el primer día

El Primer Día
28 August 2009
Barcelona, Spain

Vivo en Barcelona.

Last night I arrived, and we turned on the tv: I wanted to hear the Spanish. Ley y Orden was on. It seems I may not have been kidding when I said I would learn Spanish from Law and Order! Immediately I learned a sentence through the familiar beginning: "Estas son sus historias."

Today I went to the Boqueria market and got supplies for dinner: 2 dorade, chanterelles, red peppers. When I bought the fish, I think the fishmonger was thinking, "What is this tourist going to do with this fish? Is there a kitchen in her hotel room?"

I got the chanterelles from the mushroom stall that I remember so clearly from my visit to Barcelona this past January.

I spent most of the day cleaning up and unpacking. When Byron came home, he started looking up recipes for dorade online, and we found scaling the fish was necessary, as well as reputedly quite annoying. We also lacked most other items called for in the recipe. (We need a grill!)

Byron offered to go and pick up meat, but I was excited to cook the Mediterranean staple on our first night eating in, so on the way back from my run, I picked up carrots and potatoes to bake under the fish and the ingredients for a beurre blanc sauce. The recipe called for white wine vinegar, but I was moved by the different kinds offered at Corte Ingles and instead chose Jerez vinegar over chardonnay and muscat.

Tonight we are going to our first IESE party at Lars, Kathy, and their flatmate's place on C/ Valencia, which is just one street down from where we ate last night. A short paseo away!

Tomorrow we are picking up a rental car from the airport and heading on our first Catalonian adventure. On Sunday we are going to Vilafranca for the celebration of its patron saint, San Felix. Vilafranca celebrates with castellers competitions. Teams compete at building the tallest human or towers. In the meantime, we haven't decided where we're headed, north towards the Costa Brava or south toward Tarragona.

I'll report back. x