Cats, Gardens and Empanadas
Thursday, Feb. 7 2019
We have breakfast out at a cafe before going to the Central Market for salsa and guacamole fixings. We always miss Mexican food when traveling, and have not yet found a decent place in Spain. Interestingly, they have no jalapeños or hot peppers, but we count on our our apartment having some hot sauce and find ourselves duly rewarded. We are getting better with market purchases, but still suspect we were overcharged for cilantro. It's too hard in the heat of the moment to protest, but I'm aware in future we need to confirm a price before we select an item. "Tourist beware!" remains a useful motto.
I went to buy some plum tomatoes from an older woman in a stall. They don't like for you to touch the produce, some stalls even have signs "don't touch". She starts to pick tomatoes for me and I instantly start protesting because she has chosen unripe ones but then she picks one with an obvious bruised open area. Then I really start squawking. She looks at it and starts laughing, holding it up to her head like "crazy old woman" laughing at herself and inviting me to laugh. Yea, crazy like a fox. Then she starts punching numbers into the scale that make no sense and then she sings out 3 Euros. (We got tons of stuff- tomatoes, onions, avocados - maybe three euros is fair but it seemed really cheap to me) Oh the stress of negotiating when you don't have the language or culture.
We take our goods back to the apartment. Kitty wants an empanada for lunch as they are clearly popular here. We find a target restaurant, "Picnicity," and take a circuitous route to get there. The tourists are clearly here. I suspect there's a weekend rhythm as we have in Asheville where people start coming in on Thurs. and leave on Sunday. There are large tour groups massing in the Plaça de Virgin, and the streets are more crowded than they have been. We hear more English spoken as well.
Even with our slow route we have time to kill before the restaurant opens, so we stop in a cafe and I have a Vermut and Kitty water. There's an amazing wine store, but it's intimidating to me as I don't know the wines. Looks like a wine that would cost about 30USD is about 7EUR here. We don't buy any as there's a hand Carrefour Express just around the corner from our place with a decent enough selection for our needs (We are favoring the 2.50 EUR "Tres Reinos" wine).
The empanadas are great! I have pork barbecue ("Iberian Secreto") while Kitty has bacon and goat cheese. I try a local pumpkin ale at the owner's suggestion even though I'm skeptical I am pleasantly surprised: the pumpkin flavor doesn't dominate and there's nothing sweet happening. Nicely balanced and better than any US version of this brew I've ever had.
After lunch we go to the University of Valencia Botanical Garden. We had run out of energy for this during our walking tour yesterday, so it was fun to return. The garden is oddly on a grid plan, and not very large compared to other gardens we've visited, but it does contain a broad variety of plants.
We see a younger man and older woman (closer to our age) pulling a cart with a cat following them. Kitty wonders if this is their cat and they are just cutting through the garden on their way home, but it is soon apparent that they tend the cat colony.
I go over to sit near where they are putting out food so I can get some cat photos. The woman has lived in Boston and speaks excellent English. She says there are numerous colonies of protected feral cats in VAL and “this is colony #1.” All the cats have names. She is part of a cat organization and comes every Thurs. to feed them. They tend to their health care, try to place any they can with homes and are very particular. She says one of the issues here is that people have to have screens or nets on windows as cats are frequently injured in falls.
We head back home late afternoon and I work on photos while Kitty fixes our guacamole and salsa. I'd thought we might head out again, but we are once again tired from all our walking and have an early evening in watching "Russian Doll" on my laptop.
We have breakfast out at a cafe before going to the Central Market for salsa and guacamole fixings. We always miss Mexican food when traveling, and have not yet found a decent place in Spain. Interestingly, they have no jalapeños or hot peppers, but we count on our our apartment having some hot sauce and find ourselves duly rewarded. We are getting better with market purchases, but still suspect we were overcharged for cilantro. It's too hard in the heat of the moment to protest, but I'm aware in future we need to confirm a price before we select an item. "Tourist beware!" remains a useful motto.
I went to buy some plum tomatoes from an older woman in a stall. They don't like for you to touch the produce, some stalls even have signs "don't touch". She starts to pick tomatoes for me and I instantly start protesting because she has chosen unripe ones but then she picks one with an obvious bruised open area. Then I really start squawking. She looks at it and starts laughing, holding it up to her head like "crazy old woman" laughing at herself and inviting me to laugh. Yea, crazy like a fox. Then she starts punching numbers into the scale that make no sense and then she sings out 3 Euros. (We got tons of stuff- tomatoes, onions, avocados - maybe three euros is fair but it seemed really cheap to me) Oh the stress of negotiating when you don't have the language or culture.
We take our goods back to the apartment. Kitty wants an empanada for lunch as they are clearly popular here. We find a target restaurant, "Picnicity," and take a circuitous route to get there. The tourists are clearly here. I suspect there's a weekend rhythm as we have in Asheville where people start coming in on Thurs. and leave on Sunday. There are large tour groups massing in the Plaça de Virgin, and the streets are more crowded than they have been. We hear more English spoken as well.
Even with our slow route we have time to kill before the restaurant opens, so we stop in a cafe and I have a Vermut and Kitty water. There's an amazing wine store, but it's intimidating to me as I don't know the wines. Looks like a wine that would cost about 30USD is about 7EUR here. We don't buy any as there's a hand Carrefour Express just around the corner from our place with a decent enough selection for our needs (We are favoring the 2.50 EUR "Tres Reinos" wine).
The empanadas are great! I have pork barbecue ("Iberian Secreto") while Kitty has bacon and goat cheese. I try a local pumpkin ale at the owner's suggestion even though I'm skeptical I am pleasantly surprised: the pumpkin flavor doesn't dominate and there's nothing sweet happening. Nicely balanced and better than any US version of this brew I've ever had.
After lunch we go to the University of Valencia Botanical Garden. We had run out of energy for this during our walking tour yesterday, so it was fun to return. The garden is oddly on a grid plan, and not very large compared to other gardens we've visited, but it does contain a broad variety of plants.
We see a younger man and older woman (closer to our age) pulling a cart with a cat following them. Kitty wonders if this is their cat and they are just cutting through the garden on their way home, but it is soon apparent that they tend the cat colony.
I go over to sit near where they are putting out food so I can get some cat photos. The woman has lived in Boston and speaks excellent English. She says there are numerous colonies of protected feral cats in VAL and “this is colony #1.” All the cats have names. She is part of a cat organization and comes every Thurs. to feed them. They tend to their health care, try to place any they can with homes and are very particular. She says one of the issues here is that people have to have screens or nets on windows as cats are frequently injured in falls.
We head back home late afternoon and I work on photos while Kitty fixes our guacamole and salsa. I'd thought we might head out again, but we are once again tired from all our walking and have an early evening in watching "Russian Doll" on my laptop.
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