Las bebidas de España (the drinks of Spain)

    I'm not sure why I have a blog dedicated to travel if I never update it. My new and dear friend Danica has encouraged me to be better about it, so here we go:

    I want to talk a little bit about my favorite beverages in Spain. Why? Because they are delicious. Like, really delicious. Let's start off with the morning tradition that most of the western world knows and loves: coffee. There are several kinds of ways to get coffee here. Café solo, which is just a couple shots of espresso in a wee mug, like you might find in Italy. You can also get café cortado, which is espresso with a little splash of hot milk. But my favorite is café con leche, which, as you might have guessed, is half espresso and half hot milk. It looks like this:
At a lot of places they add the espresso shots to a small glass (that's right, a GLASS), then place it on a saucer with a tiny little spoon and a ginormous packet of sugar. To give you an idea of the size, one sugar packet in España is the equivalent of about three or four packets of sugar in America. Super caffeinated sugar fiends. So then they steam the milk in a metal pitcher, bring it over to you, and fill the glass to the top. Sometimes they'll ask you if you want a bit of cold milk on top to cool it down. But that is for the weak.

The next tasty beverage is chocolate. I will not call it hot chocolate, because that doesn't come close to describing the luxious richness of this drink. I thought the hot chocolate at Burdick's in Harvard Square was the best in the world. In fact, I felt fairly confident of that. My friends, I was dead wrong. Spain's chocolate kicks Burdick's right in the buttocks. This is my favorite thing to order with churros, which are simply long and phallic pieces of fried dough. Unlike the churros you might find at Costco or BJs, these are the real deal. They are fresh, they are not covered with cinnamon and sugar, and there is a strong possibility that they contain traces of heroin, because I am addicted. Some people I know don't like it, saying it is too thick. At them I scoff. Clearly, you dunk your churros into the chocolate and it is delicious. But after the churros are gone, what do you do with the chocolate that remains? Leave it? Absolutely not! You drink that shit down and then look for other people's cups to finish too!

    Side note: there is a strong chance that during the course of my time in Europe I may go into a diabetic coma. If this happens, I would like to state for the record in advance that I have no regrets.

    The last beverage is one for adults only... barely. It is called tinto de verano (red wine of the summer), and is comprised mostly of lemon Fanta (mmmmmm) with a splash of red wine to give it a lovely pink color. It looks like this:
and I wanted to include a large picture because it is by far my favorite. Apparently it takes like sangría in the States, and the sangría in Spain so far has seemed to just taste like evil red wine with ice cubes. Blech. Tinto de verano is clearly the only way to go. Apparently Stephen gets funny looks when he orders one, which has led him to believe that tinto is a chick drink. But it still doesn't stop him from ordering them... :)

    There is still lots more to say, but today is the last day of classes (how quickly five weeks go by!) and I have my last exam coming up. Still to come: more about Granada and some pictures, helpful hints, and general impressions about MOROCCO! Yes! I have added the continent of Africa to my list of places I have been. Anyway, until then stay cool and happy adventuring!

*Olivia