Tapas. Remember when I said I get lost a lot? There was this one time I was in Andalusia. As per
my usual habit, I didn't book accommodations ahead of time, so as soon as I arrived via train, I went
to the nearest internet cafe. There I was able to book a hostel and sketch out a walking route using
notebook paper. I walked for about about a mile, carefully following my crudely drawn map, but no
hostel. I backtracked to the internet cafe and confirmed the directions - then went out again,
thinking that perhaps I didn't go out far enough. I walked about a mile and quarter this time and
still no hostel. I ducked into a proper hotel and requested that the desk clerk "Ayuda me, por favor."
She didn't know where the hostel was, but she handed me a map of the area. Great, right? I
followed the directions and still was very, very lost - going on a hour now. What didn't help was the
fact that there wasn't a long avenida like Broadway which went through this part of town. Instead
each street name changed at the end of each block. I was a micron away from my wit's end when I
had an epiphany -- the map that I was following was upside down. I flipped it over and within ten
minutes, I was at my hostel. Of course, by the time I got to the hostel, I was hungry, having used up
my glycogen reserves not just for the walk, but also for the brain power. Luckily, around the corner
from my hostel, there was a little tapas joint called Levy's. And did you know that it is an
Andalusian gustatory custom to serve free tapas with every order of alcoholic beverage? I think the
tradition arose because beer and wine were drunk more frequently by the common people in Europe
because water would often be dirty and liquor was fermented - so in Spain in order to prevent the
workers to become drunk too quickly, the taverns started serving food to soak up the alcoholic
beverages. There at Levy's I had beer + patatas bravas (fried potatoes and aioli), beer + calamari
(fried squid), beer + tortilla (which in Spain is omelet with potatoes) - I could go on, but I believe
my perception got a little fuzzy after the fourth beer. Anyway it was a wonderful meal, given its
prelude.
S
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Photo by Alpha, via Wikimedia Commons
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THE CONE - ISSUE #7 - FALL 2015