After a long day of studying…and watching a Korean TV show, Secret Garden…the evening really starts to pick up. First I go have dinner with my roommate, Andrew, and his friends to celebrate his birthday. We had a wide variety of food and desserts, including a lettuce-less salad (think pico de gallo or salsa fresca), calamari (yum!), garlic soup, a oddly textured cheesecake (more like compacted ricotta than our creamy New York cheesecake), and a raspberry granola crumb tart thing.
Then afterwards, I met up with my new ISA friends from the night before to head over to a tetería or tea shop. Once there we head up the cute little spiral staircase to the second floor and make ourselves cozy in the corner. I’ve been to this particular tetería twice before, but it’s always been on a weeknight and fairly empty; tonight it was packed but it wasn’t overwhelmingly so despite the small rooms. The entire place was decked out in Arabic décor – the walls painted a rich blue, red sheer curtains hanging from the walls, brightly colored pottery, metal and glass tea sets and cachimbas, hookahs, lined up along the walls. Sugar pourers, half-melted candles on the small round tables surrounded half by a couch with colorful cushions lining the wall and half by stool-like chairs. And upon the ceiling a golden lamp-chandelier – straight out of the Arabian Nights. Tonight I end up trying the Fantasía china (I think you all can work that one out on your own), a floral green tea with jasmine and rose petals. We spend hours chatting and laughing, until we are the last ones there. Desending from the warmth we embark on our journeys home in the not-so-bitterly cold night. But not without first getting accosted by a group of rather drunk españolas (Spanish girls) in the plaza by the cathedral. They chat (and sing) with us in Spanish and English and Italian and they tell us all about themselves. So sweet and funny. But after a long evening, it’s time to retire so we decline on their party invite and continue on our ways.
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