A delicacies situation

Today I ended up standing in the middle of Salamanca’s Plaza Major downloading pornography. And I have to tell you I did not expect to be writing that when I woke up this morning.

Morning at school went well. I’m largely covering information I’ve been through more than once before but it just seems so much more real, so much less abstract and academic, doing it here.

After school I decided to visit Casa Lis which is a Museum of art nouveau and art deco. There was a wide range of pretty things from porcelain nudes, to bronzes, to Faberge eggs and diamond-encrusted dragonflies. There were also several rooms full of deeply disturbing old dolls – I fear all those staring eyes are going to give me nightmares. It was all very pretty and in a fabulous building, but I’m not sure it was worth the five euros it cost to get in. Frustratingly, they wouldn’t allow any photography and so this picture is from their website.

In the evening I set out to make use of my new-found knowledge of good shops from last night’s tour and buy some local delicacies for my evening meal. I started with the hornozo de Salamanca. This is a traditional bread, but more like a meat pie. It used to be eaten at Easter, but now it’s a year-round staple. It dates from the 1500s when the King decreed all the prostitutes had to leave the city for Easter so men would not be distracted from their holy duties. Some caring person decided the prostitutes should be welcomed back with warm bread and so the tradition of baking the hornozo on Easter Monday began. Or so they say.

The outing then turned a bid delicate. I was trying to find the recommended pastelería but got distracted by the Plaza Major. In the Plaza Major I got further distracted by the tourist office which had signs in the window for free tours and a web address to book them. I duly typed the address into my phone, or I should say mis-typed the address.

And really this is true, please believe me, my phone started download porn at a rate I couldn’t keep up with deleting. More and more and more pages and notifications kept popping up. Aaagh. I finally realised I was in a very explicit mess and so I did the obvious and turned off my phone.

Then I went to re-start it and found that the Spanish SIM card I am using requires a PIN – and of course I didn’t have the slightest idea what the PIN was. I am not entirely stupid so I did write the PIN down when I bought the SIM, or maybe I am entirely stupid because I wrote it down on my phone… So I was forced to retreat to my apartment to find the SIM and do some emergency checking that my phone wasn’t further compromised.

Setting out once again I finally discovered that the recommended pastelería was closed (to ‘give the staff a rest’). So I wandered about a bit trying to find a suitable alternative and found a shop selling marzipan. Which for me was, of course, a silver lining.

Th final element for the evening meal was a can of Kas Limon which is a really refreshing lemon drink we found last time we were in Spain.

And there we have the evening meal.