Kuvo the Obedient

Before we left for Barcelona we thought it might be a good idea to at least try to teach Donovan and Candy a few words in Spanish so they could fit in with their local four-legged amigos.  Try as we might, we could not get the simple commands of “sit” and “stay” in Espanol to register…so these pups have other virtues beyond biligualism.  However, we did get a real kick out meeting Kuvo, a resident of el Born, who decided to join us for breakfast the other morning.  He obviously was eyeing our plates of food so I decided to try out his obedience quotient…”Sientete!” and voila!  Kuvo sat.  Wow – that earned him a nice piece of bacon off Andrew’s plate, and convinced us that – with a little time and effort – Candy and Donovan just might go native 🙂

Our First Adventure Beyond Barcelona (as “Locals”):  Sitges by the Sea

Yesterday Andrew and I actually had the afternoon and evening to ourselves.  Eitan slept over at one of his football buddy’s house the night before, hung out at the beach with the boys, and went to a carnival in the evening with some new-found friends…Ruthie and her gal crew met up with two lovely young women from Minneapolis who had been traveling in the UK the same time as Ari and Ruth and were now passing through Barcelona – and they had plans for dinner and a night on the town together.  This was the perfect opportunity for us to take a commuter train down the coast to Sitges, a lovely, laid back seaside town about 45 minutes by commuter train from Barcelona.  Sitges is known as the “Gay Capitol of Spain” and – wouldn’t you know it – we happened to choose the Gay Pride Weekend to visit.  This definitely added to the texture and tenor of our experience.  We ended up in the company of many, many gay and lesbian couples – all looking very content and many there to party hard.

 As we headed to the waterfront we found that there were two beach experiences to choose from.  Incredibly loud dance music emanated from one area – obviously where the rave for the weekend was centered…on the other side of a beautiful old church was the “family” beach – the one we chose.  We were surrounded by an interesting mix of topless grandmothers, naked toddlers constructing and demolishing sand structures,  some couples who really needed to “get a room” for all the shenanigans happening on their blankets, along with many multi-generational families happily playing frisbee and beach pong.  We were definitely the boring foreigners in this picture – nonetheless we got in a siesta and a nice walk on the beach before heading to dinner.

A Dinner to Remember

Hunger struck.  I had noticed a small restaurant on the way down to the beach with a few people eating a late lunch that really looked delicious – some sort of bouillabaisse that made my mouth water.  We retraced our steps and found the place.  It was still early for dinner by local standards so we snagged a table just inside by a window looking out at the steady stream of tourists and locals passing by.  Since the restaurant was not yet busy we had the nearly full attention of the owner – Xavi – who was incredible gracious, funny, and super helpful.  He started by turning what could have been an embarrassing moment into a good story in the retelling:  When we sat down for our meal I commented to Xavi: “Yo soy muy caliente!”  with the intent of communicating that I was glad to be out of the heat of the day.  Ever the gentleman, Xavi gently explained to me that what I really meant to say was “Yo tengo calor” or “I have heat/I am very warm”…what I had said – that he was sure his wife would not have appreciated was “I am a HOT woman!”  Oy vey.  Xavi gets the diplomatic award here, and I now have even more motivation to learn my colloquialisms.

Dinner was incredible.  Many of the recipes were Xavi’s grandmother’s –  including a starter dish of potatoes, fried eggs, pureed chorizo and brie cheese (not for the calorie-conscious) and the aforementioned fish stew filled with calamari, mussels, clams langoustines and rice in a tomato broth…with a pitcher of white wine sangria we were really happy and sated by the time dinner ended.

Foodie Alert:  The restaurant is L’Estrella de Xaimar, Carrer Major 52, Sitges

Andrew and I are committed to venture out as often as we can and experience as many facets of life in Spain as possible in the time we live here –  days like this one are the gift we have gotten for “just doing it”.

Hasta Luego…