Salamanca and Avila

We've been horribly hectic in August- running training, respective hen's/buck's nights, putting things in boxes and roping our kind friends into helping us with the move, paperwork, sending things to Australia and planning the Camino de Santiago... Even though we're on holidays (well, technically unemployed) we haven't had much time to enjoy the freedom.

So we decided to go to Salamanca for a few days. I originally wanted to swing by Leon as well for the free tapas, but we finally decided to go to Avila, an hour and a half by bus from Salamanca. (Photo: view from our hostel room in Salamanca)

People have been telling me since I arrived two years ago that Salamanca was a must-visit place, and I always thought it would be nice to go, but was never too fussed about it until Beza casually mentioned that it's famous for roast piglet.

We bought train tickets on Monday and on the Thursday headed off into piglet country. Aside from the food, Salamanca really is a very attractive city. It has a huge plaza, the oldest university in Spain, which we visited, and a great cathedral amongst other things.

We arrived pretty late in the afternoon, so skipped the sightseeing and headed straight for the 'free' tapas. Basically for between 1.80 and 2.20, you get a beer and a tapa, pretty expensive for the beer alone, but a great price if it includes food. Some of the places give you huge servings- with three beers and tapas, it's hard to fit more in. By Sunday, I was pretty sick of beer; I don't want to know how many litres I'd drunk in three days. (Photo: free massive tortilla rellena)

I suppose we could've ordered proper food, but the prices seemed ridiculously inflated for the raciones, which may have been to compensate for the fact that they give out free food with every beer.

On Friday we woke early and did the touristy things- climb up the tower of the cathedral, look for the frog on the facade of the university building (supposed to be lucky if you find it), cross the Roman bridge and cross back again. For lunch, I'd looked up the best places in Salamanca to have cochinillo (roast piglet) and we rang one up and booked a table. (Photo: gargoyle in the university courtyard)

The piglet was delicious. I almost felt sorry for it, that such a small, pink little animal was ending up all crispy and succulent on my plate. Apparently in Segovia, they chop up the roasted piglet with a plate to show you how tender the flesh is. In some restaurants, they let you decide which part of the piglet you want to eat. I'm glad ours didn't offer us a choice because I would've had trouble deciding.

On Saturday, we headed to Avila, famous for many things. One is its 2.5 km wall that surrounds the village. Another is its saints- Santa Teresa de Jesus, San Juan de la Cruz amongst others. There is also an unproportionate number of churches, basilicas, cathedrals, convents and hermitages for the population of the place. (Photo: wall of Avila)

Here, they also offer the same beer and tapa deal as in Salamanca, but quite a bit cheaper if you head outside of the city walls. The cheapest was 1.40 euros, and we ordered 'patatas inglesas' (English potatoes) which turned out to be chips from a packet.

Avila is also famous for a sweet, yemas de Santa Teresa, which is basically egg yolk mixed with sugar water and rolled in corn starch. There's also a chuleton de Avlia (huge steak, not sure why they claim it's from the region, maybe they produce many cows) which I decided I wanted to try. We shared a 500 gram steak between us and the next morning I could still feel it digesting. I like meat but in small quantities or far between and with the piglet and the cow, I feel like I could leave meatlessly well for the next month or so. (Photos: free tapas of prawns and mussels; chuleton de Avila)

Sunday morning, we visited the convent of Santa Teresa and peered at a lovely relic of her finger, nail still intact and ring attached. We decided to forgo the cathedral because you had to pay 4 euros to enter, and not to climb the walls because the temperature was creeping up to 35 degrees. Had to catch a midday bus to Madrid to catch a connection to Logrono but despite the 6 hours on the buses, I enjoyed our weekend immensely. It's really helped me to disconnect from our half-empty but amazingly messy flat.

Today we had running training and I'm not sure if it was due to all the beer and food we ate, or the 36 degree heat but I really struggled to keep pace.

5 days, 2 people, 20 euros (Part 2)

Mum and dad, just to reassure you that I haven't starved these last five days, here's a list of some things we ate. (Photo: Our most expensive meal- 8 ham and asparagus rolls, 2,10 euros)

Breakfast: peach and banana smoothie, small coffee
Lunch: pasta with eggplant sauce, tortilla, homemade wontons, mushroom omelette
Dinner: creamy spinach on toast with anchovies, vegetable stirfry, tuna salad
Snacks: melba toast, biscuits (79 cents for a pack of 124 biscuits, this saved us), homemade potato chips

OK, I was hungry sometimes. Very hungry. Sometimes I would keep looking at my watch and count down the minutes until the next meal. But mostly it was bearable. And I'm a person who eats a lot.

I've had to do without my dairy-alternative products (except soy milk) because they're so much more expensive. I don't know how gluten-intolerant people would get by. Or diabetics.

The most cost-efficient meals were the vegetable stirfries (1.12 euros for 1 kg of frozen veggies, 3 servings) although you get hungry very quickly after, and the tortilla (1 euro for a 6 egg tortilla) which is big enough that you have leftovers for later.

The can of anchovies was probably the least cost-efficient- 60 cents for 9 tiny anchovies that are more a garnish than anything else. If we were to repeat this, I'd add more potato dishes or pulses (Beza flatly refused to eat pulses this time round), and somehow make the salads more filling.

5 days, 2 people, 20 euros (Part 1)

A few of my friends signed up to do the Live Below The Line challenge and after hearing about their experiences, plus about a couple who lived a month on $1 a day in the USA, Beza and I decided to try for 5 days. Each person has a food budget of $2 (2 euros in our case) for the day. This has to include everything you put in your mouth- drinks, ingredients, oil, spices, salt, chewing gum.

Admittedly, we cheated a bit because if you take the exchange rate into account, the $2 AUD a day allowance should only be 1.35 euros. We did this because a) we wanted to see how it would be to live on so little a day and b) now that I'm not working, my bank account is going steadily towards zero.

I've learnt a few things:

If you planned in too little food for the day, you'll get hungry and hunger makes people cranky. Also, no matter how big a salad is, it gets digested within an hour.

We spend a lot of money out just on beers, the odd pincho and snacks without thinking. Spanish culture is so dependent on bars and meeting up with people in cafes and bars- on the 2 minute walk between the gym and our flat there are at least five different bars. Our social life was non-existent that week because you can't afford to spend the day's allowance on one beer.

We didn't budget beer into our food planning and this was a BIG mistake. (OK, this may sound flippant but there were times when I would have gladly exchanged something on the menu for a small can of cheap supermarket beer, 23 cents)

Still, I'm thinking about making this a permanent part of my meal planning. It really makes you think- we have so much but give it so little thought. We consume so unconsciously. One pincho and small wine or beer in Calle Laurel costs 2 euros- there goes your food budget for the day.

Hen's night

My friends took me out for my hen's night party on Saturday. It was awesome fun and probably the last time I'll be able to go out with them (minus boyfriends etc.) before heading back to Australia.

I'd told them no costumes or disguises or anything, so I was expecting just a dinner and then hitting the bars afterwards. However, they turned up wearing Spain t-shirts and short shorts and dressed me up in a t-shirt as well. I thought, OK, this isn't too bad. Then the stuff kept coming. First... a red garter. A referee whistle. A beach ball with Spanish images (ie. bulls and flags) plastered all over it. A pink massaging octopus named Paul. A money can with the Spanish flag. And last of all, a hideous Chinese headpiece with garish flowers and red tassles (totally random).

Apparently what I had to do was go around asking people for money for our 'national football team' and if they gave me some, I had to give them a massage with the pink octopus.

We had dinner in a fabulous place, where I ordered quail drumsticks covered in mushroom sauce (so cute! They have such tiny little legs!) and I had some baby squid that the other girls couldn't finish. NB. It's always good to dine out with girls because they leave stuff on their plates. With guys there usually aren't leftovers. Then we went to the bars. In one place we met a group of guys who were also celebrating a buck's night and we talked to them a while.

A few of the girls left just after 5 am, but the rest of us ended the night at 6 am, and arranged to meet up for a quick drink the next day. I brought along my money can and we opened it and counted the money inside. 17.35 euros! Just from randomly shaking the can in people's faces and telling them we were collecting for the Spanish football team.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos and my friend who took photos is away on holidays. But when she comes back I'll post a couple up.