Life: Idiotropic

I now, sitting here completely grogified, in serious need of a 2 hour nap, now have a much clearer understanding of the Spanish schedule. Amazing what a little lunch can do. But then, that would be the wrong adjective. Phew. I'm sleepy. May be I'll nap a bit and return to this later when my snail laced paella has settled a bit.

Later... like an entire day later. Whoa. That lunch did me in. This is clearly why a person could not even consider eating anything before 9pm, which, wait, huh, is exactly what the Spanish do!

So my landlord - wonderful woman that she is, invites me to spend the day with her in Valencia, plays tour guide, and takes me to lunch. It all started with me getting lost, stuck, not being able to locate her apartment, holding my breath repeatedly while squeezing through narrow streets with double parked delivery vans, and arriving a whole 45 minutes late.

Thankfully, she told me where to park and after that is was public trans for us. Woo hoo.

Went to a beautiful Bancaja building - formerly the bank and now a museum of sorts where the bank sponsors amazing exhibits for free! Today we stood in line for 30 minutes, were handed a free poster, and saw a phenomenal exhibit by Sorolla which inspired me to see every nook and cranny of this country by highlighting special festivals and cultural elements of each region. Some of these paintings covered entire walls - groups of life sized people all with distinct faces and costumes. His mastery of light and reflection is amazing. http://www.joaquin-sorolla-y-bastida.org/ The time was especially nice with Begonia who told me little bits about each painting - cultural things she knew. Like the fishermen who used cattle to bring their heavy fish laden boats into shore - hence a beautiful painting of fishing boats being towed by cattle knee deep in the sea. And how fish used to be sold directly from the boat on the beach. And about the processions in some villages and how the Celts originally settled what is now the Basque region in the north.

From there a walk to the city center as Begonia pointed out little things... a fancy youth hostel (pictured above), the old University, the ceramics museum, a beautiful old church where her son got married, a street of horribly overprices shops where she bought a tie once for a gift, the sweet little street near the old cathedral where most of the antique shops reside and where on the first of May as the procession comes down that street, residents shower the procession with rose petals.

She told me how I must see a mascleta and how some people judge them on the rhythm though she can't really tell them apart - they are just loud.

And eventually after a lot of walking and talking and learning and me hoping to keep all these details in my head, we landed at a little cafeteria in the old University which is now an exhibit hall, and had a lunch that was extremely heavy and extremely average. She offered a beer. I ordered white wine. A drinker I'm not and I would not normally have wine with dinner let alone lunch, but culture dictates some things and it was a nice lunch, so I had my one glass of white wine and Begonia also had a glass of white wine with her beer. Again, hooray for public trans. :)

We both had a paella Murciana as our first dish - exactly like paella Valenciana except also with red peppers. Served lukewarm and with lots of snails. Thankfully, I've found that the snails don't flavor the paella in any noticeable way, and scooted out of the way easily, and don't come out of their shells unless you want them too. Great for me. Neither of us ate our snails which was a relief because I didn't want to be rude to my hostess. Our next dish was a large chunk of some sort of flavorless white fish with it's skin on buried in a good 2 cups + of chunky cooked tomatoes and red bell peppers. The tomato flavor was so intense that you could taste nothing else. We both picked at it, agreeing that next time, we'd do Tapas! (Her husband recommended the restaurant - she said she'd pick her own favorites from now on.)

Agreeing that we should do this once a month or so, we headed back and I got my car and headed home with a lot more ease that getting there.