Chicken Tits and Turtle Orgasms

Chicken tits and turtle orgasms caused a lot of noise-making and general debauchery in my apartment this weekend.

For weeks now, I’d promised a group of Spanish friends that I would cook barbecue chicken for them. As a Kansas City native, I take much pride in the various sauces that have glazed my meats over the years. One time in the Haze of Weekends Past I misspoke and called chicken breasts “tetas de pollo” instead of “pechugas de pollo” (chicken tits instead of breasts). Hence how I earned my nickname, Tetas de Pollo. There’s one to make the mother proud!

Saturday night, four wild Spanish women showed up at my apartment promptly at 10:20 (they said they’d arrive at 10, 20 minutes late is very early for Spaniards…). They came bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh:  an assortment of whiskey, wine, and beer to accompany the chicken tits I was cooking.

The dinner started with an inordinate lack of conversation from these fluid conversationalists– only forks clanking plates, and sounds of “mmm.” Finally, one woman broke the silence with an exclamation of “Que rico!” How rich! Followed by all of them interjecting about how delicious the barbecue was. I puffed out my chest and smiled proudly.

After dinner and cleanup, we focused more on the whiskey, wine, and beer. They called more friends, I called more friends, and soon my living/dining room was filled with loud Spanish women, an American dude, and a quiet Mexican woman. You can imagine the cacophony.

We left my apartment at about 2:30 and spent the rest of the night scampering about town.

The following night, my roommates cooked succulent enchiladas and we had “family dinner” as we call it (served at midnight, as goes Spain). We’re a pretty boisterous group, with equally boisterous and loud laughs. These increased exponentially when one of my roommates pulled up this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMAyMNE6vY of a turtle orgasming.

Pretty soon, our doorbell buzzed. We froze with wide eyes, as our doorbell is both an alarming sound and we weren’t expecting anyone. Travel Buddy graciously went to answer the door and received a barrage of scolds from our old neighbor from below, yelling that he couldn’t sleep tonight or the night before.

We all tried to quiet down, but when you enjoy each others’ company with such vigor, this is very difficult.

Maybe next time I’ll just invite Angry Old Spaniard up for chicken tits. Win him over with some KC barbecue.

Dear God, John Deere?!

I absentmindedly stare out the bus window on my daily 45 minute ride up a mountain to university. Usually I just read the splatters of gallego separatist graffiti on the buildings and let my thoughts wander. Today, my ambient thoughts were interrupted by a humorous surprise.

A scruffy and dirty Galician farmer rolled down the other side of the road on a splendidly green (accented with yellow) John Deere tractor.

Tractors and Amish buggies are everyday sights in Kirksville, Missouri, but on the streets of Vigo– the largest and most commercial city in Galicia, mind you–not so much.

I felt my stomach tug… “Tengo mariña” (I’m homesick) combined with the confounding emotion of  “Oh shit, I only have a month and a half left here” feeling, mixed in with the bus swaying up the mountain, and my head was spinning.

Soon, I will be driving down the roads in Kirksville and see tractors a plenty, but there will be no separatist graffiti to be seen.

Beer and Bratwursts in Bavaria

I basically ate my way through Munich. Within hours upon my arrival to the capital of Bavaria (a state of Germany), my gracious host, a friend also studying abroad, whisked me away to Haufbrauhaus for my first taste of authentic German beer and food.  “You have to order a mass,” she instructed me. I obeyed. The smiling waiter brought me an impressive sized (what we in the states would probably consider a pitcher) mug of cold beer. After my friend translated almost the entire menu on my behalf, I ordered a plate of fat Regensburger bratwursts, complete with sauerkraut.  We toasted our masses around the table, with a hearty “Prost!” and clank of the mugs. And then the dinner began. The 1/8^th of me that is German enveloped the rest of my mixed heritage with such a sense of appetite fulfillment, I thought I’d found the holy grail of meals.

Whether it’s a strong, top-fermented Weizenbock or a pale Helles, drank in a bier garten or restaurant, the German consumption of beer plays a role in both the country’s history and modern culture. A purity law instated in the late 1400s called the Reinheitsgebot (German Beer Purity Law) regulated that the only ingredients allowed in German beer were barley, hops, and water. As a precondition for German unification in 1871, the Bavarians, who wrote the Rienheitsgebot originally, insisted on the application of the law throughout Germany.  Though this law has since been lifted, beers brewed today in accordance to traditional beer laws are treated with special consideration. Breweries can be found throughout Germany with as much frequency as carbonation bubbles in the beers, though Bavaria claims the most breweries and greatest array of beer.

Bratwurst, like beer, varies by region in Germany. Regional varieties change in size, texture, taste, and preparation. The oldest known type of bratwurst in Germany is the Thuringer Rostbratwurst, spicy in taste and generally served with mustard and bread. I tasted at least four different types of bratwurst, including Currywurst— a strange infusion of Indian cuisine with German. The Currywurst is a brat served covered in a sweet curry sauce and sprinkled with curry powder, resulting in a delightful tangy bite.

I almost missed my plane out of Munich, having spent most of my weekend with eyes glazed by the joys of beer and bratwurst. After I returned once more to the vineyard-filled country of Spain, my taste buds directed me to the imported beer section of the grocery store. The same great flavor of German beer can be experienced in a bottle, but nothing beats clanking a mass full of ale and an enthusiastic “Prost!”

La Bajita Drinks like a Giant

I woke up exhausted at 2 PM on Sunday, after going to bed at 9 AM. I couldn’t sleep. I still had rum pumping through my body and making my skin feel like it was dripping off my arms and legs. So in a half state of consciousness, I began whittling the hangover away with some internet video watching and mindless facebook chatting.

At 3PM, a Spanish friend (here on referred to as La Bajita, which means endearing short girl, in love of course), signs onto facebook and begins chatting with me. La Bajita is using slang left and right and I’m frantically on wordreference.com trying to understand her, sounding things out, asking for clarification. Then she mentions that she’s still up from partying the night before. That explains a few things that I just couldn’t understand…

For La Bajita, and an entourage of Spanish friends I enjoy hanging out with, this is typical behavior. While for me on the other hand, two nights (not even consecutive!) of staying up til 9 AM and I’m sniffling with a contracted sickness from exhaustion.

With only about a month left, I feel like it’s my time. I’ve trained for this. This is my marathon. My endurance is so close. I just have to start the race. I will stay out all night, and all day. I will be a true Spaniard- this is how you earn your citizenship after all.

And I will drink La Bajita under the table.

When Icelandic Volcanoes Erupt

Who knew that one should check seismic pressures before traveling? Because of the Icelandic volcano that erupted and clogged Europe’s airways with dangerous ash, most air traffic squealed to a halt. I left my home in Vigo on that fateful Thursday to try to go on a weekend vacation to London, via the Madrid airport (I have to fly there from where I live to get almost anywhere else). I arrived in the spilling-over-with-angry-passengers airport with an unusable ticket to London, sin mobile phone, sin laptop. Cursing Icelandic volcanoes, I spun around in circles for a bit. Umm… help?

Of course I didn’t grasp the scope of the problem, and with valid return tickets in hand, I barred my teeth and told myself I’d make it to London. Thus ensued four days of trying to push my way to the British Isles through other means of transportation than air travel. Yes, me and every British person on the continent were fighting for ferry fares and train tickets. I successfully booked two train tickets, one from Madrid to a small town in the south of France, and from said small town to Paris. With the warm blanket of success wrapped around my travel-weary self, I slept easily that night, almost tasting the Earl Grey tea I expected upon impending arrival.

The train to the Hendaya, France, carried me through curvaceous countryside, undulating with ripples of foothills leading to the Pyrenees.  Contentedly waiting for my train to Paris, self-assured I could easily catch the Chunnel when I arrived, I overheard some other travelers chatting about the chaos caused by the volcano. Then I heard “Chunnel booked til Tuesday.” This was on Saturday. I bolted to a pay phone and called my parents. Yep, looked pretty much like I’d be stuck in Paris if I boarded the train. I started troubleshooting with my parents: “Ok… train for Paris to Cannes, ferry from Cannes to Portsmouth, train for Portsmouth to London…” crying, out of desperation and exhaustion.  My wonderful mother calmly advised me: “Meg, maybe you should head back to Vigo, hon.” Lip quivering, I agreed. First step, get back to Spain.

I hopped a train to the Basque Country, an autonomous province of Spain (that houses a separatist terrorist group, ETA), situated in the Pyrenees. With a train ticket to Madrid and a bus ticket to Vigo the next day, I resigned myself to watching the sunset over the mountains. My resignation turned into embrace of the scenery. The sun painted the sky with pinks and blues and the promise of the adventures that a new day brings.

After filling my camera with the sunset’s palette of colors, I reflected over my failed trip to London over some tapas (small servings of Spanish food). Travel is about improvisation, and I had improvised my way all across Spain, into France, and back again. I really hadn’t had a failed trip, just a different trip. A stressful, everyday not knowing if I’d have a place to stay the night trip. But a train, a bus, a missed bus stop, and a taxi later, I arrived in my foreign home.  Glad to finally take my backpack off, I sighed and started searching for cheap flights to London in a few weeks.

You just can’t let one volcano knock you off your travel horse.

KC, Barcelona, not SO different.

Mercat de la Boqueria—or the Boqueria Market in Barcelona is a lively, modern food market, purposely situated off of la Rambla, a heavily-pedestrian-travelled road, to bring in the most clientele. I set out early in the morning (relatively speaking, given “Spanish time,” getting up at 8 am is quite early), to watch the goings-on before the market becomes inundated with pesky tourists. I realize that I myself am a tourist, but I have this strange inclination to not consider myself one. Perhaps this is because I currently boast a Spanish address, or speak a little of the language, or am not nearly as rude as some I’ve seen. Despite my foreign nationality, La Boqueria rewarded my early arrival with observations only available in the morning.

The energy, the zest—the vendors ready-ing their wares. Cutting mushrooms, slicing fat off large slabs of meat. Orders taken on tiny notepads as vendors yell quantities to men with carts. There is an art to the assortment of fruit—the colors like rainbows of juice. Peel, press-labeling the meat, cheese in size, in price, in marketability. Stories traded by locals with smiling mouths of satisfaction. Keepers smoke while they wipe a display case clean—sweeping the walkway around the shop.  Then I notice the wide-eyed (like always) tourists, eyes spread to try to take in the array of colors, people. I imagine living close-by and making daily trips to buy fresh, cook fresh, live fresh. A woman walked by holding a scarf to her nose—it is an olfactory assault here—smells up and down the food pyramid. Bags of shell fish, oysters, in thick nets. A man slaps slabs of fish onto display hooks for those chefs imaginative enough to turn the raw into a refined dish.  Steaming octopus, suckers and all, waits to be cut up and served in the style of Galicia (the best way to eat octopus, even Barcelona admits it). Seafood is sold still writhingly alive, as though grasping for the ocean it will never feel again.

A little jolted by the scary-fresh lobsters, I felt a sudden tug for my hometown—Kansas City. The City Market in downtown Kansas City is the region’s largest farmers’ market bringing in fresh, locally produced food.  La Boqueria is like a cramped, busier, more eclectic City Market, but nonetheless has a very similar feel. While living abroad has augmented my world perspectives, sometimes things close to home are just as cool.

Bisexual, not to be confused with slut

If you’re bisexual… that’s great. Congrats on feeling attraction to both sexes.
But don’t use this alternative lifestyle to warrant sluttiness. If you are touching a girl at the beginning of the night, end the night with her! if you’re touching a guy, end the night with him!

Don’t make excuses for being a horny slut just because you are bi.