Less than a month left...

I know that most of you read my blog during your work week but I decided I'd post one more time before I go to Rome for the weekend.  Yup, no big deal.  Just gonna spend my weekend in Roma, Italia.

I can't believe I've already been living here for over a month, that I've become a regular at Picadero, the restaurant/bar downstairs from the IES center where they greet me with "Hola Guapa".  In just five weeks, I've settled into a routine I can get used to.  I have my rituals like café con leches and croissants every Monday and Wednesday and the special things I treat myself to like fried spinach croquettes or ice cold horxata while walking around the city. Still, I miss my family and my closest friends so I do the thing that makes me feel most at home: I cook.

Bruschetta by Diana #1 (me)

with warm white bean spread on the bread

Vegetable quiche by Diana #2

After work I usually have to make at least one thing in the kitchen.  And when I'm not cooking or dying from the heat and humidity that's just sprung up on us this past week (Greetings Summer, I forgot I don't love you), I'm eating.  I mentioned Picadero before...

Patatas bomba

Fried potato balls stuffed with spicy tomato sauce and served on a dollop of

garlic alioli with brava (hot) sauce on top

And what's home without Asian food?  I could never live in such a place... 

My go-to Asian grocery

I love taking Carrer Tallers from La Rambla to La Plaça Universitat where I teach English because I get to do things like this: 

12 croquettes for the price of 6 (4.5 euro)

On my walk to work I always take a moment to spy on the cats that nap in the shade of the trees on university property.  We shared a little croquette with these guys. 

Next stop on the way to work:

Yummy chilled horchata

Any my actual workplace: 

I teach English classes in Casa Uruguay which rents an apartment space from Casa Menorca, a space funded by the Menorcan government to provide resources/services to Menorca natives living in Barcelona.  Hence the restaurant Espai Menorca I mentioned way back.


If you keep walking past my building, you'll see puzzle mania that has this strange man standing in front of it as a sort of lure..I guess..

My friends don't usually come to work with me but I showed them around the area because it's so great.  It's young and fits the university atmosphere.  It actually makes me miss Wes. 


On the way back, we bumped into a treasure of a find.  I had never noticed it before but it was an antique used book store, the kind that should have gone out of business ages ago and yet manages to stay afloat by some magical character.  Among the shelves I found a book from which I had once read an excerpt, a book by Alejandro Jodorowsky, an extremely disturbed filmmaker who would draw inspiration from the strangest of places and then produce movies like "Holy Mountain" (which I reluctantly watched for class).  

I partook in a discussion just about the photo and what it meant

Oh Wesleyan...

The magical treasure trove of books

I made two purchases for 10 euro:
1.  "Borges oral" by Jorge Luis Borges, a collection of lectures he gave at La Universidad Belgrano in five parts based on (1) the book [as a literary form and product of the genius of humankind], (2) inmortality, (3) Emanuel Swedenborg, (4) The police story [like Poe's works], and (5) time.  
2.  "La mala hora" by Gabriel García Márquez, a book I purchased in pocket edition because hey, why wouldn't I?  Gabo hasn't let me down yet.


So I finally left the magical bookstore and headed back home where we made a giant plate of nachos for dinner (along with some chappaghetti for you Koreans who know what that is).  And that's my life.  There are those of us Americans here who go out clubbing and getting wasted for a good time out here in Barcelona and there are those of us nerding it out wherever we go.  I'm of the latter category.

Melted cheese, pico de gallo with corn, refried beans

What was missing: jalapeños, sour cream, guacamole

Now I only have about 4 hours to sleep before I have to catch my flight so peace y'all.  I'll be back with a more interesting post next time.