So you want to order coffee in Spain…

This is a bombón. Now you know.

… Pay attention. This isn’t as easy as it may seem.

First of all, don’t go to a Starbucks. You’re in Spain, so suck it up and go to a cafetería. Try for one called Bar Paco, or Cafetería La Estrella, or some improbable combination created mixing together syllables of the owner’s offspring’s names, like MayMoBor (which I just made up but may very well exist.)

Already there? Good. Sit at the bar. Depending on the authenticity of the place you chose, you’re risking getting stuck to it forever, but that’s part of the charm. Now comes the good part: be very, very aware of where in Spain you are, because your coffee enjoyment depends on this.

If you ask for a “café” and you’re in Madrid, they will give you a shot of espresso in a medium glass, topped with milk. Anywhere else, that’s a café con leche, except it’s usually served in a cup. Except in Sevilla, where it’s served in a glass but it’s called a “cortado”.

Now, a “cortado” in Valencia is a shot of espresso with a bit of milk (please specify if you want hot or cold milk), served in a small glass. If you don’t like espresso, you can order an “americano”, but careful: that’s just an espresso with added water. In some places the cortado is served in a cup, but don’t count on it.

If you want more milk, then it’s a “café con leche”, except in Madrid, where that is called a “cortado”.

Confused yet? Don’t be! If in Valencia, try a “bombón”, a shot of espresso (picking a pattern here) with condensed milk. Don’t try this in Madrid, they don’t know anything about bombones. Yes, I’m from Valencia, why do you ask?

Now for the difficult stuff: in Canarias, you can order a bombón, but also a leche y leche, which is a bombón with milk. Yes, it’s coffee with condensed milk and milk. Add rum and you have a barraquito. Don’t drive if you try this.

Since we’re skirting the dangerous shores of alcoholic beverages, a carajillo is an espresso with some liquor: cognac, brandy, rum, anisette. You can also add alcohol to any café, in that case the coffee is called “café tocado”.

But wait! We’re not done! Spain is a warm country. “Warm” as in “welcoming”, but also “warm” as in “hot like Hell sometimes”, so you may want a cold coffee drink. Nothing easier! In Madrid, this is called a “café con hielo”, coffee with ice. Logical! Easy! … And incredibly useless if you go to Valencia, where you must ask for a “café del tiempo”. This will get you a glass with a couple of ice cubes and a slice of lemon inside, and a cup of espresso served separately. Just stir the sugar in, pour into the ice-and-lemon-glass, and enjoy! Of course, some wicked pharisées will get rid of the lemon. Their loss. Oh, and asking for a “nube” in Málaga and whereabouts will get you a long glass of coffee with milk and ice that’s actually very good.

Still with me? I commend you. And if you’re thinking of asking for help, you’re not the only one, because I don’t know the peculiarities of the rest of Spain, and probably someone will correct me angrily about some of what I’ve written here. But take it as a first effort, and a useful tip if you really want to cause a good impression when ordering coffee. We’ll be, I can assure you, impressed.

Ghost Story

"I'm telling you, I heard something, Your Excellency..."

Right. Picture yourself in Spain, around the XVI century. You are in a thriving  town called Segorbe, which by a quirky mixture of politics, religion, war and intrigue has become quite an important place at this time. So much so that it has its own Cathedral.

Now, when I say Cathedral, I imagine you see Notre Dame, or something like that. This is nothing of the sort. It’s far, far smaller. Smaller than many churches and abbeys that still grace Europe. And, yes, it’s gothic, but not the airy, tinted-glass-invaded gothic of the Sainte-Chapelle. This is Mediterranean gothic: solid yet graceful stone halls with smaller windows that nevertheless let in the powerful Mediterranean sunlight like so much good golden wine.

Moreover, a Cathedral was something different back then; not so much a building as a conglomerate: a church, a palace, and part of the powerful walls surrounding the city. And the crypts, and the belltower, and some other assorted buildings. Even now, when you go to Segorbe, you’ll be seeing the Cathedral church to your right, and a sign that will tell you the Cathedral entrance is in the opposite direction.

This Cathedral has a small cloister, where poor people were buried. Rich people went to the crypt, a nicely-organized handful of chambers with neat niches where the powerful could rest in peace, unperturbed by the populace. By way of coincidence — and because the building plans of the time were a bit erratic — the crypt was flush with the city walls, and just underneath the cathedral’s chapterhouse. You can see where this is going.

Segorbe’s chapterhouse is small, and not very imposing. Maybe an architect would drool a bit over the ingenious way the quadrangular room turns octagonal in its upper third. Historias drool for real — I’ve seen it — when they point out this was probably the first chamber of its kind in Spain, ever. But to the untrained eye, it’s just a nice room, with a large window, an impressive Renaissance reredos, and a collection of sinister portraits of church VIPs of the past.

When said VIPs were alive, they used to mingle, argue, conspire, negotiate, or a bit of everything, in the chapterhouse. And one can easily imagine the silence that fell when they started hearing noises. From underneath.

Changes are a-comin’

I know this has been all but dead for too long (not that you care, and good for you), but I just thought I’d post a quickie to let you know that there are changes coming and I plan to recover this blog for the world. Just giving fair warning, lots of time to prepare. Arm yourselves. Flee. Call Superman.

Post-TAM post

TAM‘s over. It was my first TAM, and my biggest skeptic convention ever, since skepticism in Spain is a bit noisy but mostly disperse, centered about protesting woo in Universities, which is a good and necessary thing, but it’s far from having an impact in Spanish society, who happily buys into homeopathy, astrology, acupuncture, and such other assorted woo.

I gave myself this TAM as a gift (this last year has been quite grueling but it ended well and I thought I deserved a prize), and oh boy. What a gift it’s been.

Where to start?

The speakers were excellent, funny, interesting and moving. A couple of them seemed a bit of an odd choice (Alan Moore in a skeptic’s conference?) but turned out to be great. Rchard Wiseman was an excellent host, the organization was very good, and the company absolutely charming. There was a very nice atmosphere the whole weekend, everybody was enjoying themselves and letting it known. I was sad when it ended, and also felt very glad to have been there.

So that’s the summary. Later on, details.

Ubicación:Valencia,España

Musical stairs

This is so cute:

Check out the rest of the site, too. Crazy stairs are fun!

Bubble-wrap that glass!

Oh yeah. And here I thought the US had a monopoly on weird.

Well, no: in the UK, they want to reduce the number of ‘glassing’ injuries by making safer beer glasses. I kid you not. Apparently, glassing is a physical attack using a glass as a weapon (the things you learn on teh interwebs), and lots of people are hurt in glassing incidents in the UK. So they decided the solution was to make safer glasses. Because when the violent drunk who wants to gut you cannot find a nice glass to use as weapon, violence will stop! See? The logic is irrefutable!

Stay tuned for the cunning plan to make safer chairs (foam?), safer ashtrays (hey, who smokes nowadays, right? Let’s get rid of them all!), safer tables (er, sorry, I got nothing), and probably safer bricks. Because, safer people? Not in the plans, dear.

Rusty and unfocused

My, is my English rusty… I’ve lost the flow of words and the feel for the right expressions. And grammar. And spellung.

Also, very sleepy. Right now I’m juggling three books: a collection of Umberto Eco’s articles (translated to Spanish), Michael Shermer’s Why Darwin Matters, and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. It’s going to be Gaiman tonight; my brain is too fried for the other two, and Gaiman will give me interesting nightmares.