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Living in Spain

Moving to Spain: Mistakes you can make… The big one.

Talking about moving to Spain and making mistakes in the same sentence is a bit of a contradiction in terms. In fact, if you have been dreaming of moving to Spain for a long time, then the only real mistake you can make is not doing so. What’s the worst thing that can happen after all? You take a huge cut in wages or risk a big career regression? You miss all your friends? None of these or similar perceived disasters are as terrible as staying where you are and always wondering "What if” you had actually made the move to Spain instead of staying at home and never giving yourself a chance to just do it. Remember, if it all goes wrong, you can go home and feel good about having had the guts to have tried it in the first place.

Anyway, let’s skip a step and imagine that you have done yourself an enormous favour and fulfilled your desire to move to Spain. What, in my 9 years experience in Spain, do I consider to be my single greatest mistake?

Continue reading “Moving to Spain: Mistakes you can make… The big one.”
Categories
Spanish Food and Drink Tapas of the week

Tapas of the week: Motadito de Jamon Iberico

Motado de Jamon

Motados, often called by the diminutive term Montaditos, are a mini-meal in themselves. Take a palm-sized baguette and insert almost any tasty morsel you can imagine – from squid to tortilla, pork fillet to slices of Manchego cheese – and that’s it, the perfect snack! The photo above shows my personal favourite, the elite, the unbeatable montadito de jamon iberico: several slices of Spain’s finest Iberian ham lovingly clasped in slightly warmed bread. And what better accompaniment than a glass of Andalusia’s finest Cruzcampo beer? Heaven.

What would you put in your dream montadito?

Categories
Spain Travel

Cadiz: tapas bars, hotel and photos

Cadiz streets

Photo: Cadiz steets near the market (large version)

Cadiz: surrounded by sea, a city of faded glory conjuring ideas of pirates, bustling streets full of 18th Century traders, and secret assignations in hidden rooms at the top of crumbling staircases. There are kids on scooters with no helmets, white-washed roof tops straight from Morocco, and a regional accent so thick it almost gets stuck on the locals’ palate.

Cadiz streets

Photo: Men selling octopus (large version)

As promised in our Cadiz podcast, we have now uploaded photos of Cadiz, as well as a video blog over at Notesinspanish.com

Tapas Bars in Cadiz: Cumbres Mayors

Terracotta stone floors, wooded ceilings, and legs of ham hanging all over the walls, this is one of the finest tapas bars I have every visited in Spain. As soon as you step through the door a barman finds you a spot at the bar and presents you with a plate of crushed olives while you decide what to eat.

The best thing about eating out in this part of Spain is that you don’t have to buy a huge plate of any one thing. Portions come as Tapas (a small plate), Media Raciones (half a plate), and Raciones (a full plate). So by choosing several Tapas at the ridiculously low price of 1.50 Euros each, you get to try a bit of everything – in our a case fillet of pork with Roquefort sauce and mini roast potatoes, smoked salmon rolled around salmon pate, and Tocino… (more on the last one soon!) A near empty glass promted a ‘No me gusta ver a la gente seca‘ (I hate to see people dry) from the waiter, who quickly refilled our glasses. Heaven.

Cumbres Mayores is at Calle Zorrilla 4, just off the Plaza de Mina (Map)

A good Cadiz Hotel

We stayed in, and highly recommend, the Hotel Las Cortes de Cadiz (Details and Map). A very clean, very friendly 3 star establishment right in the heart of the old town, where each room is named after a famous politician. Internet connectivity in the rooms is excellent if you come with a laptop. Parking however is a bit of a nightmare – speak to the hotel first about getting a place in, and finding, their garage.

Categories
Spanish Food and Drink

Weird Spanish drinks – Non-alcoholic peach liquor?!

weird Spanish drinks

First of all, what kind of a name for a drink is Sabex, let alone Sabex Sin? It sounds like some sort of demonic brand of glue. The Sin stands for Sin alcohol, alcohol free, but who is likely to walk into a working man’s bar in Cadiz (where this photo was taken) and order a non-alcoholic Acorn (Bellota), Hazelnut (Avellana) or Peach (Melocotón) liquor?!

At least the bottle on the right sounds pretty appealing: Beso Extremeño, an Extremaduran Kiss – far more interesting that the Glaswegian variety!

Categories
notes

Spain links this week…

Counting the Costa – Buy to let Brits in trouble on the coast (thanks Omeyas for the link)

Guirilandia reflects on Catalans and Jews

BBC: Expats a political force in Spain (comment in the forum. More at The Big Chorizo and The Bad Rash).

Loads of Spanish video blogging going on in the forum, keep them coming, the competition is still running!

Categories
notes

Help find 4 year old abducted in Portugal

I received a message from our forum asking if I would post a request for help finding Madeleine McCann, abducted in the Algarve recently. This is obviously genuine and who knows, perhaps somehow this can help. Full information and numbers to call are available via this article here at sky news.

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Notes from Spain Podcast

Cadiz – Notes from Spain podcast 58


[Download MP3]

It’s been a while since the last Notes from Spain podcast, and Marina and I have spent the last few days in Andalusia remedying that, preparing some great podcasts for the coming weeks. First up is a real Notes from Spain chat in the style of the very first podcasts – and it’s hot off the press, recorded half an hour ago beneath the palms in a warm lively plaza in the heart of old Cadiz. We have also uploaded photos, and Cadiz tapas bar and hotel recommendations.

Yours,

El niño de Oxford 😉

Categories
notes

This week’s Spain links…

South of Watford has filled an important gap in Wikipedia, providing an interesting history lesson.

Rod wonders why he feels more at home in Spain than at home in the UK.

The Guardian takes us from Ajo to Zamora.

Our sponsors, holidaysinspain.com are running a photo competition via Flickr with big hotel discounts for entrants and winners.

Dan needs help planning the perfect 30 day trip to Spain in the forums.

Amy reminds me of the terrible nervous tension one feels when on the verge of leaving everything behind for a new life in Spain. Pop over and wish her luck!

Question: do you find the weekly link round-up interesting/useful?

Categories
notes

If you have a minute…

OOh, NFS has made it onto the Guardian Abroad lists, so if anyone has a minute to click on the box below (or follow this link) and and say something about NFS over there (“Review this blog”), that would be great!

http://www.guardianabroad.co.uk/blog_button.js?id=194

Guardian Abroad Expat Blogs

Categories
Spanish Food and Drink Tapas of the week

Croquetas – Tapas of the week

Croquettas, Tapas

Now this is much much more like it! Enough of all those strange-looking seafood tapas, give me a good old croqueta any day! Croquetas are made of a thick bechamel usually containing flecks of serrano ham (though chicken, fish and meat croquetas are also common), coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. They are a meal in themselves (if you eat enough of them of course), and though they are rarely handed over for free with drinks, a plate of half a dozen will cost around 7 to 10 euros in restaurants and bars.

Like many Spanish dishes, the croqueta was born out of necessity, when Spain was suffering one of many periods of hunger and resourceful cooks had to invent good food from very basic raw materials. So, here we have flour, milk, breadcrumbs, scraps of ham, and little else, all put together to wonderful effect. Stuck on a desert island with only one choice of Spanish tapas, the Croqueta would get my vote every time… which tapas would you pick?