Today was a day of shopping for me, as well as cooking and hanging out with the rest of the group. After class at Mester, I walked down the street dedicated to clothing stores and got right to business. The clothes in Spain are so much better than in the U.S. Even the kids are stylin’ in their leather coats and boots, and I decided I needed to get on their level. In case you’re wondering, I bought a hottt pair of shoes and two shirts, one of which I put on immediately before our group activity.
The afternoon of activities started off with a cooking class. Jesús, one of the instructors at Mester, taught us how to make tortillas Españolas. Unlike the tortillas we’re all used to from the U.S., these are more like an omelet, yet they go by the same name. This was the activity I was looking forward to and it did not disappoint! The tortillas were super easy to make - they consist of eggs, potatoes, onion, and like a half bottle of olive oil. The end product is an extremely tasty, if a bit greasy, omelet. It took about 10 minutes to prepare the tortilla and 15 minutes to actually cook it. The cooking time gave us a chance to practice rolling our r’s like proper Spaniards which has been the project of the day. Some of us have no difficulties and others (like me) sound like we're hacking when we try. The phrase we use to practice is: “El perro de Ramón Rodríguez no tiene rabo porque Jorge Ramírez lo ha robado.” Hopefully all of us will be able to roll our r’s it by the time we get back to the states!
After cooking, all of us headed to the Museo Art Nouveau y Art Deco with Carlos, our guide. The first thing we did was merendar, or have an afternoon snack, of churros and chocolate! The chocolate was pretty tasty obv. It tasted like hot chocolate with a consistency a little less thick than pudding. The churros were a little too crunchy for me, but chocolate makes everything good so I ate one anyway. After we finished snacking in the café, we went through the museum to look at the old books, statues and paintings in the building. We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but I think some of us did anyway. The most memorable part was the doll collection, the most significant in Spain. The one that stood out most was a doll that looked like a dead monkey playing a violin. That section was more than a little creepy but we all made it through!
At 8:00pm, we went out to Hispania 20, the restaurant we went to on our Tapas Tour, and started our cured meats tasting. I wasn't too excited for this event because I am not a huge fan of pork. I tried all the chorizo, or dried pork, as well ham, but I mostly stuck to bread. According to everybody else, it was all pretty tasty though.
