When in Rome......

Well, we left exactly a week ago for Rome. Rome was so wonderful.....

We arrived late on Thursday night, and since the Italians have a more
typical schedule - finding a place to eat dinner at 11 pm was a little
more challenging then here in Madrid. However, after finally finding
our hotel, we were able to find a local restaurant that was still
welcoming people at that hour. We had a wonderful meal. We had
fabulous bruschette to start with and then I had basic spaghetti
pomodora and Andy had one of his favorite Italian dishes - pasta
carbonara. I was just wonderful and very inexpensive. I was already
much happier there in Rome in one night than in Madrid.

The next day we journeyed into the old part of Rome and wondered
around on our own for several hours. As our pictures indicate, we saw
the Spanish steps and the Trevi Fountain and the Pantheon. We saw
other fabulous things and again had a wonderful lunch. We both tried
calzones in a local restaurant. Also, the basic salad in Italy is
actually meat free - no tuna , no jamon, etc. It was sooooooo
wonderful. Eating there was just as easy as finding any place that
served food. Much more like the bay area. It was a welcome break
from Madrid.

Friday afternoon, we took a tour of the ruins - for those of you who
have been there, you know how great and amazing it is. For those of
you who have not made it there, it was amazing. Very surreal,
especially the coliseum. Between hearing what the tour guide was
saying, what I could remember from history in school, and from
movies, it just seemed impossible that a city or a place could be
that old and have so much violence and progression at the same time.
I can't even imagine how difficult life was back then. I'm also
amazed at the amount of wealth and power a few people had in the world
at that time. Anyway, many pictures and very tired legs later, we
went back to our hotel to rest a little before dinner. As for
dinner, we ended up in some small restaurant owned and run by a
family. It was great. The food was good, the service was good, the
price was good, and they had a really bad, unidentifiable Sly Stallone
movie from the 80s on dubbed over in Italian playing in the background.

We tried to get to bed at a decent our as we were to tour the Vatican
in the morning........

So, we arrived Saturday morning outside the Vatican walls around 9 to
meet our tour group by 9:15. By the time we went in, we had all been
waiting for quite a while, but that's okay. The weather was sunny and
mild. We had a group of largely Americans and other ethnicities that
could speak English. I think we were about 30 in all and were only
one of many, many tour groups. Our guide was excellent. We spent
about 4 hours with her in the Vatican between the Vatican Museum, the
Sistine Chapel, and then St. Peter's Basilica. Again, just
breathtaking. So much history and to actually see works by great
Renaissance artists was amazing for me. The history was very
interesting to me and, of course, to Andy who was just thrilled the
whole time in Rome for obvious reasons. I can't even begin to
describe the magnitude of these places. Even the floors were
amazing. I think the pictures are the best way to convey what is
there, but they are a poor substitution for seeing it all in person.
However, they are better than nothing for those who have never been
and may never be able to go.

We wondered around the city that afternoon, went back to the hotel
briefly and then went out for a nice leisurely dinner our last night
in Rome. I had the best Arrabiata sauce ever that night, Andy enjoyed
his food as well. We ate outside right at dusk on a very lovely
street. We ended our dinner with limoncello and then a little later
- gelato. One can never have enough gelato in Rome. Did I mention we
had the best Tiramisu the first night?

Anyway, we flew out early Sunday afternoon to head back to Madrid. I
was sad to leave Rome. I'm still not quite sure why I did....I would
recommend it to anyone. If you have to choose between Rome and Madrid
- um, for me, it's Rome, hands down. We had even done our usual
internet search for veggie places, of which they had many. But, the
happy thing is that we didn't even get that far - we didn't need to.
The normal restaurants were perfectly veggie friendly.

The sheer number of pictures we took should indicate our time in
Rome. I'm impressed that we were able to see all that we did in 2.5
days, but that is not really enough time there. But it's better than
nothing and a great reason to go back.

Friday the day of Trial, Madrid Spain

We woke up bright and early at 11 the next day, shocked that the
cortinas blocked as much light as they did, and the people in the
street didn't wake us.

Shower, shave, and shine up, and we hit the street again, looking for
some food, and aiming for a long walk.
We went all over town, down the gran via again, the Plaza de Espana,
over to the Palacio Real (but not into it) and had lunch, on the Plaza
Mayor.

Thing were going great (although expensive on the plaza) until the
salad showed up with tuna on it, and the tortilla español (entera)
really was an entire plate sized pie, and everything went downhill.
The sad part was that they had two salads,

Ensalada Mixta y
Ensalad Mixta de Bonito

Spanish speaker that I am, I asked about the Bonito, and the camerera
mentioned that it was a nice piece of atún on top of the normal salad.

Since Nicci eats nothing with the face, I didn't even concieve that
the "normal mixta" would not be the "Bonito" without the bonito (no
atún)

WRONG WRONG WRONG.

So, that was a $60 lesson. Food on the plaza is not cheap, and with
the Euro being at 1.5 a dollar, our 40 Euro meal whacked us pretty good.

When y'all come visit we can eat on the plaza again, but beware the
ensalada mixta.

So, we were in a good mood right? We walked around some more, and
checked our book for a vegetarian restaurant. We were going to go to
the second location of our favorite veggie restaurant. We walked down,
turned the corner and the place was gone.

NOT SO GOOD.

We needed food, and spain was conspiring against us. We ended up going
the The Wok, near the Plaza de España, about 10 block walk from where
the first restaurant wasn't.

Thankfully the wok was good, and we managed to get to our beds safely.
We slept well that night, amazingly.

Eating out in Madrid:

Our first few days in Madrid were different than the last time we were here about 5 years ago. I will say, I looked at the city very differently this time knowing that I was going to live here for about a year instead of just being on vacation for a couple of weeks. It's a very different ball game. The biggest question is could I survive and could Andy survive trying to support me. I know that even by the average American standards, I am on the healthy side. For most of you who know me, you know that I am daily worrying about my water intake, exercise, protein, fruit/vegetable consumption, etc. In the Bay area, it was very, very easy to be healthy. Excellent produce everywhere, no smoking, very vegetarian friendly, lots of activity options (yoga, dance, pilates, running , biking, you know - everything). Eating out was not usually a challenge - certain establishments were always avoided (e.g. seafood restaurants, steakhouses), but I always had vegetarian options whereever I went and at the very least, could always ask for vegetarian options and the chefs were always willing to accomodate.


My life has drastically changed. I can't tell you how difficult it is to be vegetarian here - and this is supposedly not as bad as some other European countries. It's astounding. Not only are there very, very few vegetarian friendly restaurants, going into a 'normal' restaurant here is an absolute nightmare. I can eat tortilla espanol and olives - and that's about it. That's okay if I'm on vacation for a couple of weeks, but those being my only options for lunch and dinner every day for a year? I don't think so. Supposedly, lentils are common (haven't seen that yet) but they're always cooked with sausage, so still no dice. I can get cheese sandwiches occasionally - but still I can only eat so many cheese sandwiches in a day.


Early on I perked up a bit when we were here a couple of days and were eating at a place that actually had an ensalada mixta!! I could hardly believe it - we ordered that in hopes for even iceburg lettuce. But much to my disappointment, I found out the hard way that even the basic salads come with tuna on them. If vegetables are served anywhere, they are just another avenue for putting meat into their bodies. It's disgusting. I used to think walking around Chinatown in SF was offensive. That's almost nothing to here. So many animal limbs hanging on display everywhere - if they could exchange air for meat - they would. I would also not be so irked if I knew I had an endless source of ethnic restaurants to choose from as an alternative. Um, it seems that those are also rare. We went to a Japanese place one night and were told there were probably 10-20 Japanese retaurants in ALL of Madrid - a huge city of millions of people. We had 10 Japanese places in Alameda alone. Not bueno. We've seen a couple of Chinese restaurants - since they are in Madrid, they are not veggie friendly at all (it's like they've never heard of tofu and they are Chinese!!!!)- not to mention super sketchy. If they are anything like the Chinese place we tried in Salamanca last time we were here - talk about bad Chinese food. We're still in search fo Thai. We came across a couple of Indian restuarants today. Who knows about anything else.


I know to not expect tons of variety when I go to small towns in the states or back to the south or the midwest, but silly me, I just thought that most cities of millions of people in a European country would have decent selections of ethnic food. Well, let me tell you not in Madrid. You have to aggressively search for the few that exist. Andy and I have spent hours upon hours searching for eating establishments that have anything I can eat - forget the requirement of it even being healthy!!

All in all, it seems that the locals eat meat/animals as their occupation and smoke as their hobby. There are also many pastelerias around, which are their bakeries - were they sell baked goods/sweets, etc. I would defintely say that the Spanish have amazing sweet tooths also. These are more eating options for vegetarians, but I just don't know many vegetarians who would be okay with living on nothing but tortilla espanol and pastries for months on end for every meal of their day. Eventually, some protein and vitamins are required. I honestly have no idea how the Spanish have survived. Between the chain smoking by all who are above the age of 12 and the unvaried consumption of sweets, bread, and animals (often fried) - I can't imagine what their health situation is like. True they don't have nearly the obesity problem that we have in the states - which is probably largely due to the walking/strolling lifestyle they have (which is a good thing), but still - no amount of strolling can save your lungs from a pack of cigarettes a day or your colon from eating nothing but animal flesh and sugar.


In the end, it seems that the non-smokers are probably as rare and discriminated against as the vegetarians. It doesn't seem to be an active or hostile discrimination, but moreover it is a complete lack of accomodation (most restaurants serve the same food as the ones down the street) in regular restaurants and the inability to conceive of a person who would not rejoice in eating animals every meal and smoking all day everyday. Being healthy or vegetarian or having variety here are concepts so rare and foreign as men having babies or bunnies flying. There is no way a vegan could survive!!!


I truly miss the Bay Area. Those of you living there, please enjoy the variety and healthiness for me while I'm in lung cancer land searching for veggies!!!!!!


Hasta luego!