D116 - First paella experience

This afternoon was all about the search for food. A place around the corner from us was advertising a 'paella with ribs' special on their menú del día and Thomas wanted to check it out. We stopped in about 1 but they said the paella wouldn't be ready until 2:45. I couldn't wait that long so we went to find something to tide me over until paella time. We tried the restaurant in Plaza Santa Ana where we'd had a salad the day of our arrival, but their oven wasn't working yet (or something like that - my Spanish is a little rusty so I'm not quite sure). We picked another place on the plaza but quickly got up and left after we saw the prices on their menu. Yikes! Finally we walked to the beautiful Plaza Mayor and I ended up with a mediocre salad. We returned to the original restaurant and waited about 15 minutes until Thomas' long-awaited paella was finally ready. Unfortunately, after all that build up he didn't even like it! I had some tapas – brie & roasted peppers on bread and some kind of ham. I'm not big on ham, but it seems to be quite central to the diet here so I felt I had to give it a shot. Our first Spanish meal turned into a 3-hour saga and would have been quite the let down if not for the sangría, which was wonderful. Nothing like a pitcher of sangría to put a smile back on your face!

We puttered around the rest of the day, took a few pictures of the neighborhood, Thomas did laundry, I took a nap. Yes, I know. The division of labor has been a bit one-sided on this trip, but just wait until we get home...

At about 10:30 in the evening we walked over to Café Central, voted one of the best jazz clubs in the world by some magazine or other. We heard the Walter Malosetti Quartet from Argentina. Hey, we were just there! We ended up sitting next to Walter's wife and got to chit chat with her a bit about the Perito Moreno Glacier. The music was great, and we split some fantastic pasta, too. The only problem was the smoke. We ended up leaving in the middle of the second set because we just couldn't take it. It was barely midnight – way too early to call it a night, so we headed to Chocolatería San Ginés, a place famous for its churros since 1894. Enjoyable, but it was no Maestro Churro!

-Elva