Millions of Pages

The Dalai Lama. Not made in China.

 Recently, I've been exploring the values of ethics, logic, compassion and caring in a more holistic sense. It started surprisingly, at work. When I joined a committee to build a more respectful workplace. It let me to this TED Talk video about moral skills and ethics. 

 

The video changed how I viewed myself at the core. How could I be more respectful at work if I didn't first understand the skills I needed to be so? Moral skills. The ability to make judgement calls. The role incentives play on our moral character. These topics just jumped out at me and made me realize, I need to define the moral skills I need not only in work, but in life.

This video just led me further down the path of exploring ethics. I peered along my bookshelves until I found what I was searching for, My Spiritual Journey by the Dalai Lama. I purchased this book about a year ago at a random Costco trip but like many of the books I buy, some get read immediately, and others I save for a rainy day. 

It's pretty clear, this book was calling out to be read now. I was stunned after reading the very first paragraph - it aligned perfectly with the words Barry Schwartz was saying in the TED Talk video. 

The first paragraph reads:

My first commitment in life, as a human being, is the promotion of human values and those qualities of spirit that are key elements in a happy life, whether of an individual, a family or community. These days it seems we don't cultivate these inner qualities enough; that is why my priority is to develop them.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part dedicated to his life as a human being, and what it means to truly be human. The second part describes his life as a buddhist monk and what it means to live the life of a monk. Lastly, he focuses on being the Dalai Lama, exiled from his homeland in Tibet and governing the tibetan people from afar.

I found the writings about our common humanity the most fascinating. He speaks about compassion as just another one of us, as equals, as humans in this world. As much as we all want happiness and to avoid suffering, we have allowed ourselves to stray into paths that involve judgement and a sense of entitlement. His most powerful thought for me comes from his analysis that humanity is "one" and our only home is this planet. We take it for granted and rarely devote any time in our minds to practice compassion for what we have. The more time I spend online, in front of my tv, or downloading apps, the more I feel my human emotions become less vibrant and less colourful.

Regardless of if you are buddhist, or a supporter of the Dalai Lama, it's hard not to support his compassionate outlook on the lives of humans. Most distinctly because he himself, has experienced humanity's worst qualities through violence between Tibet and China. I don't know if there will ever be a free Tibet, a country without the grip of another on its land, but we can all be a part of transforming ourselves to support his cause. He calls on us to become peacemakers, to live more compassionately, so that a crime against a human is a crime against us all.

[Thanks for reading!]

The Cold, Hard Truth.

Every time I see an episode of the Dragon's Den now, I feel a special connection to Kevin O'Leary. His throat-cutting remarks, which send innocent entrepreneurs running, have a sudden appeal to me now. And I can sum it up using a line from his current book: It's as if I am speaking to you as money. 

Kevin is cold about money, but why is that so strange? We humans are a touchy-feely bunch and we connect personal feelings to living beings and inanimate things. We often make decisions about money based on our feelings, moods and state of mind.

I found that as I read through Kevin's book Cold, Hard, Truth, the topics he writes about really resonated with me. By understanding how your choices can influence your money's well-being, you can determine if that money will grow or not.

Kevin is all about making money grow. He says "whatever you pay attention to grows" So if you pay attention to negativity, it breeds more negativity which infects whatever you're working on. And money will flee that inhospitable environment.

Moms know best

Kevin talks about the ups and downs of his own entrepreneurial life, and offers tips on becoming a good employee and how to be a good boss. He also discusses how he transformed his investment style and went back to his roots. After some low times, he started O'Leary Funds based on his mother's investment philosophy - one that had her live a financially stable life.

The Kevin O'Leary story from the producers of Dragon's Den

His mother, Georgette, inherited her father's company after he died of a sudden heart attack. A savvy woman, she had to learn managing a business from scratch and quickly learned that money meant freedom, and she opened her own bank account. As a young woman myself, it felt good to hear about another woman from a different era who knew it was important to take care of herself. She knew how important her own money was, and always spent the interest - not the principle. 

Her investment strategy was pretty simple. She only invested in stocks that paid a dividend or interest, and regularly saved a third of her paycheck. She knew that in order for money to grow, you couldn't touch it - doing so would produce the same results as opening the oven when you're baking a cake. Failure.

When Kevin's mother passed away in 2008, he was surprised to learn that that she had amassed a significant nest egg despite having been divorced, re-married and often generous to her family. He assumed her savings would nearly be gone. He marveled at his mother's ingenuity and while his own money was taking a beating, hers steadily grew.

Being a dragon

This turn of events had him re-evaluate his own financial investments, fire his money managers and take over himself. He offers investment advice in his book and it's not dissimilar to his advice in the Dragon's Den. Watch the news. Understand we live in a global economy. Look for warning signs.

Regardless if you agree with every criticism he launches in the Dragon's Den, it's hard to ignore the sound advice that has made him a better venture capitalist. If I was extroverted enough to work tirelessly through airports, meetings, networking events and spend my life on the go, I might even follow in his footsteps. Instead, the best I can hope for is to take the core of his advice and try to apply it to my own finances. Maybe you will too.

[Get your read on!]

 

Pinning makes me feel cool.

Today's new social media addiction is Pinterest. Apparently crafty moms everywhere having been using this tool for years completely under our noses. But I got my first invite two weeks ago. What I love about it is how I can intertwine the things I post on my blog, and post them on my pin boards. I can also scour the mega-maze of images which is Pinterest looking for things that really interest me. Or don't actually interest me very much, but I pin anyways to look cool.

Of course, pinning book-related things is awesome. I love some of the photos of people's home libraries. So jealous. My two-bedroom apartment can't really compare to some of these places. I'm guessing some are actually staged magazines photos, but a few of them must be real. So, a girl can dream about having something like that one day. 

A word of caution is that Pinterest can be a total time suck. I've noticed myself wasting hours looking through the image boards and re-pinning things at random. A task that usually leaves me feeling unhappy because I've wasted so much time. 

But if you love booky things, I encourage you to give it a try and look at some of the things I've been pinning! http://pinterest.com/millionsofpages/

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I quit vegan baking (almost).

This might come as a surprise, but I have ALOT of vegan cookbooks. I know, I'm not exactly vegan but I find vegan recipes for vegetable dishes are far more inspired and flavourful than what most meat-eating cookbooks offer. However, one thing I have yet to conquer is a delicious vegan dessert.

All of these vegan cookbooks have dessert offerings, and to be honest - most leave you feeling disappointed. I even have strict rules about vegan baking. For example, ingredients must be natural, real and unprocessed. Any dessert featuring tofu, fake cheese, imitation whipped cream - those are all out. But no matter how hard I look, they all come out worse than their non-vegan counterparts.

Many recipes suffer from maple overload. They call for insane amounts of maple syrup in replace of sugar, honey or any other sweet item on the do-not-eat list. Many use bizarre flours which I can't actually find, or even when using normal ingredients, come out rock solid because they are missing a key non-vegan ingredient - glorious butter. Sorry earth balance.

So, for my next (and probably last) attempt - it's babycakes. The king of all vegan bakeries in NYC. I scored their classic cookbook for christmas, and will probably attempt doughnuts, a cookie recipe and a cake just to really test them. After that, I might be calling it quits on the vegan baked goods.

Nilla wafers, babycakes

Last night I was craving something sweet and I was out of eggs, so it was a perfect opportunity for some vegan baking. I decided to try the Nilla Wafers recipe simply because I actually had all of the ingredients. I did make some slight adjustments because my applesauce had gone bad. My solution -  I peeled an apple, steamed it, and sent it to an untimely end in my BlendTec. Instant applesauce. I also used spelt flour instead of oat flour simply because I don't stock it, rumour has it spoils very quickly.

Nevertheless, my version turned out like this:

My attempt at nilla wafers, sort of close.

Not too shabby. They tasted pretty good out of the oven, although they were a bit tacky. I also had to bake them for an extra 10 minutes because they were still raw. A proof point for the author Erin McKenna, that more time is needed for high altitude baking. Today, I'm happy to report that they are still moist, taste good, and have no maple syrup! I was pretty happy that the recipe called for so much vanilla. I have nearly a litre of vanilla extract after my friends and I went in on a bulk vanilla bean purchase last year.

Here's to the next babycakes adventure. I'll keep you posted.

[Thanks for reading]

 

Moving at the speed of life.

Sir Ken Robinson is one of my favourite speakers at TED (I blogged about his first TED Talk here) So, I was excited to come across another talk he did, this time about education and how we make a poor use of our talents.

He says:   "Very many people go through their whole lives having no real sense of what their talents may be, or if they have any to speak of."

And it's true. There are the lucky few who recognize from an early age what they are good at, and then commit to themselves to cultivate that talent as they grow-up. The rest of us, we forget. We move on. 

 

He reminds us that many people go through life to simply endure it, and live for the weekends. We try to maintain our dreams between our weekend chores. For me, I'll quickly do some prep for a new blog post while my laundry is in the dryer, or read a few chapters before I have to visit my grandma - never fully enjoying either activity because I'm distracted, and often have multiple tasks on my mind.

I think often about slowing down the speed of life. Although, actually making the pace of your life slow down is really REALLY hard. It means re-scheduling or even cancelling commitments, it means clearing clutter, and unplugging from time-wasting devices (anything Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg made). It also means taking time to focus. Focus on your body, mind, thoughts and intentions. When was the last time I reminded myself to live with good intentions?

Robinson makes the case that the education system is partially responsible for dislocating people from their natural talents. And I completely agree. In his first talk, he describes how there is more emphasis placed on math and sciences, followed by social studies and languages, and finally the arts. To the point that most artists are discouraged from becoming so, and he shares a compelling story about a dancer turned multi-million dollar choreographer. 

It makes me wonder how obvious our talents are at a young age. I can remember in grade two, my teacher had asked the class to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I distinctly remember that I couldn't think of anything at all. I stared at my blank paper and became panicky when all the other kids were scribbling away furiously. So, without any inspiration, I finally settled on drawing a ballerina. I didn't actually want to be a ballerina and I didn't like ballet or dancing - but I felt I could draw one really well. So, there it was.

I don't have many struggles with my talents these days. I struggle more with my passions. Olympic athlete Clara Hughes once said in an interview "just because you are good at something, it doesn't mean you should be doing it," an idea that had her leave competitive cycling for the world of speed skating. I think about that quote alot, because passion is the filtering of your talents. Where do I put my talents to their best use?

We are so lucky to be living in a world where there are so many gray areas that we are free to put our talents into many different places. The trick is to find them, and cultivate them - and not to lose sight of them. It's so easy to forget the things that brought us happiness early in life, and even easier to fall into the path of what was simply done before. It's all too often I hear an engineer say "well, my Dad was an engineer". 

While Robinson makes a clear correlation between our linear education system steering us from our talents, I often wonder if technology and the speed of life are also partly responsible. We humans are now constantly distracted, and I wonder if that will lead us even further away from the talents we cling to.

[Thanks for reading]

 

 

 

Other random things about Spain

Alright, last one - I promise. Who knew that a trip could give me so much blog material? maybe I just don't want the memory to fade away so soon. *weeps* Nevertheless, here are some other random things that I found interesting in Spain.

Driving in Spain
Driving was a real adventure in Spain and I'm glad we rented a car instead of travelling by train or bus. It actually provided real insight into the spanish economy. For one, the highways are in mint condition. But why?

Beautiful highways! On our way through a tunnel.

The roads were awesome but hardly had any traffic. To us, it seemed they were a result of erratic government over-spending. Brand new toll roads with no cars, state-of-the-art airports with no flights - it partially explains why a country rich in agriculture is wading deeper and deeper into a financial crisis.

Cruising our way through the olive groves - not much traffic.

It was also amazing to see the real country-side, the rolling hills studded with olive trees swaying in the wind. Tanker trucks cruised the highways labelled "Aceite de Oliva" and we passed dozens of oil mills getting ready for the new season's crops.

We also saw unexpected roadside attractions, such as the giant del Toro's (bulls) which popped up at unpredictable locations. Ryan also became an expert at parking on cliffs, parallel parking between vespas, and driving on two-lane streets about the size of a canadian bike path. Although neither of us could decipher some of the odd road signs such as "snow parking".

We really had no idea what this one meant.

Ryan perfecting his parking technique.

It's worth mentioning that our Garmin GPS totally kicked ass. When friends warned us of spending hundreds of dollars on tolls, we were prepared with lots of cash-on-hand. However, we managed the whole trip with just one toll-stop for 6 euros, and our GPS did all the navigating.

Dogs are king in Spain.

You'll notice that dogs are everywhere, walking in the streets, snoozing by their owners or playing in the parks. It doesn't matter the shape, size or breed - dogs are essential. One man brought his mini chihuahua into a pub, it sat on his lap for awhile, then jumped down as the owner put a tapa of fresh seafood on the floor for the dog to eat. This explains why their dogs look so healthy. They eat better than I do on most days.

Cats, on the other hand, are relegated to the streets. Lurking around bus stops, cliffs overlooking the water, or prowling the sidewalks - it seems they are left to their own survival skills with the exception of some stray cat dishes, filled with kibble, and scattered around popular kittie-hangout locations.

Work ethics.

Are the spanish lazy, or are canadians overworked? The spaniards would watch in horror as we trudge into the office at 7 a.m. (through a snowstorm) settle for an hour lunch, or possibly even skipping it, staying until 5 and then making the commute back home (through the same snow storm, with  transit likely not working).

The shops in Seville re-opening after siesta.

The spanish, they do things differently. Stores and places of business seem to open at various times, some early, some late - and no one seems particularly concerned with making any money. At no point did anyone try to "up-sell" us, offer us a sales promotion, or even try to get our attention at a store. At one tourist office, the girl at the desk didn't even lift her head to look at us.

Even though the markets were packed, sellers weren't interested in selling anything.

Of course, no one would dream of skipping siesta - a two hour affair. Almost as if it's choreographed, the sound of doors slamming echo through the streets, locks clack shut, and business is closed. Even during the sunday markets, sellers seem virtually uninterested while you flip through their merchandise, some look bored. The motivation to make a dollar just isn't there, and while that could explain more of their financial stresses, it doesn't appear as if the spanish equate money to happiness in any form.

Family

It seems pretty obvious that family and friends are what make life in spain worth living. Consider the tapa, snacking and drinking while chatting with your mates - it's a spanish staple. On sundays, every bar was bursting at the seems with locals engrossed in conversation, hand gestures, smiles, laughs and hugs which filled the room with a happy energy. Heck, even the kids were in most of the bars, snacking on tapas and watching their parents, behaving like anyone else in the crowd. No tantrums, no time-outs, no potty meltdowns. I was impressed, an envious to say the least.

 

It seemed the spanish had a real passion for connecting with eachother, a genuine interest in their neighbour. Even in those packed to the brim bars, everyone shimming up to the bar for a drink, or patiently waiting for their tapa - there were no feelings of irritation. Even when I was standing in a super awkward spot near the kitchen, causing a waiter to send four wine glasses smashing to the floor, there were no outburst, glares or nasty looks.

Soccer games

It goes without saying that soccer to the spanish is like hockey to canadians. It's on every tv, in every pub, in every town. Ryan bought tickets online for the Real Madrid vs. Madrid Athletica game, which is a heated rivalry - although Real Madrid has won every game for about the last 50 years. So, Athletica fans must be eternal optimists. It's worth mentioning that when you buy tickets, it's for a general area, and your "exact" seats are labelled on your ticket - which arrive the day before the game. The date of the game isn't exact either, it can move, and won't be confirmed until two weeks prior. This was a total foreign concept for us and we were totally skeptical.

Thankfully our tickets arrived at our hotel the day before, and we started our trek to the stadium about two hours in advance. At night, the darkened building looms over the buzzing crowds. People scurry in multiple directions either navigating to their entrance tower, or taking a last look at merchants selling snacks and fake soccer jersey's just before the entrance.

The stadium!

It took us awhile to find our seats which were labelled "vomitorium" - essentially, the nosebleeds. We climbed up, and up and up - and because the game was outdoors, we were bundled up and sweating. It turns out, just before the anthem, overhead heaters flash on eliminating the need for multiple layers. This explains why the locals wore shirts and light knit sweaters, not parkas.

This picture was taken on the way to our seats. We had a long way to go.

When you go to a game, here are some other interesting things to note:  There is no one selling "official merchandise," there are no concessions or concourse for that matter, in fact most people bring food from home. There are some small stands in the stadium that sell beer and wine but, those are few and far between. The experience is also void of many of the traditions we are used to like million dollar contests, 50/50s or replays on a jumbotron. There's no music after every goal, no minor league games between halves, and no one wears a jersey to the game. You sit, you watch the game, you chant at random intervals, you go home.

 

Of course, because games end around 9:30 p.m. the locals go out for dinner AFTER the game. We walked for about an hour through swarms of traffic and landed at 100 Montadillos. Thank god for those.

 

On that note, I'll retire from my journey through spain and hit the books as usual. :) Many posts to come.

 

 

 

Drinking in Spain.

Which is more important, eating or drinking? Well, in Spain, they pretty much go hand-in-hand. And because I already covered coffee and tea in my last post, I'll focus more on other drinks in this post - some to try, and some to drink with caution.

Breakfast drinks

Coffee and orange juice aren't your only choices for breakfast. A very common spanish drink, one I never tried, is Cola Cao. Not to be confused with Coca Cola.

From my understanding, it's like a energy chocolate drink and we saw spanish families drinking this on the weekends quite regularly. The flavour isn't to be confused with hot chocolate, which is actually more like chocolate pudding. Which you can also have for breakfast. Or before dinner.

Beer/Wine

When hunting for tapas you are usually ordering beer or wine alot, so it's good to know a few things about them. It is important to know that you don't NEED to order alcohol for a tapa, any drink comes with one. So it's perfectly okay to order water, coffee, tea, coke, Kas lemon soda, or something I thought was awesome -  white grape juice which is called "Mosto". I didn't even discover it until my second last day.

Wine, beer and tapas. This is one of the larger beers we were served.

Wine is always served in normal wine glass, meaning the amount of liquid you get is pretty standard. Not the case for beer, which is up to interpretation. From what we learnt, bartenders just randomly pick the size they want to serve and most often, it's much smaller than an average pint. Here was our loose understanding:

• Cerveza - you'll get a beer in whatever size the bartender picks
• Caña - like a half pint
• Tubo - served in a tall, skinny glass
• Jarra - About the size of a pint, we only found these at 100 Montaditos
• Botellas - we never ordered a bottle of beer because we didn't know any brand names, but "botellas" means bottle
• Caña con limón - I started drinking these when I saw other people ordering them, it's half beer, half Kas lemon soda. The common slang term is "Clara", pronounced "Claire-hah"
• Shandy - Cruzcampo makes a low alcohol shandy (wine with lemon soda) that comes pre-mixed in a cooler-size bottle. There is also a brand called Mixta which is the same thing. 

You can buy beer, wine, hard liquor and shandy's at any of the local grocery stores. Look for Dia, Supermercado, Carrefour, Mercadona or Hipercor - these are the biggest chains. Don't be shocked at the prices, the wine is super cheap, and we had to restrain ourselves. We brought bottles back that only cost us one euro. Totally amazing.

Sangria

Spain and sangria. It's like chocolate and peanut butter - totally awesome.

Our first sangria in Madrid.

Sangria gets it's own category because its a home-brew kind of thing. Bars whip it up in pitchers and set it out on display, letting you know it's time for Sangria! Red wine mixed with fruit, fruit juice and fizzy lemonade, it's a perfect drink anytime. We were there in November and several bars were still offering sangria, although it's more popular in the summer.

Aperitifs

During one of our BIG spanish lunches, we noticed the the table next to us had received a frozen bottle of clear liquid, which the waiter just left there. I assumed this was an aperitif because I've had similar experiences in Italy with limoncello. After some amount of time, the waiter returned to retrieve the bottle once the guests were done. I'm not entirely sure how they were charged for this. Eventually we learned this liquor is a common occurrence, with the same licorice-taste as sambuca. (No idea what the real name is, maybe it's Anisette)

Beware the frozen bottle aperitif. These were flavoured, but most are clear.

It wasn't until we landed in Guejar, after finishing a three course lunch, that two similar frozen bottles showed up on our table. One contained a translucent red liquid, the other yellow. Both were a flavoured infusion of the clear version. I tried two sips just to see what they were like, and it turns out - both tasted like rocket fuel. The good news was there was no charge on the bill. So lucky for us.

The generosity of liquor seems to be common in Spain, especially concerning mixed drinks.

Mixed drinks

I took on the challenge of ordering hard alcohol one night at a pub in Iznajar. The spanish bartender, who spoke no english, was patient enough to figure out I wanted a rum and coke. In a tall skinny glass filled with ice, the bartender free-poured rum until it was past the half-way mark, and topped the rest off with coke - leaving me with the remainder of the coke bottle. Clearly there is no need for shot glasses in Spain, because my "three-shot" drink only cost 2.50 euros. This was thrilling until I had two more and the room started spinning out of control. Followed by a shot of sambuca and some weird mixture that the bartender created, it made for a lousy next day.

Water

Drinking water is Spain is totally fine. We would bring the large one litre bottles of water with us when we were driving long distances, simply to avoid pulling over.

Wine and water for dinner.

Bottled water is also served just about everywhere. In all of our hotels the water was good enough to drink straight from the tap, although in some gas stations they will indicate if the water is not potable. So, don't drink from the sketchy gas station bathroom tap. As if you needed telling, right?

 

How to eat in Spain.

Better late than never. I'm sure you've all been waiting for posts about my trip to Spain and some much anticipated book reviews. And, without meaning to disappoint, reading didn't hit my radar during my travels. In fact, I spent most of my time trying to read menus in Spanish.  And while I had high hopes of writing blog posts in Spain, sitting in front of a laptop when there were tapas to eat seemed like a waste of precious time.

My first tapa, patatas bravas (potatos with spicy tomato sauce)

When I landed in Spain there was only one thing on my mind. Food. I was starving. Fourteen plane hours later and I was ready to eat anything. But eating in Spain is like a choreographed dance, one that you don't know any steps to. The spanish don't miss a beat, and most likely you will find yourself in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and without much to eat. So let's begin with food. 

How the spanish eat in Spain

Coming from a country of BIG breakfasts we found the transition to a country of almost NO breakfast a big challenge. Typically, the spanish morning is toast and a café con leché (espresso with milk) or a croissant and glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. In some rural areas, it's a café con leché alongside a shot of clear anise-flavoured alcohol which is sipped slowly. 

A pretty typical breakfast - tostada and zumo de naranja

The afternoon is really when the spanish come alive. Around noon, they may snack on a slice of potato omelet with another coffee and then typically have their big meal around 3:00 p.m. This meal is usually 3 or 4 courses, and on Sundays can be up to 5 or 6. I would say we managed to witness an authentic spanish lunch once, and I was amazed at how much food they were eating. Most of the time, we would eat too early and would never catch the locals out. 

For me, the most elusive time was churro time. Sometimes seen being eaten for breakfast, they appear for a moment and then they are gone. Only to reappear again around 6:00 p.m. when children would dip them into thick hot chocolate (plus a sugar packet), and adults preferring another coffee. 

Churros drizzled with chocolate

After churros, or possibly instead of churros, it's tapas - a drink and snack before they have a late dinner around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. The spanish know every speciality at every bar, and hop along tasting the best croquettes, olives, seafood and ham. They know exactly what to order, what to drink, and received items that never came to us.

An assortment of tapas: tuna in oil, seafood salad, and potatoes in garlic oil

Much much later, you'll see them out for dinner. They'll order salads or mixed plates of fried fish and most often sharing with their companions. It's a lighter meal and only rarely did we stay out long enough, and stay hungry enough, to make it out when the spanish did.

How tourists eat in Spain
So while our spanish counter-parts were effortlessly cruising through mealtimes, we were struggling and making the rules up as we went. In the morning, I'd always have orange juice which was plentiful in every bar, along with some toast and jam. At the B+Bs we stayed at, sometimes there was meat and cheese, fruit, yogurt and one time - bacon and eggs.  A typical andaluscian breakfast is toast drizzled with olive oil, topped with grated tomato.

For us, lunch was just early rounds of tapas. We'd last until 2:00 and just grab drinks and snacks instead of the four course meal.

Early tapas for lunch, paella and shrimp (gambas)

Occasionally we'd get a menu del dia (menu of the day) which was often a disappointment. Typically a first course would be soup, salad, or a strange item like rice with tomato sauce and an egg. One time I received a plate full of cold snap peas with a tangy vinagrette.

The strange snap peas dish.

The second course is usually meat (probably pork) served with fries. No ketchup. I'll repeat. NO KETCHUP. For a Canadian, this will be traumatizing.

Third course is a dessert or coffee. I usually opted for tea, but a common dessert is custard with cinnamon and a plain cookie on top. It's quite good.

Dinner was also tapas or their larger friends, raciones. We'd eat enough tapas or raciones to basically make a meal. The trick was either paying for tapas you want, or just eating whatever comes free with your drink. This could mean alot of olives. If we had a "crappas" night, our nickname for lousy tapas - we'd find our nearest 100 Montaditos.

100 Montaditos

What I dubbed the McDonald's of Spain, this pub serves up cheap beer and mini baguettes stuffed with various fillings. In the larger cities, they are everywhere and its an oasis for the hungry traveller.

What time to eat in Spain
If you don't happen to remember all of the spanish meal times, not to worry. How we figured out when to eat in Spain is whenever parents pushing strollers would start to fill the streets.

I admire the Spanish in this regard because they take their kids everywhere, and the kids follow the rules. If you are walking along and suddenly more and more parents with kids in strollers are entering the streets, you know it's getting close to meal time. Same goes if you see them out walking their dogs. You know a meal time is approaching, so start looking for where you want to eat.

The best food we ate.
By far, the best food we ate was in a town called Guejar Sierra. It's a small village up a winding road near the Sierra Nevada mountains - you really need to google it. It's a mountain village and sightings of the ski resort staff is fairly common. But what makes this town awesome is the food. The tapas we had were amazing. In Madrid, it's common to get olives, fried fish or iberian ham on a baguette. In Guejar, we had baked potatoes covered in cheese, chicken bites with salad, a full bowl of soup, a potato omelet, baguettes covered in a rice mixture that tasted like lasagna.

Delicious baked potato tapa with pickles

It's here we experienced the real spanish sunday lunch. At a wooden restaurant teetering off the side of a winding road, the dining room was lit up with a roaring fire and the locals were chatting like mad. Course after course would arrive at the tables, first croquettes, then salad, then meat portions, desserts, aperitifs, and coffee.

We shared a meal that we noticed the table beside us had ordered. Never actually knowing the name, we called it "mountain paella" - served in a huge dish. A small plate of pate, crushed tomatoes, olives and bread arrived while we waited for our meal. 

Our "mountain paella"

The deep orange rice was studded with bits of sausage, mushrooms, legumes, chicken, and rabbit. It was amazing, easily fed the two of us, and we garnered strange looks when we didn't order another course.

Drinking coffee.
In Spain, coffee is everything. You can have it as a meal, before a meal, or after a meal - basically, anytime. As a tea drinker, I was certainly the outcast. In fact, in the town of Almunecar, I tried to order a tea several times and was always met with the reply "No." One waiter didn't even know what I was talking about when I asked for tea, he just assumed I wanted a coffee like everyone else.

A café cortado - basically espresso with a little milk

It is worth noting for you coffee-drinkers that the milk in Spain, isn't "exactly" milk. I assume its from a cow, but it's heavily pasteurized and stored on shelves at room temperature. If you order your coffee con leché (with milk) or cortado (with slightly less milk) - be prepared. You might prefer a shot of espresso.

Bread

Depending on your love of bread, this could be good or bad news.

Chorizo and bread.

Bread comes with everything (scroll up and notice the bread in other pictures). Tapas like cured meat or egg salad come with little bread sticks or slices of a baguette. Meals come with a basket with rolls or baguettes, and often some side items like paté, olive oil, olives or tomatoes. Breakfast is always toast in various formats. You'll also realize you are paying for the bread, ranging from .50 to .85 cents per person. I didn't bother trying to fight it because it seemed like everyone else was eating it. So, we just joined in.

The must-haves

Everyone has different food tastes, which I can understand, so my "must haves" might be different from yours. But if you're in Spain, attempting to eat like the spanish, here's what I'd suggest.

Notice the ham's hanging from the ceiling?

• Churros - when you see other people eating them - order them! You want them hot and fresh and I had many missed opportunities.
• Sangria - you'll see pitchers lined up along the bars. That's your cue to say "Uno sangria, por favour!"
• Iberian ham/chorizo - you won't have a hard time finding this. Notice cured hams hanging from the ceiling? They're everywhere. I'm convinced the Spanish could survive for years in the event of a world catastrophe because of all the cured meat they have.
• Olive oil - okay, it's weird at first drizzling this on toast, but do it. The southern region of Spain is covered in olive trees and their oil is light and delicious. We brought home several bottles.
• Beer/Wine - Order as much as you can, it's cheap, and the arrival of a drink usually means the arrival of a tapa. 
• Olives - I'm not an olive fan, so while I tested a few, I never fell in love. Ryan, on the other hand, developed an addiction and is depleting the stores of olives we brought home.

AND my best advice to ensure you have a good food experience is to use these two methods:

1. Spying technique: Spy on people eating next you and learn how to say "I want what they are eating" - "Quiero que lo que están comiendo". 

2. Pointing technique: Point to an item in the tapa case, or on the menu and say "I want this one" - "Quiero éste"

Next post, we'll move on to drinking. Stay tuned.

 

The golden ticket.

 Education is weighing heavily on my mind today.

One of my goals for this next year is to finish my degree. This has been on my life back-burner for awhile now. I think I've been putting it off because I'm not totally convinced I believe it will help me personally, rather it will serve as a symbol that I took enough courses and earned enough credits to fulfill a check box on my next job application. University degree. Check.

However, one thing I am re-evaluating is my writing skills. The admissions department suggested I take their writing prep course (at a price tag of $575) to learn how to write for university. I write everyday for my job, so I was pretty skeptical about the offer. But after some thought, I wondered if I was being over-confident in my writing skills, so I thought I'd see what the internet had to say about writing for university.

It turns out, the University of Toronto has a really great online resource for transitioning your lousy writing skills into university-level gold. Amongst their advice for writing thesis statements, essay organizing and using sources, exists a fun little section called The Transition from High School to University Writing.

This is a really thought-provoking section. At the very, very, very bottom of the page - you'll see a comparison between the approach of university and high school philosophies. Here it is:

HIGH SCHOOL	UNIVERSITY
Provides formulas.	Discourages formulas.
Offers you a ready-made structure to work with.	Provides freedom for you to come up with your own way of structuring your argument.
Teaches just one model for an essay that you then apply in all of your courses.	Offers discipline-specific guidelines for approaching written work.
Encourages repetition.	Discourages repetition.
Provides rules.	Encourages critical thinking.
Rewards you for demonstrating your knowledge of the material.	Rewards you for engaging in analysis.

I wondered if the person who wrote that chart, and published it on the website, understood that there is a MAJOR gap between those two columns. After reading this, I honestly sat at my computer puzzled. Beyond the obvious question of "How are high school students supposed to be prepared for university?" I wondered if both approaches needed some series re-evaluating.

It seems pretty hard to be successfull in one catagory, and seamlessly transition to success in the other. Does this explain why some students are total failures in university? and some finally feel like they understand what's going on? 

 

The whole chart just threw me off. It actually reminded me of a blog article I read earlier today about a book called Creative People Must Be Stopped by David Owens. The book explores how innovation gets killed in many different ways.  I find innovative ideas often get killed when it's time to make them happen. That's because innovative people move onto the next great idea. 

 
The typical job, even at the manager, director, or general manager level isn't always about free-flowing creativity and abstract thoughts. Often times you need to do mundane tasks like approve holiday schedules and maternity leaves, which to the average worker is more important than your latest break-through on sending emails through inter-departmental mind-control.  To me, the high school column could easily be titled  "How to be successful at your everyday job". Whereas the university column could be titled as "How to get fired because you are the person who doesn't get anything done". 

It makes me question which philosophy has the more practical application? Are we all destined to be abstract critical-thinkers? The last person I met with a philosophy degree works as a bartender. So, which matters more? Do you really need a degree to be a critical-thinker? or to have a successful career? Employers want them, but why? Many successful business people were university drop-outs.

It's very much a constant debate in my head, and while I've succumbed to acquiring my degree during my spare time, it makes me wonder if it will make any difference to me personally. Professionally, it just seems like a mandatory golden ticket. 

The Rain in Spain...

Ok, well I'm HOPING it doesn't rain in Spain...well, atleast for the next two weeks. As of tomorrow, I'm hitting the skyways and testing out my "YouTube Spanish" on the citizens of Madrid.

Of course, I'm not going to Spain alone, and not surprisingly I'm bringing a few books along the way. And Ryan, of course. But this blog isn't about him.

The first book is a hot new arrival. Pre-ordered and arriving just in time for me to entertain myself on the eight hour flight. Mindy Kaling has written a life memoir/story/book of jokes called "Is Everyone Hanging Out With Me?" and I'll be hanging out with her in seat 41A.

I'll confess, I did read the first few pages and immediately put it down before I got completely sucked in. Already, it looks like an entertaining book with Mindy's typical dry humour, wit and sarcasm.

The second book in my bag is one picked out for me by Ryan. In our usual "hard cover vs. paperback" debates, he insisted I take a paperback when travelling. Mindy's book is a hardcover :) Maybe you think I'm crazy, or we're both crazy, and would suggest I take an eReader. I have one, and it drives me to the brink of insanity - it's gathering dust. I just love the real thing.

So my paperback companion for Spain is Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I've heard good things about it, so I'm happy to oblige. Of course, I picked out a paperback for Ryan in return, and he'll be travelling with the highschool classic (and one of my favourites) Go Ask Alice. A diary-style book about a fifteen year-old girl battling drug abuse and a broken heart.

So we're off in style :)

[Get your read on!]