Reflections on Spain

Well here I am, back in Canada after my semester abroad in Spain. So I thought I’d use this blog entry to write about some interesting things I noticed during my time over there:

I lived in the neighbourhood called Salamanca. This is the richest neighbourhood within the city (before you jump to conclusions about me, I lived there because my school was there, not because I am a spoiled fancy boy or anything!). As a result, I’d become accustomed to being surrounded by people dressed impeccably well. All the time. I remember one day I needed to go to the grocery store quickly to pick up some milk. It was a 5 minute trip and for such a trip in the past (in Canada), that meant a hoodie and flip flops. But now, I thought “wait a minute…I’m going to look like a bum compared to everyone else. I can’t have that! Better put on something nice.” My oh my had I become “pija”! (spanish for “posh”) I NEVER thought that would happen to me but there it was…

Cheeses and meats are MUCH cheaper in Europe than in North America. For example, a mozzarella ball in Spain: 55 cents. Here, $8.  Very unfortunate state of affairs here. I ate very, very well in Spain. 

Breakfast cereals in Spain are a bit different too. Here and in Spain, the “healthy” cereals are basically the same- Corn Flakes, Special K (although the Special K in Spain is SO much better than ours!! I love it so much I brought some home with me haha), etc. Our sweet cereals in North America have a pretty big range- honey, chocolate, cinnamon, frosted, fruit flavours (i.e. fruit loops), other (such as French toast crunch). However in Spain for some reason, sweet cereals are: honey, chocolate or frosted flakes. That is all. I can’t believe things like Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Sugar Crisp wouldn't sell in Spain. I wonder what the business reason is behind such a lack of variety?

One of the big reasons why I love Spain is how chilled out people are. For example, if I tell you I will do something, you can trust that it WILL get done, without a need to create a formal agreement stipulating every minute term or condition, etc. I noticed this on day one dealing with my landlord and found myself becoming this way as well by the time I left Spain. I really like the idea of being able to actually trust people’s word and not worrying that you are going to get screwed somehow.

Madrid has one of the best Metros in the world (in fact, that statement is part of their slogan).However until I lived here I never realized how crazy interchange stations were (that is, at a station, you switch from one line to another). The lines at every station are SO FAR apart!! It’s nuts. If you need to change lines, that instantly adds 5-7 minutes to your journey in walking from one train all the way to another. Also, most metros in the world have timers at each station telling you when the next train is due in the station. In Toronto, if it says “3 minutes” it always feels closer to 1. In Madrid, “3 minutes” really is 3 minutes. So prepare to wait!  That being said, Madrid’s metro is still pretty freaking awesome. I enjoyed riding it (and have the metro chime as my ring tone now!).

Pretty much everyone that knows me knows my time in Spain was probably the happiest 4 months of my entire life. I absolutely loved it there and sincerely hope I have a chance to return one day. But first, I have an MBA to finish in Toronto!!

A trip through Basque Country

I had been dying to go to Basque Country for years for a few reasons:

·         The beach in San Sebastian is apparently the best in Spain and the best city beach in Europe

·         Basque food is among the best in the world

·         Basque people are some of the nicest, fun people I have ever met

So when I had a long weekend this past weekend, I decided to capitalize. Me and some of my exchange classmates took a drive up north!

The first thing you notice upon arrival is that Basque country looks quite different from most of the rest of Spain. Most of the Iberian peninsula is dry and pretty flat. Basque Country is quite mountainous and green. Also, every sign is in Basque, not Spanish. The Basque language has no linguistic relatives anywhere in Europe so the words are pretty different. If you are in Spain and see a word with “x”-es or “k”-es in it, it is probably Basque.

First stop for me was Bilbao, the capital of Basque Country on Friday night/Saturday morning,. The city is however, pretty tame, harkening back to its roots as an industrial city. Pretty chilled out crowd. Nothing wrong with that but a far cry from Madrid, for example. What was pretty cool though was visiting the Guggenheim museum. As you may know, it was designed by Frank Ghery- a Canadian!- so I felt like it was my patriotic duty to pay a visit. The architecture of that building is amazing. It is also located right on the Bilbao River. The Guggenheim was part of a city revitalization project and all along the river you can really see that at work. The view is awesome with lots of cool architecture and landscapes and there are some amazing running paths along the river. If I lived in Bilbao I’d definitely be going for runs there constantly!

Something else interesting to note is that Bilbao has a smaller population than Ottawa and is more compact of a city. However Bilbao has: a metro line, tram lines and buses. Ottawa has only buses. Ottawa really needs to get its act together! It's transit system is so behind in the times! Goodness…But anyways, I wanted to maximize my time in San Sebastian so my time in Bilbao was quite short. On to the main event!

In Basque Country their version of tapas are called “pintxos” and are considered the best in the country. So I of course ate a ton of them and they didn’t disappoint. Every meal I ate was basically perfect. What restaurants here typically do is lay out a bunch of different pintxos across the bar. You then pick the ones you want and just eat them (or the chef prepares them for you if they are out of a particular pintxo at the bar at the moment). The bill eventually comes later. Menus do exist from which you can order stuff but I don’t think that’s the “normal” way to eat in these parts. Even if you hate seafood (like I do), the food is so fresh and well-made that it doesn’t matter. I even liked the seafood that I tried here. It was great.

The main beach in San Sebastian, playa de la concha, is pretty awesome. Because San Sebastian isn’t a very big city, it is really easy to get to it from almost anywhere in town. The beach itself is what you’d expect in a solid Mediterranean beach. Although because San Sebastian is in the north, the water was pretty cold. Not a problem when it is 35 degrees and sunny outside but I prefer warm sea water to cold, personally. I’m not really sure why Playa de la Concha is so highly considered- I liked the beach in Valencia just as much, but whatever…

The weekend I arrived also happened to be the weekend of a uniquely basque event, the trainera, which is basically a rowing race. The main trainera of the year happened to be this past weekend in the ocean by playa de la concha. So there were people EVERYWHERE watching the boat racers, people decked out in their favourite rowers’ team colours, etc. It was pretty cool to experience that first-hand!

And after stuffing my face and getting tanned, it was time to get back to reality. Off to Madrid for more studies!

Reflections on my UK adventure

Hey Guys!

So I am back in Canada now, internship all done. So it is time to reflect on the highlights and lowlights of my stay in London.

Lowlights

·         THE WEATHER.

o   As you may know, it was the coldest, rainiest, cloudiest summer in London in 250 years. I didn’t expect this at all which meant I packed incredibly inappropriately for the weather. It felt like it was November every day which made me depressed and uncomfortable almost constantly. And, because I was on an intern’s salary, it wasn’t like I could just get up and go to a warmer place on the weekend either. I was stuck, forced to suck it up for 3 months. Pretty annoying!

·         The cost of living for the most part.

o   Food at the grocery store is really cheap and museums are free. Everything else is crazy expensive by North America and mainland EU standards. A general rule is as follows: Take the price in dollars, change the dollar sign to a £ sign and that is the price of that product in London. That means everything in London is 1.56x the price in Canada (at today’s exchange rate). And again, on an intern’s salary, this minimizes the amount of fun you can have when you are always worried about expenses!!  

Depressing stuff, right? But never fear, I do have some good things to say too!

The Highlights

·         The food. I can’t say enough good things about the food in London.

o   In North America we are used to chain quick service restaurants (i.e. Tim Horton’s or Dunkin Donuts) having average food at best. In London, those sorts of places serve fresh food that is delicious and cheap. This was pretty great stuff!

o   The markets- Borough, Camden, Portobello, etc have such a range of such fresh and delicious food from peruvian to indian. So buying from these markets really helped make every meal perfect and delicious! 

o   Because there is such a huge immigrant population in the city and because of the UK colonial history, there is a TON of culinary variety in the city and you can get some pretty amazing meals for reasonable prices.

o   The meat and cheeses you buy at the grocery store are ½ the price they would be in Canada if not even cheaper. And it is all incredibly fresh and delicious stuff. So if you like to cook like I do, this was a huge plus and cost-saver!

·         Visiting Newcastle

o   I’d never in my life ever experienced a city like that (and I’ve been to some pretty crazy places). Based on the conversations I had with the people I met there, it seems like North Americans are unaware of Newcastle or what goes there (maybe because what goes on in Newcastle, stays in Newcastle…haha). But seriously, if you like to go out for a night on the town and have some fun, Newcastle, it’s people (“Geordies”) and its culture must be witnessed first-hand.  

·         My internship

o   You can read my linkedin profile to see the real business-y stuff I did but basically, having the opportunity to take a real leadership role in a business and see that business be hugely successful was incredibly rewarding and awesome!!  Knowing I could be a team leader and see success has me excited for when I get into the real world again post-MBA. 

·         The Olympics

o   Being in the city where the entire planet is focused was an absolutely incredible experience. It was so fun meeting people every day from all over the world, experiencing other cultures at each country’s “country houses” (that is, basically large banquet halls that each country uses to celebrate its own athletes at the Olympics, promote its culture and such) and seeing history get made right in front of my eyes. So cool!!

Anyways, now I am back home in Ottawa detoxing from my England adventure for a few days. Then back to Toronto for some meetings and to see my friends and then…MADRID!!!! 

Food adventures

As you guys may know, I am a "foodie". Here in London, there is so much diversity of food and so much quality that I have been eating exceedingly well here. Not in the sense of eating a lot, but in the sense of eating quality again and again. Part of that is due to the markets here in London. I'm not sure why this is but London has a ton of huge open-air markets all over the city. Many sell fresh, authentic food from all over the world and random arts and craftsy sort of stuff. The food part is what interests me which is what this blog post is about.

I'll take you through my experience at 2 of the best-known ones in the city plus some other food stuff:

Camden Market
This is like Queen Street in Toronto on crack. The main Camden Street has tons of crazy stores that sell all sorts of things from weird t-shirts to hookah pipes. Off the actual street is the market. Here are a bunch of stalls selling food from every possible country you could think of- turkish, peruvian, italian, chinese, israeli, etc. Almost every stall gives out free samples so you can get tons of free (and delicious) food which is awesome. Also awesome is that the food you actually can buy is pretty cheap (you can get a fresh pizza for about $5.50!) and also delicious.

At this market is also this shop called "chin chin labs" where they make icecream using liquid nitrogen! The place has a giant liquid nitrogen tank and vats of the liquid component of icecream. What they do is put the liquid icecream component into an icecream mixer followed by some liquid nitrogen pumped out of the liquid nitrogen tank. The ice cream mixer then mixes the 2 together. Because the liquid nitrogen is almost like a gas though, the resulting icecream doesn't have the same texture of normal icecream. It is much smoother, pure and tasty.

Borough Market
My favourite of the 2 markets. Like Camden, there are stalls selling food from everywhere you could imagine. However the stalls look a lot less commercial (and less tacky). They are more open-aired too so you can see more of the authentic food being prepared. For example, at one of the cheese stands, I saw a woman preparing fresh mozzarella balls, right there on the spot! Camden's food stalls sell more meal-type food. Like, you can buy a pad thai dish, a serving of paella, etc. Borough has more of the typical stuff you'd expect in a market. That is, you can buy veggies, olive oils, breads, etc to bring home and use in preparing your own dishes.

That's not to say though, that Borough doesn't have food you can eat on the spot. It is mostly things involving bread and some sort of meat, i.e. a chorizo sandwich, frankfurters, etc. (or you could always buy a block of cheese and eat it on the spot too...) The prices for such stuff run around $6 which is kind of a bummer but whatever, this is not the main purpose of this market anyways!

Top 100 Dishes
Time Out London recently issued its top 100 dishes in the city. (you can find the list here) Some of these dishes are quite expensive. So I am planning to try as many as I can of those that are $6 or less. The list has been an amazing guide. So far my eating experiences have been fantastic. In fact, the chorizo sandwich I at in Borough Market is on the list and did not disappoint (even if it wasn't very filling).

Delicious times in London!