June activites part 2 - Sun & Fun

As I promised, here we go with the non-work part of June! :)

I started the month with the Barcelona trip, which was practically the last trip of my volunteering time. The rest of the weekends I spent relatively calmly (meaning I didn't travel further than Madrid), but not any less exciting.

The second Saturday I went to Matadero Madrid to see some short movies. Normally I'm not a big fan, but a friend of mine convinced me, so I gave in... they were much better than I expected. We saw like 5-6 movies, and except for one very weird one, I liked the rest. They were all made by Spanish directors, however the topics were very diverse, from food to strange love stories and gay rights in Russia.

The following Thursday I went out to have lunch with Vanessa and Ana (with whom I had the quilling sessions in May) here in Illescas. We went to an Asian all-you-can-eat kind of restaurant to celebrate Ana's graduation, it was very nice. The place was very good, but they had a strange ordering system. I imagined that they'll have all the food there and we can just go and pick whatever we want, but no. They gave us a menu and an extra sheet where we could tick the dishes we wanted and indicate the quantities. The only rule was that we could "only" order 15 dishes per person... :) We ordered 15 altogether for 4 of us (plus desserts ;)) and it was more than enough, so I wonder how can one person eat 15 dishes... :)

Then on the 19th, Marta (one of our English students) invited us for a dance show, where both her and her daughter were performing. It was the annual show of the dance school, so we had all age groups and all kinds of dances. I really enjoyed it, especially the second part, because that had mostly Spanish dances (sevillanas, flamenco) and for the flamenco they even had a live guitarist and a singer. It was amazingly nice, and since I haven't been to any Spanish dance show before I was totally impressed. Both Marta and her daughter danced really really well, so I'm very happy I got invited. :)

Also June was a farewell month not only for my volunteering project, but for two friends of mine who decided to take up a new adventure in Canada. :) We had their farewell picnic in Retiro last Monday with a bunch of cool people, it was a lot of fun, I actually almost missed my last bus, since I didn't really feel like leaving... :)

The mandatory group picture of the picnic participants :)

Then this weekend I went to a walking tour called "Urban Safari": it is about street art in Madrid. I found this initiative randomly a couple of months ago and got very curious, but till now they haven't had any suitable dates... so when I saw that they finally have a tour on a Saturday, I signed up. Normally they have these in Malasaña (which is the most artsy district of Madrid), but now they had this one in Lavapiés. I was a bit disappointed, because I would have wanted to get to know Malasaña better, but since I had absolutely no clue about street art in general, it was very interesting, regardless of the district. :)

Our guide explaining about the signatures of each street artist: some have small figures, some have special ways of signing their names and some have their specific colors.

An abandoned shop decorated by street artists

Random masterpieces :)

Some "ordered" street art: the fence of a cultural center is decorated by different street artists.

Flavors of Spain

I guess I'm not telling anything new if I say that Spanish love to eat. And this is also visible in their cuisine, every food I tried here in the last 8 months was delicious. What I like a lot about the food here is that most of them are quite simple and the idea of inventing them came from the fact that they had leftovers at home, so practically some delicious dishes were invented for practical reasons. :) 

What I also like is that each region has their own specific dishes, so there is much more in Spain than paella (which btw comes from Valencia where I haven't been yet, so I can't tell how the "original" version tastes). Unfortunately I didn't have the chance to try all these dishes as I usually travel on a low budget, but here are a few things I have tried:

In the Northern Part in Galicia and in Castilla y León I had the impression that they eat more meat and potatoes (at least in Santiago that's what we mostly got to eat). In Galicia I tried also a special kind of pepper which is small and green and is quite tricky: some of them have a nice sweet taste and some is hot as hell, so you never really know what you're going to get (needless to say the first one I took was a hot one :P). 

I also tried some ribs there and some stew when I was in Valladolid which were all very delicious, even thought I'm not a big fan of red meat. One of the typical dishes in Castilla y León is the "lechazo" which is the meat of the lamb left in milk for a while and then prepared. I haven't tried it as it is quite out of budget for a volunteer and I also don't really eat lamb, but I still hope that just for my curiosity I get to try it another time I go there. :)

In the South I found that they eat a lot of fried fish and seafood (which are very delicious) and also dishes like gazpacho and salmorejo come from that region. 

Chipirones: super delicious fried squids. :)

From gazpacho there are even more variations, the base is always tomato and pepper, but in the traditional version they add cucumber as well, while in the Andalusian version they add bread instead. 

Salmorejo is something very similar, it's a thick tomato soup with bread and garlic, usually served with some boiled eggs and serrano jam, however I tried it also with potato tortilla. It originally comes from Córdoba, so when we were there I was eating this almost all the time and it quickly became one of my favorite dishes here. :)

The recipe of the original salmorejo on the wall in a small street named after it.

In Córdoba they also make a lot of dishes from fried eggplants, my favorite was with honey. First it sounded weird, but when I tried it I realized that it's a great combination (and you don't need desserts afterwards). :)

Of course here around Illescas and Madrid there are also a lot of great food. :) Thanks to the intercultural chat participants I tried a lot of dishes and thanks to my friend Sandra, I also got to try some home made goodies.

Cocido madrileno made by Sandra's mom: a very rich soup made of chickpeas, vegetables and meat. Once you eat it all, you don't need any second course. :)

Home-made potato tortilla with some hummus and salad

Torrijas: my favorite sweet :)) It's bread dipped in milk with sugar and cinnamon, and then fried in eggs. Super delicious and typical at Easter.

Migas: it's eaten mostly at Christmas, prepared from leftovers: bread, peppers, garlic (this is without meat but some people make it with that as well). The bread is toasted and fried together with the rest of the ingredients.

Natillas: pudding made of eggs with some biscuits

Puches: a pudding-like sweet made with toasted bread pieces inside and spices like cinnamon and anise.

Tapas of various types of ham, some tuna and bread with morcilla (blood sausage).