Tuesday, October 16, 2012

October 16th – First class and Market day




Today we met with our professor (Norm) and had our first session in Spanish. We went to the cafeteria across the street and spent our hour talking and trying to use our fractured Spanish to explain to Norm what we did yesterday and where we went. We also began asking questions about Spanish culture and got explanations regarding such things as the busses and whether we could change lines without having to spend another ticket (No). After our lesson we went back to the apartment then over to our market to buy provisions for the next few days. If course our timing is sort of schlocky and we got to the market about 20 minutes before it closes for several hours in the afternoon (siesta) so we only got part of our shopping done. We are now going back to the same vendors repeatedly so that we establish ourselves as more than just casual tourists. We have a very nice relationship with Ana, our cheese vendor; she now feels fairly comfortable in talking Ingles to our Espagnol so that we all get some benefit. She gets our appreciation, and money, for her cheeses and we get a good tutorial on the various cheeses that Spain has to offer. We’re also establishing relationships with a lovely lady selling fruits and mushrooms and another with a young man selling vegetables. Both of them are extremely pleasant and very patient in helping us to get things ordered correctly. Our fruit lady has fresh boletus mushrooms which are wild from the forests and when I tried to order a half kilo was kind enough to say that not nearly that many would be needed as they are very flavorful. Yesterday when I tried to buy a particular type of fish the vendor said that he couldn’t sell it by weight but I couldn’t understand so, no fish.

Talking with Norm today I think that perhaps I must order it by the slice, rodaja and that makes some sense due to the gestures that the vendor was making yesterday.
With the market closing we decided to go over to A Conchina, our bar, for lunch. We now know the names of two of our hosts; Ali, and Fermin so we were served today by Fermin and we had two courses and a dessert as well as wine for about 10 euro each. Deb had a pasta and shrimp (gambas) in garlic, and olive oil while I had the heavenly Fabada (bean soup with smoked bacon and chorizo) for appetizers. Following was a main course of baked chicken for Deb and Swordfish for me. My swordfish came in 2 steaks sliced no more than a quarter inch thick and covered with garlic, parsley, and lemon juice. Yummy! Then dessert was a flan for Deb and for me natillas; a pudding like egg concoction that I really have come to like. A bit of a siesta for us back at the apartment and then back to finish our market day.

1 comment:

  1. I think it's cool that you're broadening your Spanish vocabulary and local connections to people through food! It sounds like things are rolling right along and you're having a jolly good time. The posts are sure entertaining. Oh, in case you've lost track of the baseball playoffs (dear to my heart), the Giants have come back from a 3 games to 1 deficit to tie the NLCS with the Cardinals. The deciding Game 7 is tomorrow!

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