Galicia -land of pulpo and barnacles

One day, a couple of years ago I met a couple while eating alone in a little restaurant in Porto.  I simply asked what they were eating, and we talked for a good hour and a half.  She’s originally from Brazil, he from Santiago de compostela.  They insisted that the next time I am close by I should visit.

As much as I love staying with people and getting to know a place through their eyes, I really hate being an imposition.  And I know that I will be speaking entirely the whole time which I desperately need but which gives me some anxiety.  What if my Spanish sucks too much at this point?

And then I find out, on Facebook, that a couple of months ago they just had twins.  And they were two months premature.

I message Alfredo.  I had no idea you were having twins!!  Are you SURE you want me to come?  I can stay somewhere else and maybe I can visit you.

Of course you can come, why not?? He says.

This is how you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

I take a 7am bus from Porto to Santiago de compostela and slept the entire 4 hour trip.  I almost missed my stop.  Alfredo was there to pick me up, with open arms.

The babies are still in the hospital, and are due to come home any day now.  Alfredo walks me around the neighborhood and we stop at a cafe and have an afternoon vermouth.  I have the white one; its a bit sweet and it’s serves with a slice of lemon and a couple of olives.  Galicia is evidently also one of the very few remaining places in the country that serves small snacks alongside a drink.  Sometimes it’s chips or nuts but often it’s little sandwiches or tortillas de patata.  I am so happy to be back in Spain.

Alfredo and Lucia made lunch for us and Lucia’s sister meirleidy... a bacalao stew and they serve me a plate that would take two days to finish if I tried.  Alfredo speaks to Lucia in Gallego (a dialect of Castilian Spanish,) I speak to them all in Castellano, Meirleidy speaks in mostly Portuguese.  It all works out because gallego has a lot of words common to both Portuguese and castellano and being that I just came back from Portugal it all really sounds the same to me.  I am always amazed at how well the human brain can work sometimes. 

Alfredo shows me around town.  I took a Spanish here once a couple of weeks but I don’t remember anything about Santiago de compostela.  All I remembered was that it was gorgeous, and It still is.

Alfredo, Lucia and I wind up at their favorite place Sobrinos del Padre where we eat a fuck ton of pulpo, padrón peppers (they’re from here, and Alfredo seemed surprised and happy that not only do we have them in New York we also call them padrón peppers) and some really amazing bread. The wine, from Ribeiro, is traditionally served not in glasses but little ceramic bowls.  I think he’s fucking with me, but he’s not.

Alfredo makes his own fruit liqueur out of wild fruit I know nothing about but I drink whatever he puts in front of me.  Lucia can’t, because of getting it into the milk, so I: guessing Alfredo is happy to have someone to drink with.  I keep saying yes to the booze so of course I slept like a baby.

The next day Alfredo takes me on a good hour and a half drive outside of the city to a little hamlet called San Andres de texeiro.  There’s some phrase that says “if you don’t see San Andres while you’re alive you have to see it three times when you’re dead.  Anyway, the Village is adorable and the houses are made of stone and white mortar and the church has s magnificent view of the Galician cliffs and water below.  Alfredo talks to the priest and gets him to bless me.  He holds the big cross in front of my face and I have no idea I have to kiss it.  Alfredo knows I’m Jewish but he doesn’t care and neither do I.  If a priest wants to bless me on my travels, I’ll take all the help I can get.

We’re in San andres for quite some time because alfredo makes friends with everyone he meets.  The 86 year old lady selling the rosquillas, a cross between a biscuit and a donut, the lady who owns some home on the corner, everyone.  I keep calling him “the mayor.”  He is tickled by this.  Everyone asks if I am his wife, and he says I’m his friend from New York, which impresses more than it should, and then he whips out a picture of Lucia and the twins which tickles everyone else.  He is so proud and everyone is so charmed by him.  They are also very charmed by me, probably because I’m a lot c,earner and a hell of a lot more polite in Spanish.

As per the recommendation of one of Alfredo’s new friends, we stop at some little tavern where one poor waiter is serving everyone like crazy... the place is full and the sweet guy is covered in sweat and yet still providing amazing service.  We order raciones of percebes (goose barnacles), navarras (razor clams) and zampourines, which are small scallops with the coral still attached to it and the shell.  It was altogether a fuck ton of food.  Way to much but it was so goddamn delicious we ate it all.  The percebes are particular to the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal and looks like prehistoric dragon toes.  You put the toe in your mouth, suck out all of the juice which tastes like it was straight from the sea, and then pop of the uña (fingernail) of the thing and hope the toe part comes out with it.  Sounds truly disgusting but was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.  Everything else was also truly spectacular.  I can’t even say it paled in comparison to the percebes.  Now alfredo is proudly introducing me to everyone he meets as his friend from New York who just ate her first percebes, navarras and zambourines.

Thank god we ate all that because we wound up driving for hours back home, stopping at almost every single lookout point on the way.  It must have been a good dozen, including a place at the top of the mountain, where visibility was zero due to the fog, with the wind whipping so fast I almost fell over a couple of times.  The wild horses that surrounded us didn’t seem to mind.  

Every vista was incredible and in total, we spent 11 hours driving around the Rias altas (northern fjords) of Galicia.  Galicia is the Greenest autonomous region of Spain and it is absolutely incredible.

We get home at about 10, and we’re to have a “light dinner.”  Well, it would have been a light dinner of meats and cheese and bread if Alfredo didn’t hack me off a huge piece of cheese and follow it up with membrillo, melon, some pumpkin butter he made himself (it seems he has a cabinet full of marmalade he made as well) and a good couple more shots of aguardiente liquor.  

Alfredo and Lucia might very well be the kindest and most generous hosts I’ve ever known.  Learning another language, talking to people, really opens up a world to at your otherwise never know and I am so grateful to have met these two wonderful and warm people who are taking incredible care of me here.