"morcilla". Extra special bonus points to whoever knows what that is without using a google search. Of course I won't know if you do, so feel free to cheat away...
It's one of those things that most people would eat and find yummy so long as they don't know what it is beforehand. There is a student in the lab, Rushi, with whom I went to dinner last weekend and again tonight (along with Marta). Marta is Spanish. Rushi is Indian. I have a lot of respect for Rushi. He's been here for 3 years and spoke not a word of Spanish before moving here. The cook in the university cafeteria is quite fond of him, and I think a part of that is because they struggled to understand each other for a long while. I see it in the way the cook makes fun of me as well. Anyway, Rushi loves "morcilla". I've had it before (my birthday two years ago in China) but not like this. This was super yum. Fried with onions. But my tummy hurts a little now. Too much fat. We started with dried meat of some sort then the morcilla with onions and a plate of pan friend green peppers followed with a firm cross between a cheesecake and a cheese flan for dessert. I'm considering bulimia as a healthy option for my time in Spain. Just kidding...
My other not-so-fun news is that the other day I left work a bit early to wander the city and ended up being followed by some random dude. He gave me an awkward sideways glance at a street corner and then I felt like he was following me. I stick out as an American here, and he spoke english so it may be that he just wanted to chat. But it was weird. So I cut up a side street and he turned as well. I turned right down another busy shopping street, and he turned also. I slowed to look at some housewares, and he paused to make a phone call. So then I dipped into the recessed entry of a shoe store where there were some other folks thinking that if I was just being paranoid I'd give him a chance to move on, but he came in to join me. AND THEN HE TOUCHED MY ARM. He wanted to know if I spoke english, where I was from, if I was alone, if I wanted to join him for a drink. I said "no", and he said "why not." In my head I screamed "uh, dude, because you're freaking creepy, you *followed me*, AND YOU TOUCHED ME!" But in reality I said "because I generally don't hang out with people I don't know". I'm fairly trusting and have struck up conversations with some pretty random people in relatively safe and comfortable circumstances. I spent a week on a motorbike with a guy in Cambodia that I'd just met two days before for goodness sake. So it was comforting to me to know that those little hairs on the back of my neck do in fact work. But no worries. The streets here are full of people, and Santander is a very safe town.
Okay, time for some TUMS and bedtime. I'm meeting Marian and Marta tomorrow morning to make up for last weekend's excursion that got canceled. I love when Marian says "excursion". It's such a quaint choice of words to begin with, and she has a delightful Spanish accent. so it sounds like there are all sorts of extra consonants in there. She developed a cold last weekend and decided the miserable cold wet weather was not a good idea, but we're on for the little village tomorrow. I'm looking forward to some history and older architecture. Much of Santander burned to the ground in the 1940s, so it's not a great place to see historic Spain...
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