Relaxing with Tapas and Siestas in Spain

Greetings! I have returned from my month of travel and am here to tell you all about it. Granted there a lot of things to talk about so I think I’m going to opt to break it down into a bunch of shorter blogs rather than some massive ones.

First stop on my adventure was to Madrid, Spain where I was to meet up with one of my best friends from home, Laurel, who had graciously traveled all the way from California to visit me while I was abroad. We decided on Madrid because a relative of mine (and his family) lived there which meant we would have a place to stay and would be able to properly celebrate Christmas. My relative is actually my Dad’s cousin, so I guess that means he is my second cousin, but I’ve just taken to refereeing to him as my sort-of-Uncle Jamie. He was generous enough to allow me, whom he had never actually met before, and my friend come stay with him and his wife for around 10 days which included Christmas to which we are both so very grateful.

Madrid was so much fun and it was great to be staying with people that could give us suggestions as to where to go and the best sort of transportation options. Unfortunately, we realized rather quickly that neither Laurel nor I could speak any sort of Spanish which strongly limited our ability to acquire food while on our own in the city and to ask directions. Luckily, people were patient with us and we used a guidebook for some helpful translations. However, to tackle the tricky concept of Spanish tapas we could need my uncle’s assistance later.

While in Spain we saw almost everything we wanted to and still managed to relax and take quite a few siestas. It was nice to be in a place for longer than 3 days and have the opportunity to see things at your own pace. We visited the Royal Palace and its gardens (which house peacocks by the way), the Plaza Mayor, Retiro Park with the Glass Palace and went for a ride on the high cable gondola called the Teleferico. Oh and of course we saw about 8 million Catholic churches and random historical plazas. It was a nice mix of old historical areas and new modern areas. Also the city was way more alive than a lot of other cities I have visited and things stayed open all hours it seemed.

Typical sightseeing wasn’t our only introduction to Spain. We also got to experience copious amounts of Spanish food and a typical Spanish Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. First of all, it seems Spanish people like to eat there meals late; sometimes dinner didn’t start until after 9pm! But it was always worth the wait as the meals were delicious. While they often only consisted of a bunch of small dishes: chorizo, some sort of proschuito-like ham, cheese, bread, salad, pâté, and maybe some other random things, it was always filling and so very good. And of course there was always wine at every meal, which makes things even better.

In addition to seeing all of Madrid and getting a chance to thoroughly explore the city, my uncle also took us to Toledo on Christmas Eve morning to wander the city some. It was interesting to see how it contrasted with Madrid as a clearly smaller town with clearly defined city walls and lots of twisting paths. We saw the giant and extravagant Santa Iglesia Catedral Primade as well as the famous El Greco painting “El entierro del Senor de Orgaz.”

Along with these historical sites, we also were able to get a taste of local culture. The best why to accomplish this? FOOD! On a suggestion of hot chocolate, my uncle immediately made it a quest to locate a café selling “chocolate con churros.” I’m pretty sure that the Spanish know exactly what they are doing when they make hot chocolate because this was possibly the thickest and creamiest I’ve ever had. Then they serve it with churros (a sort of fried-dough pastry) that you use to dip into the chocolate. So very delicious. But this wasn’t the only “cultural emersion” we would have that day as once we were finished climbing up and down the hills of the city we would need something more lunch like to tide us over until Christmas Eve dinner.

Something that is typically Spanish are “tapas” which are small snack-meals that are served at a bar while you have a drink. Laurel and I had hoped to acquire these while on out outings in Madrid but without prior knowledge of how to go about getting them we ended up frightened and asking for help. Toledo appeared to be the perfect place to get a tutorial on tapas, so Jamie took us to a local place he really liked (which was packed so clearly a popular place) and he began the lesson.

Round 1 involved beer and a tapa that came free with your purchase of a drink. This tapa was called migas or breadcrumbs and consisted of some fried bread and shrimp. Next came some wine and a pork, mushroom, potato tapa with some bread on the side. Both of these were meant to be a sort of snack to hold you over until the next meal but were rather filling and as always, very good. We were very grateful to Jamie for our first introduction to tapas as it seemed that eating them is truly the thing to do.

After our Toledo excursion we returned home to get ready for the evening’s festivities that would take place at Jamie's wife’s sister’s house. Which basically meant taking a siesta and getting ready before it was time to leave around 8:30pm. My next blog will regale all about our Spanish Christmas with lots of food-oriented details. ☺