The day of her arrival, I woke up hardly able to hold my excitement, dashed in some breakfast, and drove straight to the airport. I was ready. The night before I had made a sign with her name, so she would see me right away among all the people. Just in case. But it turns out I needn’t have bothered, as a normal person probably would have predicted. The very second that I passed through the sliding doors of the airport, my eyes met hers, like magic, and I unvoluntarily burst out with a scream/yell/shout of excitement while running towards her. I think she likewise did the same. I just remember I was so happy.
But really, trust us to make quite the scene: the people around us were definitely staring. Not that I really cared. An older man came up to us and said, “It’s good to see such happiness! When was the last time you saw each other?” Hildy’s and my eyes met and we grinned. It was clear, given the hulabaloo that we had just made, that he was expecting us to say somewhere in the span of two to five years. I counted on my fingers: one, two, three….Seven months. But really, it felt like an eternity.
Hildy got to see me au pairing in action (not so exciting) before we headed out for our weekend in Madrid. We quickly settled upon what I found to be an excellent arrangement: Hildy was in charge of all matters of communication, with her knowledge of the Spanish language. I, on the other hand, was in charge of navigation, with the map in hand.
For dinner our first night there, we bravely decided against any restaurant whose menu was translated in English. We wanted a real local joint, not a tourist-y place. So poor Hildy had to give me translations for over half the menu. Another matter of consideration was Hildy’s vegetarianism, meaning we wanted to bypass all the meat options. Definitely didn’t want to unknowingly order a Spanish meat specialty, and have pig eyeballs on our plates.
As we finished up our meal, the waitress asked us if we wanted to wrap up our food. “What?” I thought to myself. Contrary to common custom in USA, in Europe you never get doggy bags. Except apparently at this little restaurant in Madrid. It turned out to be excellent, as we were able to make a picnic lunch out of our leftovers at the park the next day, watching people pass by and soaking in some heavenly sunshine.
Later in the day we got a little tired from all of our sightseeing and decided to take another rest at the park. Lying down on the nice green grass, with sunshine everywhere, my eyelids quickly got heavy and I fell into a deep slumber. I was reaching REM when in the corner of my brain I detected a persistent snippet of Spanish coming from somewhere. I opened up one eye, then the other, and headed directly into the stern gaze of a police officer, leaning towards me with an angry look on his face. Quickly I jolted up, still disoriented. What was going on? I poked Hildy nervously with a finger, who was still asleep a couple of feet beside me. She stirred a bit, and I poked her again, this time more insistently. Meanwhile the police officer was jabbering away at me in an angry jumble of words. I didn’t understand until Hildy had the chance to translate to me that we had installed ourselves illegally on a patch of grass that was forbidden to be sat upon. Luckily, the story ends happily, as the police officer didn’t give us a fine, and we were able to resume our nap on a park bench a couple feet away.
El Rastro Market
La joie de vivre! (from a museum exhibit we visited)
“Museo del Jamon” (Museum of Ham) restaurant—We stopped by here upon the recommendation of a local but quickly decided it was definitely not a vegetarian-friendly place! There were cuts of pig meat hanging around everywhere inside.
Hildy, however, was not able to evade meat entirely during her trip to Europe. The evening before her departure, my host mom S planned a surprise meal, so that Hildy and I could experience one of France’s most famous specialties together.
On the menu: Escargots! Yes, that’s right, we--the two (ex-)vegetarians--ate SNAILS. Yum, yuck. Don’t believe it? Here’s the video of us and my first bite so you can witness it for yourself:
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