Really, though, it seems like one of my favorite things is to walk down the aisles of the grocery stores once in a foreign country.
Today, I got up early, left the house with Ashberg and went for groceries.
My first stop was the milk vending machine in the Plaza Hernani. Yup, bring a bottle, drop a euro, push a button, and viola: Milk dispensed. All fresh, no middle man.
I shmaied (browse for those yiddish speakers) around looking at the bioloque stores and the shoe stores and finally made my way to the grocery store, super Amara.
There I explored, amazed by the variety of cured meats. I listened to hear how people ordered. I knew what I wanted...with all that pork product every which way, I wanted my Cecina, the only one option of cured meat sin chancho.
The last time I tried to get some thing, I just didn't know how much to order/how to say how much I wanted. You can't really show that with your hands. I definately didn't want a kilo, or medio kilo, do I say, 1/8th of a kilo? Nah, I got it! I want 150 grams. Thats right. So, it worked great, a little bit of eaves dropping and I was good to go.
Next I asked this poor old man if he knew what was in the albacore? Do they have albacore in water here? He looked at me like I was an alien? Okay.....tell me then, what is Escabeche...
A nice woman saw our interaction and chimed in. Some kind of vinegar she told me. We smiled and agreed that there were just way to many options as she handed me the bonito en aciete with the option of less salt. Perfect!
So I headed home, cooked up some veggies I bought at the market the day before and had a nice lunch before my afternoon nap.
At this point I haven't found wifi (en espanol se dice como: weefee) so I haven't been able to upload pics yet.
So far: day one, arrival to bilbao: took a bus into town, rented a bike and explored all day by bike before taking a bus to San Sebastian (Donostia is the basque name).
Day 2: walking around town, make lunch, nap, tweaked ankle, biked, and rested, iced, and elevated ankle so that it didn't get any worse. Note: always turn light on when going down the stairs :P
Day 3: today! shopped, napped, hiked, beautiful, though stormy, views of San Sebastian. What an awesome town!
thanks for reading,
Rel
