Curb Your Enthusiasm

Santander is a small fishermanś town with beaches on the Atlantic Ocean. We got there in the early afternoon and were sorrily disappointed by the lackluster life and dim weather. It was a Saturday and we knew we were in for a rough time when the tourist info center man answered a short "nada" to our question"que hay haves aqui?" (what is there to do here?). And great. Everything was closed shops, museums, most bars and restaurants...plus, our dark and isolated Pension (guest house) was twice the cost what we originally thought! Then it started to rain. Not happy. Then my bottom left wisdom tooth broke skin. We sulked through the rain debating whether or not to skip Santander all together. We didn plan on rain. This was not on our carefully scheduled agenda. I glanced up at the almighty and considered having a few words but thought better of it as she is probably very busy and would tell Danise and I to suck it up.
So we did. We dug out our plastic ponchos and walked ourselves around town. Things started to pick up when we found a gluten free carb section in grocery store! I was so excited at the sin gluten signs everywhere that i nearly keeled over when I saw "Miel" which means honey, figuring that there was no sugar in the cookies either! Since WHEN is there a cookie without wheat and sugar? Heavenly bells rang in my petite ears and I grabbed the MIEL labeled box. Hello warmth in this oh-so-shitty day! Partly satisfied, we found the restaurants district to continue to eat our sorrows away. Excellent judges of restaurants character, Danise and I picked a very crowded and seemingly popular place. Casajero was a small joint with a bar on one side and tables on the other all next to large windows that looked out onto the coble stone streat. It was crowded, fun, friendly and boisterous. We knew this was the place to be when we found an eclectic crowd in side. We found everyone from a womenś club, an alternative hippy couple, a trendy yuppy young adults and two 20-somethings in matching ponchos. oh wait. The waiter was a smiley fellow and inspired by Eat, Pray, Love, we played a new eating adventure game. The game was modified and works in one of two ways; either we pick a random dish on our own that is unfamiliar or untranslatable and get excited...or...ask the waitor to choose his favorite for us and get it excited. We went with one familiar, the bacalao and cheese croquettes and then the waitorś choise of setas con agitos. Of course vino blanco and pan were in the mix. When the sitas came we were too excited and stared at flat brown shapes with jagged edges that Danise thought looked like hands. oh yumm. They were garlic and oil soaked mushrooms! Quite delicious if I must say and not a problem considering we were in Santander and the chance of running into my next prince in this Blair Witch Project of a town was slim to none anyway. More wine please? We left the restruant Casajero in good spirits but not bevfore generating a guide to Spanish restruant picking. See Daniseś future post!
We sauntered home not two hours later, picked up some sugar free hazelnut ice cream (oh yum) and co-authored an aural story to serve as entertainment until we got back to the Pension to watch real trash. All good news until I realized that my beloved animal-cracker-tasting MIEL crackers were not gluten free at all! My over-excitement blurred my senses and in the midst of all the gluten free was also, sugar free but alas, not the both. Que terrible.
Day two of Santander made us feel guilty about day oneś bitching. A tad cloudy, yet warm, we hightailed it to the beach to soak in some quality rays before the predicted rain came. Oh were we prepared or what? Gluten free bread (tasted like sand though, which was ironic because we were on a beach), choritzo, manchego, tomatoes, grapes and a box of vino blanco (thanks for the tip Bender!) We had a feast.
The walk to the beach took about a leisurely half hour along the pretty-ish coast, just enough time to get through our rendition of Hairspray the musical and a good number of locals showed up too (to the beach that is, not our performance thank god. Itś embarrassing when you forget the words to I Can Hear The Bells and have to call your sister to look up the lyrics. (thanks for the save Lili!) We were in good company and would take our exit cues from them. We noticed that if we look at what the locals are doing (chilling or running for cover) and copy them, we would be fine and less obvious tourists. The one good thing about Santander compared to Madrid is the lack of tourists actually. There is probably good reason for this though. Not judging or anything. Moving on. Laying out under the blazing sun, drafts of wind periodically cooled us off. During our beach front nap, I noticed that if you lay with your ear to the sand, the patter of children running by sound like the echo of tympani drums. We opened up the box wine and got stuck in. After a nap and sweet release in the chilly waters of the Atlantic (I swear: peeing in the ocean has never been so pleasant! Talk about liberating and a good view) we dug into the food. I was certainly buzzed and quite enjoying my day. I wanted to build a sand turtle and Danise indulged me. This was best since she has scores artistic ability over me. Then we went for a dip and for some reason I didnt think the water was all that cold compared to Danise, who after a few dunks called it quits. I suggested she hit the juice box again. After that we packed up and met Eduard, a family friend from Catalonia, for a drink as he happened to be in town on business. He graciously gave us advice on our upcoming travels. It was great to see a familiar and local face. He reminded me of how close and comfortable Spanish culture can feel, save a few hombres here and there.
Well, it turns out that my Mediterranean looks will only carry me so far and that boarder was crossed at the beach. I sunburned like an Aryan. Why I thought I needed sunscreen everywhere but my legs was beyond me but I feel like it has something to do with the box of vino. Perhaps the bronzing glow I felt was no vino buzz, but the sun tickling my poor florescent skin. And, perhaps the cold water was so refreshing because I had recently signed over the top layer of skin to the UVA rays. Can I get an ¨oops?"
That night we ventured to the Barrio Pescado -fish district- for some seafood. We played the food adventure game again and ordered Enselada Marisco (seafood salad) and two surprises, Chipierones encebollados which turned out to be fried fish (tasty tasty) and...Cabracho Plancha. Any guesses to what that was? Anyone? Yeah we sure as hell didnt know either and got a plate full of gigantic, caramelized squids. Even though I was hungry and part of me wanted to cry, the both of us were in stitches. Sometimes this game backfires but the beauty in it is that now we know what Cabracho is! We sang oldies all the way home and in the morning, caught the early bus to San Sebastian. And by caught I mean I limped/waddled to the bus depot due to the oh so nasty burn. Lesson learned, Spain can be exciting but sometimes you just need to cool it. Curb the enthusiasm or else 1. You will end up eating wheat filled honey crackers and burst a longtime dream of wheat and sugar free goodness, 2. mistake a developing sunburn for being tipsy and 3. end up with a plate of squid.
And for anyone interested in my raunchy novella, the plot is progressing quite nicely and natrually I must say. In fact, just the other day in Toledo I found myself in bakery where Danise bought a chocolate croissant and I confidently asked the woman behind the counter "¿puedo sentir al fresco?" which in laymenś terms literally means "Can I feel fresh?" The poor senorita gave me a look of horror and confusion that soon turned into sympathy because clearly my ability to keep fresh was in my own hands and there was nothing she nor anyone else could do about it.

Much love!
MK