Christmas Eve Gangsters

Useful Spanish saying of the Day

"Me encuentro mal."

English translation:  "I'm getting sick."

This Christmas Eve, instead of putting ornaments on the tree, listening to the Little Drummer Boy, and sipping on hot-coco, I went across Madrid to pick up Abuela Titi - Manuel's grandma on his father Antonio's side of the family.  What I had done most of the day I don't quite remember.  Surely it was a mix of napping, reading 1984, napping again, eating, and more napping.  It's all kind of blurry still.  Anyway, sometime around 9pm, dinner time in Spain, Manuel's three brothers and I drove across town to escort grandma to dinner at the Fraile's apartment.  Dressed in Manuel's stylish jacket just barely large enough for me, wearing my nice $12 Moroccan shoes, and cruising round Madrid in a mini-van with 3 nearly identical, similarly well-dressed and combed over Spanish speakers- I had the not so discomforting feeling that I was a friend of the main Mafia-family and we were escorting the kingpin Godmother back to headquarters.  The click of my heels on the salmon colored walkway up to the apartment building and our seemingly tacit agreement of silence added to the effect.  I tried to keep from smiling lest I should ruin the moment.  It was pretty funny.  In my mind that is... ok, ok. Anyway, we got grandma.  We brought her back to the apartment and commenced operation "La Noche Buena." This is the name for Christmas Eve in Spanish and it translates to The Good Night. About as creative as Christmas Eve if you ask me.  This consisted of setting the table and having hors d'oeuvres from the sea. As you can see from the picture below...

this is the colorful (mostly red and pink) food typical of a meal from the northwest corner of Spain known as Galicia (the c pronounced as th in think).  Visible foremost in the picture is a big spider crab known as centollo, or in English, Spider crab.  The body is mostly removed but remaining in the shell, behind the eyes where I imagine the brain would be, is a soft brown cream that tastes like the sea.  Everyone usually takes a little spoonful of this brain-pudding then grabs a leg or two with which to wrestle for the chewy insides.  To the right in the picture above you can see gambas, or shrimp.  The Spanish wash the shrimp but serve them with head, shell, legs and all.  It's your job as the eater to clean your own damn food by disarming the little bastards and removing their chain mail and helmet.  As the meal progresses you can keep your body count by admiring the growing number of shrimp heads and legs piling on your plate.  I kind of like the Spanish mentality of, hey- I was kind enough to go out and buy the damn shrimp, you can clean them yourself.  It's minimalist.  It's minimalist, right?  Anyway, the Spanish pinch the heads off the gambas, suck the juice from the head, then remove the rest of the undesirable parts and gobble up the body.  In the picture below

you can see camerones, a smaller, cuter version of gambas.  These crunch in your mouth as the shells are too small to bother with but just large enough to offer resistance.  Finally, the orange blob pictured below is made of nécoras, Spanish for crabs.  Everybody gets a nécora and you remove the heavy plate of armor, tear apart the insides and savor the white meat within.

After these starters comes the pork dish with a side of mash potato purée, salsa de frambuesa (raspberry sauce), home made applesauce, and a rip of bread to clean the palate in between bites.  Altogether, with a little white whine to wash it down, the dish looks like this...

Here is the family altogether, American included.  After that mouth watering meal, the Useful Spanish saying of the Day comes in handy.  Fed with nothing but Dickinson College caf food for the last 4 months my body is still recuperating from the sudden change to Spanish delicacies.

After dinner I proceeded to school Manuel's twin brother Jaime in chess, finishing the night with a record of 1-1.  Slowly the evening unwound as the brothers drove Grandma Titi back to her hideout and each then slipped into their respective beds.  T'was la Noche Buena, when all through the apartment, not an animal was stirring, not even a rata.

Merry Christmas to all!  Hope you enjoyed the blog. There is more to come of my Spanish Christmas Adventure.  Much love from yours truly,
World Citizen

Feliz Navidad desde España

Just this morning (the 21nd), at the modest hour of nine o'clock Central European Time, my previously dark and serene plane ride over the Atlantic came to a jolting halt.  Heart pounding, I quickly calculated our likelihood of survival with glazed over eyes and fuzzy thoughts.  Fortunately, the pilots had displayed more fortitude and managed to resist the enticements of the dream world to which I had willingly, and graciously, submitted.  I wish I could remember the vivid, and seemingly ominous dreams I had aboard that Delta Airbus but as usually happens, if I don't write them down minutes after waking up, I lose them until years later they plague me as a vaguely familiar yet elusive moments of subconscious déjà vu.  Does that ever happen to anyone else?

Anyway, due to my change in flight, I had arrived early and was therefore sans ride from the airport.  Taking a cab with a pleasant driver of thirteen years named Rodrero,  I sat up front, as I always do, and attempted to converse in my rusty Spanish.  (I always introduce myself to my cab drivers because I figure they're less likely to screw you over if they know your name. Also, I think its a little more humane than just using the person's car and paying them.) Self-conscious but hell bent on ameliorating my Spanish as much as possible, I talked to Rodero about lo que pude.  The Spanish people never cease to surprise me with their outgoing and interested... well, cab drivers.  I cannot enumerate how many exceptional, funny, and often heartwarming experiences I have had in Spanish taxis.  I wonder what that says about its population? Is it possible to deduct something noteworthy about a society by the humanity of its taxi drivers? Personally, I'd like to think so, but who knows?
Anyway, Rodrero and I finally arrived at Manuel's apartment after a long traffic jam - made bearable only by his willingness to converse and share - and I went to pay him.  I was short .45 euro and he didn't have the necessary change to make it work so he let me slide.  As he handed me the bags from the back, I thanked him and realized I might have American change in my pocket.  I ended up giving him an American dollar coin that I received from the JFK air train ticket machine.  Obviously, he won't be able to use it but I just wanted him to know that I really wanted to pay him the correct amount.  A souvenir from his American friend.

I walked to Manuel's apartment door (his street picture above) and just as I realized I had no idea which buzzer was his, a woman walked out of the building opening the door.  This is the second time that this has happened offering me luck yet, simultaneously, preventing me from learning the damn thing!  I knocked on the wrong door asking where the Frailes lived and the woman couldn't tell me.  Isn't it so funny how one moment you can be so certain that you are where you're supposed to be but the next something completely frivolous and indeterminate makes you doubt everything?  I was so certain that their neighbor would know where they lived that I immediately doubted I was even in the right apartment building!  Asking a second man, this one on his way out, who didn't know either made the sweat start to bead on my brow.  I was in the neighboring barrio in the Frailes' apartment building's identical twin apartment building!  Before leaving altogether, I decided to knock on the first door - the one I was certain was not the Frailes'.  A familiar Arturo came to the door and I laughed at myself, embracing him for saving me.  He had some time to waste before his last exam so we killed some zombies in the living room before he headed out.  Apparently, putting the undead to rest is just as popular over here in the Old World.  Much to my embarrassment and against my best intentions to wait until the evening, I fell asleep several times waiting for Manuel to arrive home from school.
And here is where I stop caring.  It has been several days since I first wrote this ^ above and clearly I will not be able to go in such depth as before or else ya'll will never know what I've been up to.  Except for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which I will talk about at more length presently, the last four days have been a haze of jet lag induced naps, going to bed at 3 am, waking up a midday, doing very little activity but enjoying going around Madrid, re-learning my Spanish all over again, and indulging in some Mediterranean food.  The funny thing is though that Manuel and Jaime, the twins I am visiting, have been right there with me with the sleep schedule - and they had school until the day I arrived.  Manuel says he doesn't believe in jet lag and therefore has no sympathy, however, he has the same sleep schedule... interesting.  Anyway, I tell myself my sleeping pattern is only temporary...