The Feliz Navidad Bus

My friend Steve was desperately trying to check out the Christmas lights around Madrid this week. He had heard about a bus you could take around the city to see all the holiday decorations that only cost one euro! After a few false starts with other people, I got to be the lucky person to accompany him tonight. As we froze our butts off on top of an open air bus, we saw the following:

I realize that these pictures look as if they were taken from the point of view of a person coming home after a long night filled with Holiday parties (if you know what I mean, *hic*), but it's really just me and my shaking, cold hands and the bumpy ride.

Or I'm a really poor photographer (don't answer that :-).

Supposedly, Madrid has cut down on it's decorations and lights this year because of the economic crisis in the country but, regardless, the unique perspective of seeing Madrid from up high and the company made it a lot of fun. Thanks for the great idea, Steve!

O, Valencia!

Valencia -- home of oranges (above), horchata, paella and the holy grail -- is Spain's third largest city and is located in the Eastern portion of Spain on the Mediterranean Sea. A bunch of us went down to check it out at the beginning of December.

We were greeted by a portion of the city's old wall and gates called the Quart Towers on our way to our hostel in the Barrio del Carmen neighborhood.


(Three different Valencian street signs on the same street)

Valencia was part of an ancient kingdom called the Crown of Aragon, a which also included the city of Barcelona, parts of Greece and Sicily. In this kingdom, the language Catalan was spoken, and still is. Valencia has its own dialect of Catalan called Valenciano. As a casual visitor the extent to which it is spoken among locals wasn't apparent, but I definitely saw the influence in the street signs throughout the old Barrio del Carmen district.

On a map, streets names are shown in Spanish, but when you look up for the street sign, the name on the map often does not match the street sign. In fact, some of the words on these signs are spelled so different from those on the map, that saying the Valenciano name aloud is probably the best way to draw a similarity between the two languages. This didn't make for easy navigation around the city.

Valencia getting it's X-Mas on

Here is an Horchateria -- a place where they serve the lovely tiger-nut based beverage horchata. Having tried it in Madrid and not being that impressed (it's a frothy, slushy milky almost soy-tasting concoction), I passed on this visit. But it made a great backdrop for highlighting common sights in Spain: people out with their dogs and an old couples out for their paseos.

There is an impressive range of architecture in Valencia:

Old School: Church tower of Santa Catalina near Plaza de la Reina

More Old School: Plaza de la Virgen and Valencia Cathedral. This is where the holy grail is supposedly housed. We didn't get a chance to see it, or the famous Goya paintings inside ("The Farewell to Saint Francis of Borja", and "The Condemned"), because there was a religious service going on. On this particular weekend, Spain was celebrating a national holiday (Constitution Day, December 6) and a religious holiday (Day of the Immaculate Conception,December 8).


The New Style: So, fast forward 700 years (give or take) and you can see that Valencian architecture has changed dramatically! These are two of the many modern buildings that dot a portion of an old riverbed that runs through the city. These buildings are part of an educational complex called The City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de laes Arts i de les Ciencies ). The one on the right is the main building of the aquarium where we visited. It is one of the largest, if not THE largest, aquariums in Europe and houses over 500 species of aquatic life and has an amazing 30-meter long tunnel through some of the larger aquariums.

Last, but not least, we ate some authentic paella Valenciana, which is a rice dish featuring rabbit and chicken and (who knew?) snails. There are many versions of paella and others at our table got a verdant green vegetarian paella and a lobster paella. Info for foodies: all our paellas had that awesome soccarat at the bottom of the pan as all good ones should! Our restaurant was on the beach overlooking the Mediterranean. Well, it was night, honestly, so we really couldn't see the Mediterranean, so a few of us went down to the water to verify, run our hands through the impossibly cold water and then quickly ran back to the restaurant for dessert.

The Truth About Jamon

Vs.

Serrano Ham is good and Iberian Ham even better, but sometimes, an American girl like me needs a little bacon in her life. Lately, I've really been craving bacon. And Madrid restaurants haven't been providing the goods. Sure, many of them have bacon on the menu, but none of them serve up the perfectly rendered and crisp strips of smoky pork belly I require. It is as if no one has ever told the cooks in Spain that bacon is at its best when it's caramelized and crisp (level of crispness based on diner preference, of course), because what passes for bacon here is slightly warmed, completely uncaramelized and flabby. NO BUENO!

Yesterday, I decided to take matters into my own hands and went to the grocery store to buy some bacon and make it my own damn self. I was in the midst of comparing the tried-and-true Oscar Mayer versus the store brand, Carrefour (some of you may think that this decision is a no-brainer, but I've grown to really like the Carrefour Express grocery stores and was willing to give their bacon a try), but before I could choose, some Madre wandering around the store looking for someone on which to dump her unsolicited advice, decided I needed some help:

Madre: That's not jamon {ham}, you know.

Me: Yes, I know.

Madre: It has a lot of fat. It's not good for you.

Me: Yes, I know.

Madre: You'll pay the price. (Whether she meant the actual price at the register or the price of my health is a bit unclear, but irrelevant to my point.)

Me: Ah! Okay. Thank you.

Now, at this point I just wanted to high-tail it out of the store because the bacon I've been imagining myself eating for weeks was now within grasp. So I left Madre and Carrefour and did just that. Only after I had supped on bacony-laced food items over the remainder of the day did I get to thinking about the incident at the store again. Sure, it bothered me a little that this perfect stranger would approach me and share what was on her mind, but what bothered me even more was the misguided thought behind it:

She thinks jamon is healthy!

I channeled my anger, not at the Madre for being such a busy-body, but to find out if, in fact, ham is healthier than bacon.

I will let the data speak for itself:

1 oz. serving of Serrano Ham / 1.2 oz. serving of Bacon (1-2 slices)

Calories: 80 / 50

Total Fat: 6 g / 4 g

Saturated Fat: 2.5 g / 2 g

Cholesterol: 17 mg / 15 mg

Sodium: 625 mg / 270 mg

Protein: 8 g / 4 g

(Sources: http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-wegmans-serrano-ham-i93062 and http://brands.kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/main.aspx?s=product&m=product/product_display&Site=1&Product=4470002049> )

So who's paying the price, Grandma!? Excuse me, but I think this girl has some more bacon to fry up.

==================================

P.S. -- Bacon Tasting Analysis: The Carrefour brand of bacon was good flavor-wise and crispness-wise, but a little too thin for me. Next time, I'll go for the Oscar Mayer.

P.S. -- Sorry I haven't posted in a while, people! School projects have dominated lately and I've been swamped with work in preparation for the Christmas Holiday (December 20-January 7, 'round these parts). I hope to make up for my lack of posts in the next few weeks, where I'll tell you all about Valencia, Brussels/Bruges/Amsterdam, Barcelona and a few more hot spots in and around Madrid. Stay tuned!

I miss you, CVS

With the exception of the over-priced department store monopoly of El Corte Inglés, there is no such thing as one-stop-shopping in Madrid. Here is a sample list of items that are all typically sold in my local CVS in the states, with the current, Madrid purchasing location in parentheses:

Pain Reliever/cough syrup/cold medicine (Farmacia)

Vitamins (Herbolaria)

Stockings/tights/pantyhose/knee-highs (special socks/stockings store or Chino)

Shampoo/conditioner/shower gel (supermarket)

Perfume (perfumaria)

Cosmetics (perfumaria)

Soda/bottled water/snacks (Chino or Alimentacion/Frutos Secos store)

Pet food (if I had a pet here, at a veterinarian or tienda de mascotas)

Sewing kit (Chino)

Headphones (I don't know where I would buy these, actually)

Laundry detergent/bags/starch, etc. (supermarket or a Chino)

Hair Dryer/Flat Iron/Curling Iron (Electronics Superstore in malls on the outskirts of the city)

Mints/Gum/Candy (Chino/Alimentacion/Frutos Secos store)

Thoughtful additions by D. Cliffe:

Newspapers (libreria/newsstand)

Stationery and envelopes (papeleria)

Here's a definition key for some of the stores on the list:

Chino -- Decidedly not a politically correct term, but is used all the time by Spaniards and non-Spaniards alike to describe these inexpensive dollar stores all over the city. They are usually run by Asian people, thus the name. You can get virtually ANYTHING you want in a Chino, though some are better than others, and it can be extremely difficult to find anything in these stores because they are packed floor-to-ceiling with various wares and each one is different than the next. There is zero predictablity about what you may find in a Chino, but they are so cheap it's worth taking a look.

Alimentacion/Frutos Secos store -- Similar to a small, independent convenience store in the states. They sell soda and snacks mainly, and perhaps some basic house staple items.

Farmacia - Pharmacy

Herbolaria - Vitamin and health food store

Perfumaria - place to buy perfume and, perhaps, cosmetics

Tienda de mascotas - pet store

As with many stores in Madrid, some of these various tiendas close in the middle of the day when you need them most, with the exception, perhaps for the Alimentacion/Frutos Secos stores. The subject of hours at these stores, and those of the school where I work come to think of it, is a completely different topic that warrants it's own posting.

I Love Paris in the...

I had the good fortune to have a long weekend and travel to Paris to visit a friend studying abroad for the semester at the city university. A quick shout out to Megan: You're a great guide...Thanks for showing me around and being my translator! I'll return the favor any time!

Truly, Paris is a gorgeous city -- even the apartment buildings are works of art! Though it was raining virtually all weekend, I still managed to see a lot of new and different things.

Time is a-ticking, so here is a tour of my recent trip to Paris:

View from the Georges Pompidou Centre. It was so cloudy that the Eiffel Tower (center stage in the picture) was obscured by clouds. I would have a hard time choosing between this modern art museum and the Reina Sofia Museum here in Madrid, but I digress...

Title: Sister, 2005 - Artist: Subodh Gupta

One of my favorites from the Pompidou: it was a large table with a movie projected onto it of an Indian food market. Under the table were stacks and stacks of metal plates, bowls and cups. A statement about world hunger? about Indian society? I don't know, but I liked it!

And above, was another favorite: Jean-Michel Basquiat's Slave Auction (1982).

View from Place de la Concorde with an unobscured Eiffel Tower in the background. From here, we strolled up the Champs Elysee to the Arc du Triomphe, but not before we stopped for refreshments at the world-famous tea house, Ladurée.

I felt so refined eating my mango macaroon and Marie Antoinette tea, which is a "Délicieux thés noirs de Chine mêlés d’huiles essentielles au subtil arôme d’agrumes et de fleurs de rose et de jasmin, parsemés de morceaux de fruits séchés et agrémentés de miel"

Also known as:

"Delicious China teas mixed with essential oils of subtle citrus fruit, rose and jasmine flowers flavour, scattered with small pieces of dried fruits and honey".

Intrigued by talk of a nightclub underneath one of the major bridges on the Pont Alexandre III, we ended up at the techno/house music club, Showcase, much later that night. You could look outside the windows of the club onto the River Seine. One techno band, one DJ and one glass of absinthe later, we left. But what a location...and, WOW, do Europeans love techno!

The next day, I went to on a good, old-fashioned trip to ponder my mortality at the Catacombs of Paris, a former quarry site, WW II French resistance hiding place, and current resting place for hundreds of years worth of Parisian bones.

(Picture taken on my last trip in July, 2006)

Then, for the "pièce de résistance" we took a trip over to the Marais, the Jewish quarter of Paris, to one of my favorite places in all the world (so far ;-): L'As du Falafel for, what else, a falafel special sandwich. See that guy in the middle of the photo? He's the one who takes your order and money and gives you a ticket at which you will stare at the whole time in the impossibly long line, wishing for it to magically turn into the falafel sandwich that awaits you: a fresh, thick, soft pita stuffed to the gills with crisp, hot falafel balls, cabbage salad, cucumber, fried eggplant, hummus and hot sauce. Only when you get to the official order window is there relief from your longing. Instead, you are momentarily entranced by the expert staff staff furiously whipping together your sandwich. Ahhh...it is so worth the wait! And 5-Euros is a small price to pay.

My last stop of the trip before heading to the airport was to visit the cathedral Saint Chappelle. It was closed on my last trip, so I made it a point to visit this time. A happy coincidence is that it is right around the corner from the cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, so it is a eye-popping two-fer if you are in the area.

Saint Chappelle was once part of a large royal palace of Louis IX, but is now one of the only buildings left of the original palace. I learned about it way back when in an art history class and it has been on my must-see list ever since. It is said that there is more stained glass than than stone in this small, intense bite of High-Gothic architectural candy.

Here are some odds and ends from the trip:

Not-so-subtle street renaming in the 14th...

and, there were tons of posters for this movie, which I don't remember being released in The States. Movies with stars like Leonardo Di Caprio and Russel Crowe are usually a big deal. Vertict: it must have REALLY sucked. I'm starting to see the ads in Madrid, too. The title in English seems to be something like State Secrets or State Lies. Has anyone seen this cinematic jewel? Didn't think so.