Pajaritos

The first time Benji asked if I wanted to eat 'pajaritos' I thought he was crazy. Birds?! Did I want to eat little birds? No. I know chickens are birds, but for some reason the term 'little birds' didn't bring any appetizing images to mind. All I could think about were robins and canaries. Even after he explained I'd be eating quails, not Polly, I still wasn't convinced. Tonight he won me over. I'm not sure how, but finally I decided, 'why not eat some little birds?'

On a side street in Triana, just off the main drag of San Jacinto, there's a bar called 'Casa Ruperto' and it's here that you can find the 'pajaritos'. I don't know how often the bar is frequented by tourists, but I know, without a doubt, I was the only one there tonight; a good sign that the food is probably tasty and cheap.


Benji ordered us two 'pajaritos' and two 'cervesitas' and the waiter promptly yelled 'dame dos pajaros'. Within five minutes we had two plates, each containing one fried bird and one slice of bread. Eating the quail was a bit tricky; the bone to meat ratio being 2:1. Benji kept having to tell me 'ten cuidado con los huesos'. In the end however, I didn't choke and now I know why Benji kept bugging to try 'pajaritos', they're surprisingly delicious.

Now if he can only get me to try snails...

The 25th and 26th

Christmas day in Spain was a good one. Two of my friends from back home (Eric and Sungjin) were here, as well as Sungjin's sister Julie and Sungjin's friend Mike. We dined on homemade spinach lasagna and salad and then headed out for a few drinks to end the night. Sungjin and his sister left for Madrid the next day and Mike went back to Germany. Eric had one more day here though, so we walked around town, got dinner, saw a flamenco show and this...

Way cooler than pony rides.

Madrid

I'm spending the holidays in Spain and as it turns out so are some of my friends from back home. One of them is doing research in Switzerland for the year and when we figured out that we would both be in Europe over Christmas we decided to plan a trip to Madrid.

It'd been 8 years since I'd visited the capital of Spain and I had a great time rediscovering the city (and quite literally at that.) We spent most of our three days wandering, just happening upon interesting sites. Though an unconventional approach to tourism, our method worked quite well for us and we managed to see the Puerta del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Parque de Retiro, el Palacio Real, Plaza de Toros, el Mercado de San Miguel and the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum.

Plaza Mayor El Mercado de San Miguel
El Parque de Retiro
Plaza de Toros
And finally, Christmas in the city...

We left Madrid on Friday and what we thought would be a short trip back to Sevilla turned into a very, very long one. First, neither of us thought about the fact is was Friday and the day before Christmas eve and that as a result bus tickets would be sold out until 5pm. Then since we had to make so many stops along the route, the 6 hour trip took almost 8. But Madrid was fun and we made it back to Sevilla in one piece and in the end that's all that really matters.

Tis the season...

So I've decided I'm not very good a blogging. I just kind of let weeks and weeks go by without writing anything. Maybe that will be my New Year's resolution: write more blogs. But for now I have some Christmas cheer to share with everyone. Here's Sevilla all done up for the holidays. Can you believe it's already the 19th of December?