Shilpa eats a three course Basque meal

...And cries little tears of joy.

So I've been in Spanish Basque country for a while now, and if you haven't heard me whine and complain (which is highly unlikely) then let me just tell you, the food has been a struggle.

The most popular food in Basque country is Pinxtos (pronounced Pinchos) which in Spanish  is Tapas. Bars basically have food laid out on the table and you go and pick things you want to eat. The problem with this is, I have absolutely NO idea what anything contains.

Most of the places only have Basque/Spanish menus and they don't really spell out specific ingredients i.e. Shellfish. And since we're so close to the ocean, it's easy to presume most things have shellfish in them. Even the hotel I'm staying at has a vegetarian wonton soup, which lo and behold, is made of shrimp broth.

Because of this, I tend to eat a lot of bread, cheese and sausage to be on the safe side all the while cursing the fates for my allergy. (I think the allergy was an evolutionary process for the benefit of shellfish at large. I was probably eating them out of existence.)

Pinxtos - meats, cheeses and ground up tuna on bread

Meet my new best friend - Flan. 

So anyway, tired of my finger food diet and standing shyly in doorways saying "english?", I decided to make a reservation at a restaurant whose menu I could study beforehand and determine that I would get to eat more than a few paltry bites.

Please note, that the reason I've been eating Pinxtos as opposed to proper dinners is that kitchens usually only open past nine and that's wayy past my bedtime. 

Back to my story - I make my way to restaurant Ni Neu for my reservation at 8.30, and the entire place is deserted. So I sit and wait outside while enjoying the ocean breeze and the lovely music for a good 15 minutes before I'm ushered inside and seated at my table for 1. I am then presented with a bottle of water and a bowl of pickled olives.

The waitress then comes by and takes my three-course order, and asks if I will be drinking red or white wine.

She then goes back and brings me the bottle of white, pours me a glass, and then LEAVES THE ENTIRE BOTTLE AT MY TABLE! So apparently, she was asking if I'd like a BOTTLE of red or a BOTTLE of white. Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?? I think I'm in love.

I really do love when restaurants actually make a one person seating. I hate the farce of having to sit facing a setting for another person that isn't coming.

Marinated Salmon tartor with sweet onions and bacon cream sauce

Boned roasted lamb with rosemary quinoa and garlic paste

Almond sponge cake with chocolate sauce and coconut ice cream

In case the bottle of wine wasn't enough

Dark chocolate cookies, marshmellows and pistachio muffinos

I have to say, this meal was worth the week of near starvation. The vegetables were crispy and light, the salmon was fresh and the lamb was perfection. Coconut flavored anything wins over my heart every time.

The cute box of sweets at the very end was the perfect ending to a perfect meal. If you're ever in San Sebastian - I HIGHLY recommend this place (as do plenty of others on tripadvisor).

Agur!! (That's goodbye in Basque)

Shilpa goes to Amsterdam for a Chest XRay

Nothing serious. Just protocol for a visa, but it was too cool of a title opp not to use :)

The Dutch seem to have a system of subsidized and socialized healthcare. I couldn't really understand it, but all I know is, it took me less than an hour and 55 Eur to get my work done.

Here's what I found on wiki- Funding for all short-term health care is 50% from employers, 45% from the insured person and 5% by the government. Children under 18 are covered for free. Those on low incomes receive compensation to help them pay their insurance. Premiums paid by the insured are about 100 € per month (about US$127 in Aug. 2010 and in 2012 €150 or US$196,) with variation of about 5% between the various competing insurers, and deductible a year €220 US$288.

People took token numbers when they came in and they were seen in that order. Seemed like an awesome system to me!!

BTW: There are probably no lines/people complaining about healthcare because the Dutch are so overwhelming fond of riding bicycles/being outside and active in general. I can't even remember the number of people I saw biking to/from places in the snow. They must all be so healthy!

Anyways...here are some pictures from Amsterdam

Easy times, indeed.

See what I meant about bikes?

Sweet tram conductor allowed me to ride to the station for free

yes, indeed.

Amsterdam Centraal- train station

Cars and boats and bikes, oh my!

I ate at this chinese fast food restaurant called Wok to Walk. My, it was delicious! You pick your noodles, your meat and your sauce and they "wok it" for you.

My table mates were two kids from Texas. Small world, I tell ya!

Shilpa goes to Dordrecht and takes pictures of windmills

Visiting the Netherlands I heard that "God may have created the world, but it was the Dutch that created Holland". They built dykes around the country to basically "create" land where there wasn't any before. Windmills played a huge role in this to help keep out water and maintain the landscape.

The windmills above are part of the UNESCO heritage site Kinderdijk

Shilpa and Niyanthi wander around Frankfurt

On Sunday, Niyanthi gave me a tour of completely-shut-down-save-for-a-few-restaurants Frankfurt.We grabbed a bite to eat and walked around the rainy town square.

Schnitzel with bacon and onions. Piggie on piggie sauteed in onions and cheese. Dear heart, I'm sorry. xx.

Mmmm ice cold bier

"Small" portion of sausage and potato salad

Latte Macchiato. All the cafes around Europe hand you a blanket to keep you warm. Precious! We also had a slice of decadent chocolate cake but poor thing was too camera shy.

After this it was time for me to head back to Bochum and then catch a train to Dordrecht in the Netherlands. Onwards and upwards!!

Thanks for the great trip Niyanthi (and for teaching me eins, zwei, drei, vier, funf)!! Till we meet again :)

Tschüss!

Shilpa and Niyanthi go to Marburg!

So for my first weekend out of the US, I decided to meet up with my old friend Niyanthi at her residence in Frankfurt. There's nothing like seeing someone you've known forever to help you ease into a new and unfamiliar life. Besides, she's awesomely independent and bad ass in general so seeing her all happy and settled makes me excited for my big life changes.

Wasn't joking about N being an "old" friend. See if you can spot us :)

I caught the train from the Bochum Hauptbanhof to Frankfurt where she was waiting for me on the platform with her friend Josip who speaks very difficult languages (Croatian, German and Russian amongst others) and knows pretty much everything.

We then went to her apartment where Josip introduced us to a drinking game called looping louie which involves an Italian man in a plane knocking down chickens. I don't know, it made sense at the time. I was a terrible loser that night choosing not to partake in the festivities which led me to be a smug sally the next morning because I didn't wake up with a headache ;)

Also there was karaoke at some point. Both N and I were BIG Spice Girls fans growing up so we sang "wannabe" and embarrassingly enough did not have to look up at the lyric screen once. Oops. We also rode a metal bull. Oh, and I ate my first McRib! In Germany! It was terrible.

There are no pictures of ANY of this because Niyanthi is being delinquent in sending them to me. I'm hoping this cyber blast cures her of her laziness ;)

The next morning we woke up bright and early (fyi- it was neither bright nor early) and caught a train to Marburg. Niyanthi's friend, Genno, HIGHLY recommended we go to Marburg as it was, very Germanly speaking, OK. 

Side note (heavy stereotyping ahead, tread with caution) : I think it's a very American/Indian trait to call things "fantastic", "amazing" and "wonderful". To the Europeans I've met so far, good things are "ok", great things are "nice" and MIND-BLOWINGLY awesome things are "good".

Marburg is a university town about an hour train ride away from Germany. It is a quaint little town with a lot of cobble stoned paths and cafes. We visited the church and the  Landgrafen castle and then sat down at a cute cafe with small Radlers (beer+lemon tonic) and ordered an appetizer. Neither of us speak German so the "mixed grill" that we ordered ended up being dolmades. Life is too short to learn German, and luckily the dolmas were good (and shellfish free).

St. Elizabeths Church

Beautiful organ inside the church

Any ideas what this might be?

A onesie tied between two buildings

Oh, to be a fly on that wall!

Marburg from the Landgrafen Castle

Jacob Grimm: "The location of Marburg and the surrounding region is certainly very beautiful. Especially when one is in the vicinity of the castle and looks down from there. But the town itself is very ugly. I trust that there are more steps on the streets than in the houses. In one house, the entrance is even through the roof."

Finally, drenched and exhausted, we caught the train back from Marburg and ended our day with a  "typical German meal".

Indian food ALWAYS sounds good to us!

PS: Sorry about the terrible picture formatting, it's too much work to lay them out all pretty-like :)