Thank God Churros Are Vegan

So we made it to Alia's house (Emily's sister) just as planned around 3 in the afternoon Friday... which is crazy because we left San Francisco at 3 in the afternoon on Thursday!

The first thing I did was shower because airplanes are nasty and will give you syph if you don't. The next thing I did was sleep.  And I'm told I slept through 5 roommates coming and going for about 2 hours. I think Alia's apartment must be about 400 years old, so that makes a lot of sounds seem exaggerated.  Not that I cared. I was sleeping off the Ambien that Emily force fed me on the airplane hours earlier.

After waking up and realizing !Holy F*ck I'm in Spain!, I put on a tank and some sandals and we hit the town.  

First walking downtown to enjoy a beer and "tortilla" at Tapas 44 (basically Spanish style fast food...except wait, they also have Mickey D's, Starbucks, and Subway here.).  Anyway, the tortilla is basically a small omellete stuffed with potatoes... so you know Emily was not eating that. She had patatas bravas which are some pretty mean roasted potatoes covered in red sauce.  Apparently what we call breakfast is what Spain calls tapas.  I don't think they eat "breakfast" because they are just going home from the bar when most Americans are getting up for work.  In fact, I've been warned that this evening will include going to a nightclub that stays open until 7 am...we won't be getting there until 1:30am. !

Naturally, after we finished the tapas and beer we continued walking towards other food and beer opportunities.  Before that, however, we walked through two major plazas. Plaza Mayor, which is instantly reminiscent of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy.  Next was Plaza Sol where I took a bunch of photos.  Nothing says tourist better or more obviously than snapping pictures of yourself from above.  Oh yeah, I also noted the plethora of street performers, like the classic "gold man" and even more classic "gold guitar man" (personal fav!).

The time frame is important here, because it was about 9 pm, the weather was around 70 degrees F, and the city was literally in full swing.  I never saw so many people walking so closely together over cobblestone. It made my heart leap to arrive at the indoor market (roughly a miniature ferry building scene) and see people enjoying hearty glasses of wine and small delicacies nearing on 10pm.  We ate about 100 samples of almonds in there and Alia discovered that goji berries taste like soil, but are full of antioxidants and are totally worth eating.

Finally, we left that wino palace and got to our real destination... a vegan/vegetarian restaurant called Herba Buena.  Like all vegan/vegetarian restaurants in otherwise meat addicted cities, this place used an abundance of green, orange, and neon colors to attract guests who would otherwise be scared off by big words like spinach and seaweed. Everything there tasted great, from the guacamole amuse-bush, to my spinach loaf with Roquefort, to Emily's seitan steak (it really did look just like a steak to me).  The only gross thing was what they were calling a seaweed "caviar", which I'm sorry, tasted like pureed tuna.  All was not lost however, because it was served on top of a delicious piece of fried dough, which I chewed, swallowed, and digested in 4 and 1/2 seconds.

I thought our night would end there, what with all the belly grabbing and heavy sighing over how regrettably full we had become.  Yet, we still found ourselves at the churro shop, nearly ready for an order of churros and chocolate.  We tag teamed the waiter to get him to admit that even vegans will love these churros!  Flour, water, salt.  Of course, you are supposed to dip them in chocolate.  Which is what we will be having for breakfast today, probably around noon or 1pm.  Don't worry...I'll be eating all the chocolate while Emily thoughtfully makes one churro last for 15 minutes.  This is why she is skinny, people.

Our night ended in Plaza Santa Ana, which is absolutely gorgeous at midnight.  A large beautiful building is lit in purple against the night sky, the cafes are full of happy people drinking sangria like they're on vacation, and of course, there are kids running around on the playground like school just let out.  

All that and we still caught the last metro home by 1:30.  Alia was spit on by some gross old man in the metro station, but luckily she had a metro ticket to clean it up with.