Good morning friends! I disappeared for much longer than I intended to (actually, I never intend to disappear), but as always- life happens. Side note, but I actually just received the email that it’s time to update my hosting service for this blog and renew it for another 3 years- time flies! Didn’t I just do this? When I first got the email, I thought “maybe I won’t renew it… maybe it’s time to stop”, but when I look back and see that I have been (pretty consistently) writing on here for 7 YEARS, I realize how much I love having a journal of sorts… even if there are large chunks of time missing because I write in this batch style, which I am about to do today…. so let’s get to it!
The day my parents left Madrid, I had to be up at 3.45 in the morning (*cringe*) to go to MercaMadrid, the largest distributor of food in Spain- this is where almost all of the food sold in restaurants comes from! Their fish distributor is the SECOND LARGEST IN THE WORLD! JUST AFTER JAPAN! And now that Spain has the longest life expectancy and Japan is #2 or 3, maybe you can see how it could be connected?! We had to be there by 5 am, because by 6 am, they are finishing up and things are closing down for the day!
Isn’t that crazy? These people spend decades of their lives getting up before 3 in the morning to sell the products or buy from the sellers. My alarm went off at 3.45 and after showering, getting dressed, and making a sandwich, I was outside waiting for an Uber at 4.01 am- how’s that for efficient?!
The tour itself was really cool- we learned a lot of about where the food comes from, how the process of buying and selling goes, and what to look for when purchasing.
We were finished touring the facilities (even the banana facilities, where they ripen the bananas, and the meat facility, where they have cow carcasses hanging everywhere) by 8 am, so we had a coffee in the cafeteria there. I love that no matter where you are in Spain, you can find a cafeteria with the basics: coffee, jamon, and tortilla de patatas. By the time I got home, I had this weird sleep-deprived energy, so I used it to get work done and then took a good 2 hour nap before heading to class.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, lots and lots of restaurants, per usual:
A little taberna in La Latina. Sarah (next to me) moved back to the states this week and I am SO SAD about it, but I am excited to see how successful she will be as a Physician’s Assistant!
Drinks on top of Corte Ingles Callao at sunset! Luis and I met two people there who found me through my blog! It was such a good night and we really enjoyed the conversations we had with them.
These were two (mediocre) smoothies from Frutas Prohibidas, which is a new place that opened in a location where we were looking for Bruja’s Bakery! We went to go see how they changed the place, and while we really liked the decorations, we were not impressed by the drinks.
We stopped by Sahauro in La Latina to snack on some Mexican food. We really wanted to have nachos, but they didn’t sound that great so we went for this chicken burrito and a michelada (to share) and both were incredible. We want to go back to try more!
Luis and I also went to Sushita on C/ Velazquez. They were full, so we had this yummy dinner at the bar and were probably the two most casually dressed in the whole restaurant. I told Luis I need to up my style game -haha
During San Isidro, we went to lunch with Luis’ mom and went to Reginella, a highly recommended Italian restaurant near our house. Unfortunately, it was actually quite disappointing- incredibly long wait times, and the pasta was mediocre AT BEST.
After the LOOOONNNNG lunch, Luis and I went to La Latina to see the San Isidro festivities. If you aren’t familiar with San Isidro- it’s the holiday to celebrate the patron saint of Madrid, but I also think it’s a holiday to have an excuse to have HUGE parties in the street and drink a lot. We saw lots of Chulapos y Chulapas doing the traditional dance- seen below – which is a lot harder than it looks!
This chulapa doesn’t look very happy, does she?!
Besides restaurants, lots of cooking and baking:
Pizza Bagel Testing
Homemade Challah
Bagels like always
Oh, a couple weeks back, on a Friday afternoon, we got to take a tour of the Mahou factory!
One of Luis’ university friends works for them, so we got to learn about the beer making process and then try all different types of beers. It was really interesting- look how huge the facility is!
It runs 24 hours a day! The interesting thing was that there were hardly any humans- just machines. The people sit in control rooms and watch everything on the computers, where they can make changes and adjust things if needed.
Last but not least, I spent the weekend doing an 8 hour CPR course with the Spanish Red Cross.
I’ve been CPR certified before, but I think this was the first time I ever really thought about / realized that knowing CPR can literally save someone’s life and the most important thing to do is to REACT and to do SOMETHING even if you don’t do it perfectly. It’s better to do something than to let someone die who could have been saved. If you aren’t CPR certified, I HIGHLY recommend you do so- they even have an online course that you can do in under 2 hours and while it’s not the same as doing it in person, some skill is better than none. Just imagine your child / parent / grandparent / friend / neighbor needing help, and you being able to do something to help. Completely worth it!
