Friday - March 25, 2011 -Spain
Day 8
What it is yo(s)? How's my favorite creepers? Doing good? Ready to creep it up? Alright, let's blow this joint.
Sorry that was a little inappropriate. It's what happens when I listen to rap. I get in touch with my crazy side. Or at least another side to my crazy side, because as I have heard several times over this trip, I'm apparently one crazy ass person. What do you think?
Be careful how you answer that. This blog let's me have a direct line into all ya'lls thoughts.
Not really. I haven't quite mastered big brother yet. I'm getting there though.
Let's get to my trip shall we?
Thursday was a very peculiar day. I have officially dubbed it the Day of Fatty Acids. Doesn't sound too appetizing does it? Our first stop of the day was an olive oil producer. This couple grew up in holland and after the fall of some important person in spain, they figured that it was the prime time to buy a house and start their business. So they did. Lucky bastards. The land and accompanying house that they purchased was phenomenal. They had a 16th century house that was huge, a tennis court, a huge garden with solar panels, a pool with an accompanying fire pit and lounging area, and of course acres and acres of olive trees. The lady showed us around her property with the enthusiasm of Meryl Streep portraying Julia Childs. It kept us all entertained. We also got to sample four of their different oils. The owners kept talking about how we were going to taste all these different fruits and spices in the oil. Do you think I tasted all that?Hell no. All I tasted was grass and a burning sensation as it went down my throat. Don't get me wrong, it didn't taste bad, but I was a little disappointed. Still didn't stop me from buying some. I don't know about all you, but I don't get the opportunity to visit Spain very often so, "why not?"
Our second stop of the day was a rice producer. Absolutely boring. No lie.the guy was very nice and the facility was kind of cool, but good grief, I could not get into it. I mean how hard is it to make rice and how could you have an hour conversation about it. Actually, I'm sure it is a very sophisticated science to grow rice and I'm sure there are plenty of interesting things to have a convo about, but at the moment, I wasn't seeing it. The best part of the tour was the fact that they had baby goats. Absolutely adorable. If I could have snatched one and made it through customs in the U.S., I totally would have.
But the end of the plant tour wasn't the end our rice tour for the day. Blah. We proceeded to go to a restaurant where we would eat lunch made of rice and seafood. It's called paella. I was a little excited at first, but that excitement went away pretty quick. When the owner brought it out, it was soupy mixture of all things that looked nasty. I usually like seafood, as long as it doesn't have an extreme fishy taste. I mean, I don't think that is too much to ask for. Well, this shit was really fishy and therefore really nasty. I did not enjoy it one bit. Kind of ruined my day.
Friday. Well Friday was a hard day for me. Really hard. For some reason I had convinced myself and all others in the trip that I was going to find one good thing that I liked about everybody and then tell them all to their face. Extreme, right? Yeah. Like I said, rough day. I feel like you all know me well enough to know that I don't give compliments very much. Let alone sixteen different compliments in one day. But, I did. I finished at ten at night, but I freaking did it. Yay me.
Activities for the day included our second cooking class. We made some sort of chicken and shrimp meal that I quite enjoyed.
We also visited a winery. Our tour guide told us to not expect magnificent wine from this place because she was just taking it over from her dad and had not perfected the taste. I thought it was all magnificent. I guess I don't have am extreme palate that analyzes everything.
Thank God.
I love food too much to want to do that.
After the winery, we visited a beautiful viewpoint of Costa Brava. If ever you get a chance to go on a mediterranean cruise, and I know you all are rich enough to do it, you better go. It looks like it would be spectacular. The water was so blue-green and clear, and the surrounding cliffs were awesome. I can't wait for our cruise.
We then visited a city that my friend Ashley and I dubbed "Ceramic City". I honestly cannot remember what the hell the real name was so we will just stick with that. And, surprisingly, I bought many gifts for people here. Who would have thought? Definitely not me.
Dinner definitely made my night. Or at least part of it. Kind of ruined my later night. Quick background story. At this point in our trip, just hearing the word tapas makes us all want to vomit. Its actually a great way to lose weight. Every couple of hours, one could just shout out "Tapas!" and we wouldn't want to eat for awhile. Come on, where the hell is all the greasy cheeseburgers, taco bells and fake Mexican food restaurants at? How do these people live without having fast food?
I guess that's why they are all skinny bitches.
Anyways, the menu for dinner really freaked us out. For one, we couldn't read most of it, and for the part we could read, it sounded like it was going to be disgusting. We were absolutely wrong. Appetizers consisted of calamari, fish that tasted like it was from Long John Silvers, delicious bread, and for it's first debut in my mouth, escargot. I loved it! The texture was a little noxious, but the taste was delicious. Dinner consisted of steak. About damn time!! I had steak with mushrooms and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.
Now, why did I have to go and ruin this? I have no clue, but I did. My friend Vivian, who is Chinese (no I am not racist, but this is pertinent to the story), got some sort of fish. It was big and creepy and reminded me of a piranha. She told us that it was customary in China to first eat the eye of the fish. I was like, "ok, I should eat an eye". Wtf? Like, seriously Caleb, what are you thinking? Apparently I wasn't, because I ate it. Don't believe me? I have a video. It was freaking nasty. (creepy voice) "Things that make you go ugh"
It didn't effect me right away but for some reason my mind could not stop dwelling on the fact that I had eaten a fish eye. Can you guess what happened? Yep, I totally vomited. And it was sad. I watched all this beautiful food that I loved so much come right back out of my mouth in a not so beautiful form. Made me want to cry.
And guess what was at the top of the pile? The fish eye. And it was just looking at me saying "haha sucker. That's what you get".
Ok, I'm sorry. That was a little much. Would it make you feel any better that I never saw the fish eye? Ok, I thought so.
Only 24 hours till I come home!!
Well alright then, not everyone clap and cheer at once. Bastards. ;)
(sleep)
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
That Little B****
Wednesday - March 23, 2011 - Spain (Girona)
Day Six
Hello again. It's me Caleb. I hope that you already know that by now. If you don't, leave this site and never come back. Just kidding. But it might not be a bad idea to learn more about me if you are going to continue to read this blog.
I'm still loving Girona and the surrounding countryside. I never imagined that I would feel this way for another place besides the united states. I'm beginning to like the idea of calling it my home. I secretly say "I'm going home." when I leave the group to go back to my room. How sad is that? People and city of manhattan, you need to step it up. Fast.
That wasn't very nice was it? Maybe I should just say city, because I really do miss all my peeps. Well, most of you.
Tuesday had to be my favorite day so far. We had our first cooking class. It was at this five star restaurant on the countryside of Girona. The place was gorgeous. Notice this reoccurring theme? Our teacher's name was Chef Vincent. He was freaking hilarious. And he cussed. A lot. We became good buddies fast. My favorite quote of his? He was talking about going to the market one day and he wanted to buy this great cut of meat. The only problem was that he was like third in line. He said he noticed this lady in front of him had her eye on the same piece. He then proceeded to tell us that he thought to himself "that little bitch is going to get it before me." and sure enough, she did. I would have been knocking me some little bitch on the side of the head and running away with that piece of meat. Thats probably a lie, but I'm not really sure because I've never been in that situation before. I guess I just don't feel so passionate about the meat I eat.
Such dirty minds.
Anyways, we made several different types of food. We had cod, potatoes, tortillas (I think it was really quiche), mushroom mush balls, and of course, wine. The best part of this was that we got to eat the finished product and it was absolutely amazing. Not bad for first timers. I am so excited to try to make this at home and for our second cooking class on friday.
Today, we visited small niche markets of chocolate and cheese. Yummy!
The chocolatier that we visited would put any chocolatier in the United States to shame. This guy was a very sophisticated, very nice older man. His wife was just as amazing. Although, I do have to say, she kind of talked like one of the aliens off of Mars Attacks. But who cares? I don't. Especially when they make chocolate that would make God happy. Not that God isn't happy. Hopefully you know what i meant. Actually, this guy is so famous for his chocolate, even Prince Charles of England buys his chocolates from him. Awesome right? If you are not impressed, feel free to leave and go stuff your face with something not famously known. My parents should be happy though. I bought them some, and it was freaking expensive, but so worth it. I just hope it makes it back to the U.S. without melting or getting damaged.
Our next stop was a small, small, family owned and operated, goat cheese producer. First impression: this is gross. If you have never had the chance to eat goat cheese, I dare you to go find some and try to munch on it for more than five seconds. It can be some pretty potent stuff. Well the smell of this place wasn't much better. Thank God I have the ability to get used to any smell within ten seconds because I may have had to leave and vomit. But this guy and his mom were so nice and they had perfected the art of good goat cheese, that I left very impressed. I even sampled several pieces of the cheese and didn't even get sick. They also made plain yogurt. Usually I dont like plain yogurt, but again, they had perfected it and I loved it. Absolutely a great place to visit.
Our last stop for the day was the IRTA. I can't remember off the top of my head what exactly this meant, but I can tell that it was a food science research institute. Now, I'm not a big fan of research. I find it very boring and it's one of the main reasons I don't want to go to grad school. But this place was very cutting edge and everyone there was working on some really interesting projects. For a couple of hours, I was definitely into the idea of going this route with my degree. Then I remembered all five thousand other things that I wanted to do with my life and I had me a new topic to think about for the plane ride home.
Beautiful day. Beautiful places.
Didn't take long for my roommate to ruin it with his nastiness. He's so gross, I can't even write about it. Yeah, I'll let your thoughts marinate on that till I get home.
(sleep)
Day Six
Hello again. It's me Caleb. I hope that you already know that by now. If you don't, leave this site and never come back. Just kidding. But it might not be a bad idea to learn more about me if you are going to continue to read this blog.
I'm still loving Girona and the surrounding countryside. I never imagined that I would feel this way for another place besides the united states. I'm beginning to like the idea of calling it my home. I secretly say "I'm going home." when I leave the group to go back to my room. How sad is that? People and city of manhattan, you need to step it up. Fast.
That wasn't very nice was it? Maybe I should just say city, because I really do miss all my peeps. Well, most of you.
Tuesday had to be my favorite day so far. We had our first cooking class. It was at this five star restaurant on the countryside of Girona. The place was gorgeous. Notice this reoccurring theme? Our teacher's name was Chef Vincent. He was freaking hilarious. And he cussed. A lot. We became good buddies fast. My favorite quote of his? He was talking about going to the market one day and he wanted to buy this great cut of meat. The only problem was that he was like third in line. He said he noticed this lady in front of him had her eye on the same piece. He then proceeded to tell us that he thought to himself "that little bitch is going to get it before me." and sure enough, she did. I would have been knocking me some little bitch on the side of the head and running away with that piece of meat. Thats probably a lie, but I'm not really sure because I've never been in that situation before. I guess I just don't feel so passionate about the meat I eat.
Such dirty minds.
Anyways, we made several different types of food. We had cod, potatoes, tortillas (I think it was really quiche), mushroom mush balls, and of course, wine. The best part of this was that we got to eat the finished product and it was absolutely amazing. Not bad for first timers. I am so excited to try to make this at home and for our second cooking class on friday.
Today, we visited small niche markets of chocolate and cheese. Yummy!
The chocolatier that we visited would put any chocolatier in the United States to shame. This guy was a very sophisticated, very nice older man. His wife was just as amazing. Although, I do have to say, she kind of talked like one of the aliens off of Mars Attacks. But who cares? I don't. Especially when they make chocolate that would make God happy. Not that God isn't happy. Hopefully you know what i meant. Actually, this guy is so famous for his chocolate, even Prince Charles of England buys his chocolates from him. Awesome right? If you are not impressed, feel free to leave and go stuff your face with something not famously known. My parents should be happy though. I bought them some, and it was freaking expensive, but so worth it. I just hope it makes it back to the U.S. without melting or getting damaged.
Our next stop was a small, small, family owned and operated, goat cheese producer. First impression: this is gross. If you have never had the chance to eat goat cheese, I dare you to go find some and try to munch on it for more than five seconds. It can be some pretty potent stuff. Well the smell of this place wasn't much better. Thank God I have the ability to get used to any smell within ten seconds because I may have had to leave and vomit. But this guy and his mom were so nice and they had perfected the art of good goat cheese, that I left very impressed. I even sampled several pieces of the cheese and didn't even get sick. They also made plain yogurt. Usually I dont like plain yogurt, but again, they had perfected it and I loved it. Absolutely a great place to visit.
Our last stop for the day was the IRTA. I can't remember off the top of my head what exactly this meant, but I can tell that it was a food science research institute. Now, I'm not a big fan of research. I find it very boring and it's one of the main reasons I don't want to go to grad school. But this place was very cutting edge and everyone there was working on some really interesting projects. For a couple of hours, I was definitely into the idea of going this route with my degree. Then I remembered all five thousand other things that I wanted to do with my life and I had me a new topic to think about for the plane ride home.
Beautiful day. Beautiful places.
Didn't take long for my roommate to ruin it with his nastiness. He's so gross, I can't even write about it. Yeah, I'll let your thoughts marinate on that till I get home.
(sleep)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Day Two - Spain 2011 - "Apparently I'm a feedlot pig"
Friday - March 18, 2011 - Spain
Day Two
Ok, I'm not going to lie, I didn't do much sleeping. The plane was too small, we had a crying baby and a man that sneezed so loud I think people on Saturn could have heard him. Is it bad that I wanted to punch them both? Now don't get your panties in a bunch, I would never punch a baby. That indeed would be very horrible. But you must understand something. I value sleep very much. Next to eating, it is one of my favorite things to do. So when someone (even a baby) fucks with my sleep, I imagine doing bad things to punish them..... What a bunch of dirty minds. Get your head out of the gutters folks.
When I woke up to the point where I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep again and there happened to be no sneezing man or crying baby at the moment, I found the flight to be somewhat peaceful. Everyone was pretty much asleep and I enjoyed being able to just sit there, watch people sleep, and reflect on my happy little life.
Phase two of my in-flight thinking. This phase causes me to think about why I do the things I do, and why I don't do more things that I want to do. Apparently I'm more of a pussy than I originally thought. This is definitely not true, but since this piece is about my trip to Spain, I will save this for another blog on another day.
I got two whole hours of just being able to do this. Amazing! I was able to figure a lot of things out. And believe me, you can bet your ass I'm definitely going to change some things when I get back. Step one of the refurbished "why not" policy.
Sunrises on a plane are so much prettier. If you have never been able to experience this. Do it. It's worth the $800 round trip ticket. The colors are SO beautiful. Everything is more clear, more vivid, it's almost an out of this world experience. I felt like I was on my way to meet God and I was perfectly content. It even made breakfast taste better. And that is definitely saying something considering the food is equivalent to the food in prison. What a way to start my food science trip.
An hour after breakfast, we made it to Barcelona. Time - 8:30 a.m. Time in Kansas - 2:30 a.m. I was super excited, but I didn't feel like I was in another country. It was still cool though. Getting luggage was no problem and soon we were on our way through the Spanish city. First thing to note, the weather was spectacular. That alone could've convinced me to stay here for the rest of my life. Second thing to note, there were a lot of people. Now, I didn't particularly like this. I was already worried that airport security had gone through my bag and stolen something, I didn't want to have to worry about some pick-pocketer stealing all my shit and then having there way with my perfect identity. Luckily, I never had a problem. Or least invent noticed it yet.
Our hotel was gorgeous! Definitely the nicest hotel I have stayed in for a long time. It had to be five star. Pictures are posted on Facebook if you want to see it.
We were not allowed to rest very much because our chaperones wanted us to get used to the time so that we didn't have much jet lag. This sucked. Remember what happens when someone messes with my sleep? Yeah, I was ready to go Kung Fu on someone's ass and I didn't much care If I had to spend the rest of my life in a Spanish prison making everyone my bitch. We spent all day walking from site to site and my feet begin to look like big fat purple grapes. Guess I didn't pack the right shoes. And because of my lack of sleep I didn't really absorb anything that we did that day. I know that we visited a gothic cathedral, a fresh food market, and I'm fairly sure we visited a Picasso museum with hundreds of his original artwork. I remember this museum because Picasso was a very peculiar man and it showed in his art. His first works were great. Original, quiet, normal artsy stuff. Then for some reason, unbeknownst to people, he started becoming very pornographic and abstract. I think he was tripping on acid. He had to be to be popping out the artwork he was. Im definitely not judging though because I liked the art. I kind of had a connection with it. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Weird, right?
Dinner was an interesting experience. My first try with tapas. For those that do not know what tapas is, look it up. I ain't here to be your teacher.
I love you all. ;)
Anyways, I got to try leeks, some sort of peppers, ham roll ups, blue cheese balls, cured meat, several different types of cheeses, some quiche-looking thing, squid and some sort of marinated pork. It was all delicious, minus the leeks, only because I don't really know what they are. Oh, and I cant forget the wine! This trip was made a whole lot better when Spain decided that I was old enough to order my own wine and I was able to drink it without worrying about getting an M.I.P. And oh my, did I drink the wine. Two whites and one red. Several glasses of each. Yowza! Can you say tipsy?
All in all, it was a great day. Pictures will be posted on facebook or if you are one of my good friends, I might just show you personally.
(sleep)
Day Two
Ok, I'm not going to lie, I didn't do much sleeping. The plane was too small, we had a crying baby and a man that sneezed so loud I think people on Saturn could have heard him. Is it bad that I wanted to punch them both? Now don't get your panties in a bunch, I would never punch a baby. That indeed would be very horrible. But you must understand something. I value sleep very much. Next to eating, it is one of my favorite things to do. So when someone (even a baby) fucks with my sleep, I imagine doing bad things to punish them..... What a bunch of dirty minds. Get your head out of the gutters folks.
When I woke up to the point where I knew I wasn't going to fall asleep again and there happened to be no sneezing man or crying baby at the moment, I found the flight to be somewhat peaceful. Everyone was pretty much asleep and I enjoyed being able to just sit there, watch people sleep, and reflect on my happy little life.
Phase two of my in-flight thinking. This phase causes me to think about why I do the things I do, and why I don't do more things that I want to do. Apparently I'm more of a pussy than I originally thought. This is definitely not true, but since this piece is about my trip to Spain, I will save this for another blog on another day.
I got two whole hours of just being able to do this. Amazing! I was able to figure a lot of things out. And believe me, you can bet your ass I'm definitely going to change some things when I get back. Step one of the refurbished "why not" policy.
Sunrises on a plane are so much prettier. If you have never been able to experience this. Do it. It's worth the $800 round trip ticket. The colors are SO beautiful. Everything is more clear, more vivid, it's almost an out of this world experience. I felt like I was on my way to meet God and I was perfectly content. It even made breakfast taste better. And that is definitely saying something considering the food is equivalent to the food in prison. What a way to start my food science trip.
An hour after breakfast, we made it to Barcelona. Time - 8:30 a.m. Time in Kansas - 2:30 a.m. I was super excited, but I didn't feel like I was in another country. It was still cool though. Getting luggage was no problem and soon we were on our way through the Spanish city. First thing to note, the weather was spectacular. That alone could've convinced me to stay here for the rest of my life. Second thing to note, there were a lot of people. Now, I didn't particularly like this. I was already worried that airport security had gone through my bag and stolen something, I didn't want to have to worry about some pick-pocketer stealing all my shit and then having there way with my perfect identity. Luckily, I never had a problem. Or least invent noticed it yet.
Our hotel was gorgeous! Definitely the nicest hotel I have stayed in for a long time. It had to be five star. Pictures are posted on Facebook if you want to see it.
We were not allowed to rest very much because our chaperones wanted us to get used to the time so that we didn't have much jet lag. This sucked. Remember what happens when someone messes with my sleep? Yeah, I was ready to go Kung Fu on someone's ass and I didn't much care If I had to spend the rest of my life in a Spanish prison making everyone my bitch. We spent all day walking from site to site and my feet begin to look like big fat purple grapes. Guess I didn't pack the right shoes. And because of my lack of sleep I didn't really absorb anything that we did that day. I know that we visited a gothic cathedral, a fresh food market, and I'm fairly sure we visited a Picasso museum with hundreds of his original artwork. I remember this museum because Picasso was a very peculiar man and it showed in his art. His first works were great. Original, quiet, normal artsy stuff. Then for some reason, unbeknownst to people, he started becoming very pornographic and abstract. I think he was tripping on acid. He had to be to be popping out the artwork he was. Im definitely not judging though because I liked the art. I kind of had a connection with it. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Weird, right?
Dinner was an interesting experience. My first try with tapas. For those that do not know what tapas is, look it up. I ain't here to be your teacher.
I love you all. ;)
Anyways, I got to try leeks, some sort of peppers, ham roll ups, blue cheese balls, cured meat, several different types of cheeses, some quiche-looking thing, squid and some sort of marinated pork. It was all delicious, minus the leeks, only because I don't really know what they are. Oh, and I cant forget the wine! This trip was made a whole lot better when Spain decided that I was old enough to order my own wine and I was able to drink it without worrying about getting an M.I.P. And oh my, did I drink the wine. Two whites and one red. Several glasses of each. Yowza! Can you say tipsy?
All in all, it was a great day. Pictures will be posted on facebook or if you are one of my good friends, I might just show you personally.
(sleep)
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