Final Spain post- the spider

In a previous post I wrote about how I stayed in La Caseria, a mini-castle in the Spanish countryside. Well, on my last night there, I found a spider the size of my palm just sitting on the wall. This was because there were no window panes. just open rectangles, allowing many different bugs to come crawling in.

Since my host-sister was for some reason sleeping somewhere else for some reason, and all who was left on my side of the mini-castle were the grandparents who were already asleep across the hall and it was late, I didn't know what to do. It was not a bad thing enough that I thought I should go tell someone. I did not want to swat it away with something because I was scared it was going to scuttle off somewhere and I would not find it, which would be even worse. While I do not really have a fear of spiders, this was pushing the envelope. I did a last resort....and slept in the bathroom in the bathtub.

[caption id="attachment_98" align="alignnone" width="300"]Home sweet home[/caption]

There was a window there but it had shutters, so I was safe. While others thought I just should have gone to bed in the bed anyway, I decided that although it was weird, and something people probably don't do, I slept much better in the bathtub with the knowledge that a large hairy spider was not going to crawl on my face.

Spanish Food Post #4: Pizza!

(Sorry I haven't posted in forever, but now I am :) )

As my blog is titled, I associate pizza with traveling. I love both so why shouldn't be together? I tried pizza in Spain, and no this cannot be generalized in any shape or form, this pizza was from a little place in a little town.

We bought four different flavors; cheese, sausage, tuna, and a weird cream sauce one that everyone agreed tasted strange. They were small, and I tried each one, but overall the verdict was: not good. It was very greasy, droopy, flavor combinations did not go together, and no one really wanted to eat it. The one I could say that was okay was tuna, one, you would think the cheese but they added something that did not go with it.                     (As you can see I am not a fan of olives as seen on the top left)

This is the cheese pizza, I forgot to say it came with olives, and the cheese is cooked quite nicely, it has little bubbles on top, but the flavors were all just wrong. Whatever cheese blend and sauce they put together it did not work at all, and the family then decided to never go there again. All in all not the best pizza experience, but hey, their paella makes up for it a hundred times over.

Spain Food Post #3: Frozen Yogurt

Spain, in my opinion, has the best frozen yogurt of all time. The one from the U.S. cannot even compete. The yogurt in Spain, and in Europe in general has a different taste, it is sweeter and smoother, and is hard to describe. But when frozen it is so good. Unlike the U.S., it is usually just one flavor, just plain, with sometimes special flavors of the month, for example, mango.

There are two main chains of frozen yogurt places, one called llaollao and the other called smoöy. Llaollao has mostly frozen yogurt while smoöy has chocolate frozen yogurt along with the normal kind, but also crepes and other things. All in all, they are pretty much the same.

This is what happens when you walk in: You pick a size; small, medium, or large. Here is a picture of the menu: (I will be showing pictures from llaollao because that one was more in the part of Spain I went to, and it was the one I had more, but smoöy is more popular.)

Then, you pick your toppings. There is fruit, a bunch of different sauces, and candy.

http://www.llaollaoweb.com/int/company

http://rockabitebaby.com/tag/llaollao-froyo/

And then you buy your yogurt. This is an example of what it would look like:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g315916-d4070214-i72927708-Llaollao-Jaen_Province_of_Jaen_Andalucia.html

This is a picture of the store:

http://www.centrocomercialgranplaza2.com/index.php/tiendas/llao-llao/

The stores usually have open fronts, no doors, which makes it so much more easier just to go and buy one even when I told myself I wasn't going to spend anymore money that day. I honestly want to go back just for this, but I have seen that they are in other countries as well, so I'm crossing my fingers that one will appear in a country I will visit.

Spanish Food Post #2: Paella

Let's talk food. In this post I will be talking about paella, a classic Spanish dish. It includes rice, some kind of vegetable (in the one I tried peppers), and a meat (beef, pork, fish, shrimp...). I had paella for the first time in Spain, and I loved it. They make it in a giant circular pan, that looks like a frying pan but is huge. At my host family's house they made it over the grill. The rice layer was maybe only 3-4 grains thick, and on top were designs with the pepper and the meat. It was very salty, but in a way that makes it addicting and I really could not stop eating it. In this case, the meat was ribs, and it was all very delicious. One of the top foods you should try in Spain!

Snorkeling in Spain

I do not have any of my own pictures for this, because I did not have an underwater camera. But I will describe and also give some pictures of what I saw from the internet. I do have a picture of the boat I was on though.

I went snorkeling and I was very very excited because here in Wisconsin there is no chance of that happening and actually seeing cool fish or coral in our lakes. I put on my tube and my goggles and hopped in. Now something I must say. The water is incredibly salty, like one of those salted pretzels you can buy covered with salt times two. It starts to (at least felt like) it eroded my tongue. I had been swimming for a little bit, and my eyes were already stinging. I thought though that the goggles and snorkel would protect me from the salt. I was wrong, and snorkeling turned out to be much more difficult than it looked. The goggles I had, kept on leaking and getting water into my eye, and since there were waves taller than the little snorkel and I couldn't get my snorkel to stay above a 45 degree angle, a lot of water came in. So about every thirty seconds I was coughing up salty water that hurt my tongue and made it hard to keep a steady pace of swimming.

While this was happening, we were swimming to some coral. We swam for a good 15 minutes, except once we got there, my host family said you couldn't touch the bottom because of sea urchins and octopuses in the weeds. That sounded cool to see, but I was tired, so I found a little rock and kind of stood on it with a couple of toes. Once I got a break, I was able to here be able to fix and empty my goggles everytime I needed to, so I got to see some really cool and colorful fish. Here are some pictures:

http://exoticsfish.blogspot.com/2013/02/spanish-hogfish.html

http://saltwater.tropicalfishandaquariums.com/Wrasses/SpanishHogfishPhoto.asp

I am sorry the fish pictures are brief, but I can't remember which other ones I think I saw, there was a pretty green one, and also a lot of big blue ones, by big I mean largest was a foot, they ranged from a few inches (10cm) to a foot, (30cm).

As a tip: practice snorkeling before you do it, you'll be able to avoid salty water in your lungs and bloodshot eyes. (If only I had known...)

Spain Food Post #1: Spanish Coffee

key: 

brown: coffee

white: milk

off-white (bonbon and cafe con leche): condensed milk

orange: alcohol

When I was in Spain at my host family's house, I saw a really elegant looking coffee but it was a normal everyday coffee to them.

http://images.budgettravel.com/1111coffeespain1-10262011_horiz-large.jpeg

The first thing I noticed about it, is that it is layered with condensed milk, coffee, and then foam. I soon came to know that it is a normal everyday type of coffee, and this one specifically is called bombon. This one became my favorite, because I can only stand the taste of coffee when with a lot of sugar and milk, and in this case condensed milk. (Condensed milk is much sweeter.) There are many different types with different layers as seen in the above diagram and they all are quite common. In a cafe or a restaurant, they will bring it to you like this, and then you stir it so it all mixes up.

The second thing is that it comes in tiny cups in contrast to the United States where coffee comes in large cups. This is partly due to the fact that they drink espresso, and the "normal" coffee is barely ever seen there. So when you order a coffee in the morning, or anytime, do not expect it to be big at all. 

In the United States, we have a coffee machine called a Keurig. It is where you buy little sealed plastic cups filled with different coffee or tea flavors, put them in a machine, and then the machine makes coffee for you. From what I have seen, Europe has something like this but it is called Dolce Gusto, run by Nescafe. In Spain specifically (maybe somewhere else, I don't know), they have something called Nespresso, also run by Nescafe. To make the Nespresso, you put whatever you want on the bottom; milk, cream, condensed milk, and then put it on the machine which puts on coffee and also foam. One thing I noticed about drinking coffee that looks nice in small cups, is that it makes you feel like you are drinking something more special. Here are some comparisons of Keurig and Nespresso. (The pictures are supposed to be right next to each other, in comparison but it is not working. Sorry)

                         Nespresso Machine
http://kimberlytaylorimages.com/wp-content/
uploads/2013/02/nespresso.png

Keurig machine

http://www.gadgetreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/keurig_platinum.jpg

                                     

Nespresso capsules

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/
uploads/2012/11/Coffee_capsules_-_anieto2k.jpg

K-cups

http://www.ablogtowatch.com/wp-content/
uploads/2012/11/Coffee_capsules_-_anieto2k.jpg

Nespresso capsule box

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71R1cG-VrZL._SL1500_.jpg

K-cups box
http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/1/5/1/1/6/5/5/
webimg/456146081_o.jpg

             And here's a last picture for Nespresso that I feel needs to be shared:

It is just so fancy. When you buy them they even give you a bag that looks fancy and the stores look high-end. 

http://img.timeinc.net/time/asia/magazine/2011/0307/360_nespresso_0307.jpg

All in all, Nespresso is elegant, and really nice compared to the Keurig machines we have, and Spain has coffee that I like; 70% milk, cream, & sugar, and only 30% coffee. If this is also your coffee taste, if you can, choose Spain as your next vacation destination.

Comment about your country's coffee preferences! :)

Exploring Spain: La Caseria

Hello. A few days ago, my host family told me we were going to a vacation home for a week. I was expecting a normal house just on a beach, but oh was I mistaken. We were driving up and then they start pointing and saying "There it is!" and I look and I see this:

This looks like a small castle but it is officially called a fortified house. It was built in the early to mid sixteenth century on top of another structure. They have found Roman artifacts and parts of the foundation dating back to the second century. It has been used throughout history as an extension of an estate, barracks, animal and farm tool storage, and then was abandoned. It was redone throughout a period of 10 years by a couple, a lawyer from England and an artist. It won an award from Europa Nostra in 2009, which selects the best buildings that were restored. Inside the house, they had pictures of what it was like before, and it was literally in ruins. All of the roofs were caved in, the walls were in really bad shape, and everything had fallen apart. If you look at the picture of the church below, there was absolutley no roof, it was really just walls that were half as tall as they were supposed to be.

This is what it looks like inside (some of the rooms and the walled-in part)

I tried to find more pictures of the inside online, but I couldn´t. I´m going to keep on searching though. 

I also found this plant while I was walking around. It was literally in the middle of nowhere in a dried up fountain.

Another picture that has no educational value: I found real grass!