of Valencia, where the Holy Grail is kept!! It looks like Indy was looking in the wrong place as this church had kept the cup in its possession for 2000 years.

We scaled the walls of one of the old city gates, and got an eyeful of the town from the top.

Then it was off to the train station to catch our ride to Madrid.

-ming

Comida!

Greetings from the Renfe train to Valéncia!

I want to take this opportunity to recap the eats.

My favorite meal thus far is a toss-up between last night's dinner and the snacks we had whilst en route to the tram. While watching the Eurocup game against Italy, we ordered a host of various dishes-some tapas and some not. I ordered jamón Ibérico (ham) and queso Manchego (cheese of La Mancha...insert Don Quixóte joke here). I also got olives and with my ham/cheese "ración" came a side of bread rubbed with tomato...apparently a Catalónian specialty. It sounds mundane but honestly I've not had a better side of bread in my life. There was also tomato spread on my ham bocadillo this morning for breakfast and it was delicious. How simple is that? Just Serrano ham on a tiny baguette rubbed with tomato. Delicioso! :)

The market we happened upon had many of the same items that I ate for dinner last night but by far the tastiest item I have had is the mondo-sized churro stuffed with dulce de leche. I shall post a picture as soon as I get home. Even though the picture can't do justice to the sweet, crunchy, caramel goodness that was that churro, at least it will serve as a reminder that those greasy deep-fried straws we get at county fairs hail from a more cultured gastronomic ancestry.

So far, the best tapas and paella we have eaten hasn't been the best Spain has to offer so I'll wait to write on that for a bit.

I think that's all for now-the full Irish breakfast we had at the Black Bull needs no explanation. It was full, alright, and accompanied by the fluffiest Irish soda bread I've had the pleasure of dipping in poached egg yolk.

Mmmm I'm looking forward to the tasty treats that await in Valéncia!

P.S. I bought a $30 box of Belgian pralines before we got on the plane in JFK ...I forget what brand at the moment but I will post again later when I find the box again... they were worth every penny!
-Amy

Barcelona

I'm composing this post on our train to Valencia because I was too tired to tap my fingers on this tiny screen last night. A whole day out running around Barcelona will do that to anybody I'm sure.

We started the day off with breakfast a local cafe. Looking through the menu, we did not see a section for breakfast. Apparently Spaniards have little regard for the meal that Americans consider to be the most important one of the day. Nevertheless we ordered some eggs with bacon, and a small selection of tapas. There is a photo of the meal below. But as you will see it's just an empty plate- we were pretty hungry.

After breakfast we set out on what became a walking tour of at least a third of the city. At the Art Museum, we had a great view, much like the one from the Art Museum in Philadelphia. Geez Philly, can't you come up with anything original? I guess that's what I'd expect when you name your baseball team the 'Phillies'. Oops, did I go on an anti-Philly sports team rant in my Euro blog? I tend to do that.

We walked to the Estacio Sants train station to validate our rail passes and make reservations for our train trips. And by that I mean stand to one side while Ruben negotiated the transactions with the clerk in Spanish.

Strolling through La Rambla, we came across dozens of kiosks selling everything from flowers to guinea pigs. And guys with mouth whistles. Oh God those mouth whistles. Being good Americans we were hungry again, so we sat down in the outdoor patio of one of the many restaurants lining the pedestrian mall. Here Amy and I had our first taste of Spanish paella. It was a unanimous decision that the seabird one was better than the chicken one.

At some point we went into the Barcelon Metro. What followed was a comedy of errors unseen since Charlie Chaplin films. I wish we could have had Yakkity Sax playing in the background while I scrambled around the turnstiles, apparently constantly inserting my ticket into the wrong slot.

We took a tram up to the castle on Montjuic, which offered a really terrific view of the city and the sea around us. But apparently all they had to offer in the ways of information were posted on 15 orange poster boards.

For dinner we decided to stop at the first bar we saw coming out of the Metro to catch the second half of the Spain-Italy Eurocup game. We were seated directly next to a group of rowdy Spain supporters. I couldn't understand most of what they were yelling at the television but the words 'puta' and 'mierda' were being used quite liberally. The game ended in a 1-1 tie. The Spaniards seemed content with that. For a description of the tapas that accompanied our dinner theater I'll refer to to another post from Amy.

We picked up a couple of bottles of cheap wine from a bodega and hoofed it back to the hotel around 9. Exhausted, we sipped wine out of our hotel room glasses while we watched Team Ireland get massacred by Croatia with commentary from Ruben.

Waking up was difficult, even at 8:45. But here we are, about halfway to Valencia, flying past the green countryside on one side and the sea on the other.

-ming

Ireland

Here we are sitting in the lounge at Dublin International, after spending the better part of today trying to find out way through the labyrinth of roads that is Ireland. We are physically and mentally exhausted at this point and are looking forward to getting on the plane to Barcelona.

My plan to sleep on the flight here was mostly foiled by bright cabin lights, a meal service at midnight Eastern Time, , and a generally miserable excuse for a bed that was my seat. However, I managed to snag about 2 hours worth of shut eye while Amy watched a medley of video programming. When we arrived at Dublin at 9am local time, we were already tired. But the excitement of being in Ireland gave us a real shot of adrenaline, enough to say- rent a car and drive around the country until we were due back for our next flight.

Recall that people here drive on the wrong side of the road. The steering wheels in their cars are also in the corresponding incorrect side. But apparently my Delaware driver's license was all that was necessary to send me and Amy into the wild behind the wheel of a Renault Clio (stick shift of course).

Despite some initial trouble learning the ropes, we managed to motor our way up to the Black Bull Inn in Drogheda for a proper Irish breakfast. Then we hit the coastal town of Laytown and tried to see a castle in Malahide, but apparently it was under construction.

Eventually we made our way back to the airport, and here we sit waiting for our flight, really looking forward to sleeping in an actual bed again.

-ming

Off we go

Here's out plane, decked out in the finest Irish livery. Next stop, Dublin! Hopefully we'll be able to at least see some sights and maybe grab a bite in town during our 9-hour layover.

Fred is already in Barcelona, I'm sure he's already conquered the city by now so we are expecting a royal welcome.

Until then, I will try and finally sleep on a plane.

-ming

This update and jetway brought to you by HSBC.

Prologue

Where are we headed this year? Well if the URL is any indication, it's Spain!

Tomorrow Amy and I will be on a plane to Barcelona (after a day-long layover in Dublin), where we will meet up with Ruben and Fred for a week exploring the great country of España. Our trip will take us from Barcelona to Velencia, then to Madrid and Seville. 

While Spain is a history-rich country filled with relics and monuments of great cultural significance, there's something else that will be at the top of Amy and my agendas: FOOD! As you can see by this blog's background I am already preparing myself for a week-long feast in one of the world's greatest culinary playgrounds. Today would probably be a good day to do some more research, i.e. watch that Spain episode of No Reservations and wish we had as much money as Tony Bourdain and Company to throw around.

As per usual I will try and keep this blog updated throughout the trip, probably at the end of each day. So check back often, friends!

-ming