Saturday, February 11, 2012

France/Spain 2011 - Day 12, Part 4 - Santiago

"Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." - H. L. Mencken

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France/Spain 2011
Day 12 - 28th March - Santiago
(Part 4)

After exiting the cathedral, I sat on the terrace of a cafe and had a campari to remind me of the bitterness of life.

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Cathedral from cafe

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3 prices: bar, table and terrace

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Cathedral from terrace

Then, disaster struck. I passed my camera to my sister to help me take a photo, but she didn't take it properly and dropped it onto the pavement, whereupon it stopped working (the lens couldn't even retract; it was pronounced unreparable at an economic cost), so I had to fall upon my inferior phone. So the F in Fuji stands for "Fragile" as well; in contrast my previous Canons and Nikon had worked fine despite occasional falls. The only consolation was that this tragedy came when my sightseeing was essentially over.

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Floor plaque. It's something about the Pilgrimage.

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Santiago Tart

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Another pilgrim, who looked Latin American. This one wasn't as stylish as the previous one, and worse - his assistant asked for money. I gave 0,5€. Maybe he was a fake pilgrim despite the scallop shell on his back.

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Some building

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This place had the cheek to sell canned peaches and canned pineapples in syrup.

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Cross in street

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Helluva lotta ice cream - 12 scoops for 18€. It didn't scale though, at 2 for 2,5€. Maybe they failed maths (or maybe it was a takeaway price).
They had nectarine gelato - the first time I'd seen such. I tried some and it was like biting into a ripe nectarine.

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Kitchenware shop with plate for octopus

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More shop window stuff

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Shortest siesta ever. Yellow people bring lots of advantages to Spain!

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Mannikin in suit. Look carefully - it's a female model.

We then looking for dinner.

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5€ for those???

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I'd feel ashamed if I had Wall's Ice Cream on my menu. Note that it's certified by the restaurant and hospitality association.


Live lobster

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Live lobster on plate

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Mussels with olive oil and ???
It had funny spices

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Fried chili peppers

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Seafood platter: scallopm lobster, prawns, razor clams, clams, goose barnacles, mussels

The goose barnacles were horribly disgusting.

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Freaky alien shit

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Note the alien growths and menacing appendages

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One was supposed to try and bite and suck them.

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It didn't help that they tasted like seawater.

Spanish meat is better than their seafood, and the Goose Barnacles cauterised my evaluation.

The woman at the restaurant was very nice. I wanted to wash the scallop shells in the toilet to keep as souvenirs, and she passed me two pre-washedones.

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Grape Marc Cake, with a lot of wine

I wasn't satisfied by Goose Barnacles, so I headed to one of the rare kebab shops - which strangely wasn't run by Turks.

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Kurdistan map and flag, with Saddam Hussein facial hair man.

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Funny, Kurdish specialities look a lot like Turkish ones. They were out of Lahmacun, one of their "Kurdish Specialities".


Virtually all restaurants in Spain were Spanish. There weren't even Latin American restaurants. So much for the colonial backflow.

Spanish credit card machines aren't as smart as French ones - they don't change languages automatically.
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