July 26th, 2011

Exams are done!!! However, they were completely different than I expected… Art History was a breeze (I already found out that I got an A) and Culture had quite a few curve balls. I still think I did alright on Culture I just know for sure I had no clue on some of the matching ones where we had to pair the province with their specialty food.

After class I came home for lunch and then went running with Jenna. At 8:00 our Foodie Practicum met for tapas!! This time tapas was right down the street from my house! We were divided into three teams and we were given 50 euros. Each team had to go to three tapas restaurants and record what was their favorite tapa/tapa bar. On my team we had Aaron, Linda, Sarah M. and Carla! Andy also may be considered an honorary member of our team because he ate at nearly every bar with us. Aaron was in charge of making a blog post, Sarah was in charge of the money, and the rest of us were supposed to take turns being the waitresses and ordering at every place.

At the first restaurant we stopped at I had salpicon mariscos (one of my favorite tapas), Sara had potatoe salad in pork rinds, and Linda had patatas bravas. Aaron tasted his favorite tapa so far in Spain – mushrooms and olives I think?? It was all mixed up in a type of gravy, very delicious. Carla, being the native Spaniard (from Extremadura to be exact), knew exactly what to order. She had the morcilla (blood sausage) and it was unbelievable. I know it sounds scary but it is so tender and scrumptious. Here I also had my first Caña con limon! It is beer from the tap mixed with fanta limon – so refreshing.

At the second restaurant Andy joined us. At this restaurant I was the waitress and ordered everybody’s drinks and tapas. I had the artichokes, Carla and Aaron had the tigres (croquetas with mussels), Linda had stuffed pepper and Sarah had mussels. Fabulosa.

At the third restaurant, Devinos, I am thrilled to announce that I tasted my favorite food in Spain thus far! It blew me out of the water people. The horrible part is that it is only served in Salamanca!!! It is called huevos rotos con ferinato (broken eggs with ferinato). Ferinato is this terrific meat from pigs blended with bread. It is then reformed into a sausage and sliced up. The meat is so soft and tender, not tough at all. They combine this, with sliced potatoes into a frying pan filled with olive oil. Then, they top it all off with an egg over easy. I think I died and went to heaven. We ordered two! I could have stayed there all night to stuff my face, which is why on Friday everyone is returning there to celebrate my birthday and eat more ferinato!

I had such a blast tonight. It was so awesome talking to Carla and Andy and learning about them. Carla’s Camino de Santiago that she took with her GIEU students is now on my bucket list. I also have Carla to thank for introducing me to ferinato – she says she always eats this on her last night in Spain before she heads back to the United States.

After Tapas we all went out for MaryCarina’s birthday! It is always bound to be a great night when everyone goes out. As it happens, we had so much fun we didn’t come home until 3:30… Nearly all of level B was out this late and honestly I am really looking forward to seeing everyone in class tomorrow looking like death haha.

Me encanta Salamanca!!

Katherina