Bilbao

During the week of April 22-26, I was at a conference in Bilbao.  The conference, titled Graphene 2013, was about graphene.  There were a bunch of interesting scientific talks, including a couple talks that were a little more pessimistic and seemed to piss some people off.  That was funny.  But anyway, I'm not here to talk about science, I'm here to talk about food!

But first, some pictures of the local scenery.  My hotel was on this street:

Here's a shot of Bilbao from up high:

Finally, here's a picture of the crazy-looking building where the conference was held:

Bilbao is in the middle of Basque country, where a ridiculous amount regional pride exists (even more than Catalonia, if that is possible).  Lately, they seem to have made a big push towards modernity in science and technology, the result being a lot of newfangled constructions like the one above.  However, they also remain strongly traditional in a lot of ways, especially concerning their language and their food.  Yes, the food.  Let's talk about that.  For me, the high point of the Bilbao culinary experience was the pinchos.  Pinchos are the ultimate Spanish bar food -- they are all laid out on the bar and you just point out which ones you want.  They are called pinchos because they are made from bread and meat and are held together with a wooden stick called a pincho.  Basically, they're just creamy, greasy, fatty goodness on a stick.

It is also customary to have an apple cider, which is poured from a large height.  Five pinchos + one cider + one coffee = 11 Euros.  Not bad!

I also tried a pig's foot at the conference dinner.  That one wasn't so great.

Tarragona

Warning: the purpose of this post is to make all of you extremely jealous!

On April 21 I took the train from Barcelona to Tarragona to spend a day visiting my office mate and his wife.  Tarragona is an old Roman outpost on the Mediterranean, and a lot of of the Roman architecture still exists among the newer buildings.  Here's an achingly beautiful picture that shows part of the coliseum where they fed the Christians to the lions:

After walking around a bit, we stopped to hang out on the beach, conversar en español, and drink various bebidas -- the ultimate in Spanish life.  I tried a cerveza con limón, which is beer mixed with Fanta Limón.  It sounds blasphemous, but it's actually fairly refreshing on a hot, sunny day.  ¡Refrescante!  I can also say that I have now set foot in the Mediterranean.  It was fairly chilly, but light years better than San Francisco.

In addition to being a former Roman outpost, Tarragona is also well-known for the quality of their rice.  Being right on the sea, their seafood is also excellent.  Therefore our seafood+rice lunch at a restaurant called Cassoleta d'Arros was fantastic.  Check out the feast:

¡Delicioso!  Amazingly, the menu was translated into English, French, German, and maybe one other language.  I wasn't sure how the restaurant owner managed to learn all those languages, but then I saw something that made me realize he just used Google Translate:

If you haven't figured it out already, Google Translate sucks.  For dessert we were given a complimentary bottle of a rice-based creamy liquor.  It was so delicious that I bought my own bottle for 10 Euros:

Now I need some of you folks to visit so I don't have to drink this alone!

Ok, that's enough for now.  I'll close this post with one more amazing picture just to make you all feel bad:

UPDATE: Too late, I drank all the rice liquor by myself.

Jamón of the week

The Spaniards really love their ham, and with good reason - it's delicious.  One of my favorites is the thinly sliced jamón ibérico.  I'm impressed at how much flavor can be packed into such a thin package.  The chorizo is also pretty good, but the extra spices tend to mask the ham flavor a bit too much.  Here's a photo of a jamón snack pack I bought at the grocery store.

 
This was cheap, only 2 Euros, so it wasn't the best I've had here.  Anyway, I'll keep you updated as I continue to explore the Spanish hamscape.  Ham on!

Locura

Hold on to your hats, folks, because your minds are about to be blown.

One thing that's different here is that juice and milk both come in boxes:

While that may seem utterly crazy, we're just getting started.  The first time I opened one of the milk containers, I noticed that the inner protective seal had already been broken:

At first, I found this to be a little disconcerting.  Was there a Spanish bandito running around poisoning milk cartons?  However, before succumbing to panic I took a closer look at the lid of the milk carton:

Do you see those three fins on the inside of the cap?  When the milk carton is opened for the first time, those fins cut through the inner freshness seal, thus saving you the effort of having to do it separately. ¡Qué locura!

La Plaça Catalunya

Hola, amigos. ¿Cómo van los tacos?  Today we will take a magical journey to La Plaça Catalunya, the center of Barcelona.

A visit to this place reveals one major difference I see between Spain and the United States. Generally speaking, when people are out and about in the U.S. it seems that they always have a purpose.  Either they're going somewhere, or reading something, or playing jai alai, or whatever.  However, in Spain it is easy to find people just sitting around doing nothing.*  The volume of people who seem to enjoy being out just for the sake of being out is rather high.  In the picture above, you can see quite a few people who are doing nothing more than just sitting outside enjoying the weather.**

One thing that is not different from the U.S., however, is the strange fascination people have with pigeons.  They're dirty, disgusting animals but the plaza dwellers here seem to love them.

South of the plaza is the famed Rambla, which is full of shops and pickpockets and runs all the way to the sea.  It can get pretty crowded at times, but it is also very beautiful.

My primary reason for heading to La Plaça Catalunya was to go shopping at El Corte Inglés, which is a ridiculously huge department store.

While down there, I was able to buy myself a pair of hip Euro shoes.  Let the Eurification begin!

* This is where you can make a joke about Spain's unemployment rate.
** They could also be scoping out pickpocketing targets.

Apartment cleaning

I mentioned before that life can be a little boring here at Vila 2, so the plan is to move to Barcelona once my current lease is up at the end of August.  However, it will be a little difficult to leave my current apartment for one reason: complimentary cleaning service.  In addition to cleaning my apartment, they also straighten up and do my dishes.

Before:

After:

I'm definitely getting used to this.