I am back in Beautiful Slummerville after nine days without so much as an email or voicemail. It’s been lovely. I called my parents from the airport and they said “Huh, so that’s where you were. We were wondering.”
I learned a few phrases of Catalan, such as “cafe amb llet” and “vi negre.” I also learned that tapas have become such an elaborate thing that a new, less-formal bar-snack trend is taking hold: pintxos (the tx is pronounced as ch, this being an originally Basque bar-snack). Pintxos consist of anything you can toothpick to a small slice of bread. and are self-serve. At the end of your snacking the bartender counts your toothpicks and you pay. Usually its between one and two euros per toothpick. They are getting increasingly elaborate, of course.
Over the next few days I will post reviews of restaurants, embarrassing stories, pictures of my horrible, horrible black eye, and also Bookdwarf and I will post reviews of books that we read over at her blog.
Secretly Ironic 