Cadiz, Espana--"La Leche"

fried fish--adobo (tuna?)

puntillas--calamari

close up of tortillas de camerones--thank you little shrimp!

Cadiz

tinto verano

figuring out Flamenco w/ tinto verano

pre-meal toast--me, Brian, Susanah, & Kate

aceitas--olives

iberico jamon

tortillas de camerones

Post-dinner picture with jamon, Kate, me, Katie & Brian & gruff but affable cook.

Susanah and Brian in front of the MV Explorer

Cadiz, Espana—La Leche

There’s still so much to process here, I’m going to fade in and out of listing our itinerary and telling stories.  “La Leche” is a colloquialism (aka slang) for “the bomb”.  Plus it means milk.  Spain was la leche, and we didn’t have a lot of milk, but we definitely sampled a wide array of tasty tapas and tintos.

Sunday, Day 1:  Wander Cadiz with Kate & Katie.  Have a snack at a café by the main cathedral.  Head up to the ocean road, and wander along the sidewalk by the ocean on top of one of the city walls.  Make it to the castle, decide to head back in to the maze of the city for some tapas.  After a bit of wandering, we find what seems to be a locals area and we pop in to a place called Pena, on El Quini (or maybe it’s called El Quini, on Pena?).  It’s a family place, with kids running around, and I can see at least three generations hanging out, bartending, or playing with kids.  Our waitress, Emma, is young—mid-twenties—friendly, funny, and wanting to practice some English with us.  One of the owners, Julio, comes by to say hello and check on us.  We order rounds of tinto verano (“summer wine”), which is a wine mixed with essentially a type of Sprite, and with slices of lemon or orange in it.  Definitely refreshing, with a little punch to it that sneaks up a bit.  We also get jamon, manchego and some fried fish, nothing fancy, but all delicious.  Off in the corner is a striking, tall, muscular man, also in his twenties, having a beer and riffing and joking with an older, wiry, compact, and muscular man.  They occasionally break out in to clips of songs (the older man singing, with pebbly voice—not quite gravelly, but strong and rough around the edges) and clapping, with others joining in and encouraging them.  It sounds like traditional flamenco songs, and even though I can’t follow the Spanish, I can hear the tones that flamenco is noted for—some joy, some sorrow, some loss, some hope, lots of pride and an overlay of poignancy.  At one point the flamenco songs they are singing inexplicably but unmistakably merge in a clip of Darth Vader’s Imperial March.  At this point I have had two tinto veranos, and feel comfortable enough to join in in my best Darth Vader voice “Luke, yo soy tu padre”.  Julio overhears me and there’s a pause and a moment of figuring out amongst the singers that I have just indeed made a joke, which ends in a lot of laughter all the way around.  We ask Emma, our waitress, where we should go for a flamenco music show, and she say’s “Here, on Friday!”  Unfortunately we explain that Friday is the day we set sail.  They give us the name of another place to check out on Wednesday, and then the impromptu musicians and bartenders have an animated discussion…”how many people could you bring?” “Viente (20)” I say, making it up and pretty confident that we could make that happen.  Some more back and forth and then they offer to put together a show for us on Thursday night for 20 people at 5 euros apiece.  I’m to call on Tuesday morning to confirm with them.  We say our goodbyes with hugs all around and wander the maze of streets back to the ship.  (I will refer to Cadiz’s maze of streets repeatedly, because they are a maze, and I got very undeniably and pleasantly lost several times.)

We headed back to the ship to change and meet up with Brian and Susanah—Brian is a dear friend of mine from SAS Spring 98—we were RDs together, and Susanah is his sweet, intelligent, beautiful wife of 1 year.  They live in Madrid together and took three days off of work and life to drive 6+ hours down to Cadiz to visit and travel.  I am grateful that they did so because their visit enabled us to go deeper into Spain on many levels, and the best part of all of it was just their company with such a fantastic country as the backdrop.  We wandered around (yes, there is a lot of wandering around on this trip) that evening looking for a place for dinner, and Katie found a little place on a side street that had potential.  Brian and Susanah checked it out, and after seeing a leg of jamon and two older, wizened proprietors, declared it officially ok from a local perspective.  Meson La Cuesta did not disappoint—we had canas (small beers) to accompany our puntillas (essentially little fried calamari—the BEST fried calamari I’ve ever had), lightly battered fried fish, tortillas de camarones (delicious chickpea flour fried pancakes with whole baby shrimp in them), and sliced jamon that just melted in your mouth.  Toss in fresh bread and outstanding olives and amazing company, wrap in the ambience of Cadiz and the gruff but essentially friendly and very knowledgeable wait-staff, and voila—one of the most memorable evenings and meals of my life.  Here ends day 1 of Spain—5 more to come!