café - part 2

"Días Descafeinados" - Papel Maché

Si nieve o llueve, tu eres el porche
Que me protege.

Y si fuera un lienzo,
Serías el pincel.
Y si fuera un cuadro,
El pintor, mi dueño, y mi creador.

El azúcar en mi taza de café, tú eres
La pieza que cumple tal puzzle de mi vida, ah, ah.

Días descafeinados, ... cortados
Lo que sería sin ti.
Una flor sin sol, una pagina blanco.
Días descafeinados, fotos sin color,
Es lo que sería de mi.
Sin tener te a mi lado,
Me faltaría algo.

Eres la piedra angular de todos mis puentes,
La mama que me coge cuando no puedo y me caigo,
La canción mas bella de mi guitarra,
Las escuelas, el viento que empuje al heroe,...

El azúcar en mi taza de café, tú eres
La pieza que cumple tal puzzle de mi vida, ah, ah.

Días descafeinados, ... cortados
Lo que sería sin ti.
Una flor sin sol, una pagina blanco.
Días descafeinados, fotos sin color,
Es lo que sería de mi.
Sin tener te a mi lado,
Me faltaría algo.

summer!!!

it is feeling more and more like summer here every day. cafe con hielo (iced coffee) is becoming more and more a norm, which is VERY much something of summer. generally it's an espresso poured ice, but it can also be more like a cafe freddo (which is actually greek), which is espresso and milk poured over ice, or in my case cafe con soja over ice. :-) yum!!! and with my new skirts thanks to this past weekend and some time of sewing, mending, adjusting of old clothes or clothes left here by others, I am ready for the heat :-)

Coffee shops in USA vs. España

I just sat down in a coffee shop to visit a friend and am struck by the complete silence. I remember this place having music or something, but I think the greater contrast has to do with the differences between Spain & the US. Coffee shops in Spain are a place where people meet to talk or to socialize. It is rare to see anyone sitting alone and if they are they are likely reading the paper early in the morning and talking on occasion to the guy behind the bar and to the locals. In the US coffee shops can be places to meet people, but are also places to get work done, to study, to sit down alone for hours on end. Thus the difference... Spanish coffee shops are FULL of activity and noise. American coffee shops may too be somewhat noisy, but may sound more like a library than a social place. It is odd to me to look around and to see one, only one table with more than one person. And it only has two people. And presently NO ONE is talking, just about everyone has a laptop out and if not than a book from which they are studying. Granted I am in a college town and it is about 16:30 in the afternoon, but still. Even if I am here to catch up on e-mail, journal, and to be alone with other people around (and ideally with some noise to help me concentrate, ironic i know), I would like others to be interacting with each other.

café y nieves (coffee & snow)

on the way home from campus (UCM) today, i decided to stop by starbucks to spend some time with the Lord, process life, and possibly study a bit for my driving test. i sat there awhile enjoying my cappichino con soja, a muffin, and studying the book of matthew (in the Bible). i processed some thoughts i've had from the past few days of spending time with the team who came from the states.

an older woman eventually wandered over to the corner i was in and sat down with her mug of coffee. sensing that the Lord wanted me to talk with her, i mentioned how cold it was in the coffeeshop. we then talked about the weather for awhile, i asked her if she lived around the area and she said no. she said that she comes everyday to this starbucks to get coffee, go to mass at the church right by, and then stop by el corte inglés (a department store) all within a block of each other.

i asked her about the church and why she went there versus one closer to where she lived. pretty quickly we began talking about Jesus and the gospel and what it means to really know him. she said that God is the one who has never failed her. that he is the one who understands our finiteness and is quick to forgive. she talked about how having a relationship with him has changed her life. she said she liked this church in particular because they realize that the gospel is for NOW and that God wants us to experience eternal life NOW, not just after we die.

she said that it also changes how she treats others because each person is precious to the Lord and of great value in his eyes, so she should treat them as such. anyway, it was really encouraging and fun. i can't say that it's a normal occurrence to meet someone like that here in madrid, particularly someone of her age. it was fun and an unexpected little surprise. :-)

oh, and her name is nieves (snow). i may just start dropping by that starbucks more often (i'd never been there before).

cafe con soja

okay, while i am blogging away about random and not so randomness... and while i am up entirely too late... i might as well blog about coffee and crazy randomness. i just came across this picture and love it. it makes me think of espresso, which i also love.

this is also on my mind because i met up with some students for lunch and then coffee today. ironically we went to foster's hollywood (an american restaurant) and then starbucks. they weren't my picks, but just a bit ironic and fun. first of all at lunch, miriam started to pick off the oats from the bread of her sandwich and said, "Alba (me in spanish), this looks like something you would like. It just looks so, um..." "healthy? (i said)" "yeah (her)"

then a bit later, as we sat drinking our coffees in the middle of this mall, one of the girls, irene, looked over at me and said, "Isn't Alba just so... um... sana (healthy) or um... natural. Yeah, you're just so natural. And you like everything healthy."

so, now that i'm writing about randomness and coffee, this whole conversation is coming back to mind... by the way, here is a little picture of miriam, yoana, irene, and ana. marta, natán, and i were there, but somehow they must have left before we started taking pictures and i am taking the picture.




it is kind of funny and a little out of the ordinary. i grew up in a very granola, health food family.

my mom made everything from scratch. we bought a lot of our food from a health food coop. we had a decent size garden most summers along with fruit trees. we lived in the suburbs, but had a compost pile and such before it was cool.

i didn't have refined sugar until i was three (only fruit juice & honey). i didn't have soda until i was in fifth grade and then thought it was gross. i remember in third grade designing the "ideal" cereal and was sure that mine would win. the big thing to catch people's attention was "NO SUGAR ADDED," "NO ARTIFICIAL COLORS OR FLAVORS," "ALL NATURAL." i had no clue why i didn't win, no clue. obviously mine was by far the best. what else, whenever the neighborhood kids would go to 7-11 to buy candy the once or twice i bought a chocolate bar (the only candy i actually like, strange, i know) i felt so guilty (thinking i had done something wrong) that i threw it away. truth be told, my mom wouldn't have cared, but in my mind junk food was bad, morally bad.

through high school and college i worked at health food stores, was planning to get an m.d. and some sort of natural healing degree to balance things out, and helped start "vegitarian action" at mizzou. truth be told, coming to spain, i was a bit overboard in terms of healthy eating. i still love healthy food, but don't think (or feel) it's morally wrong to add sugar to my coffee, to for that matter drink coffee, or to eat things that aren't necessarily good for you (within balance). i know this is odd, but it is in fact my life.

so, anyway, i came to spain wanting to serve others and willing to eat whatever was given to me (and assuming that probably meant eating meat). pretty quickly i figured out that there was virtually no vegitarian food in sevilla, at least not easily found at a café. everything labeled "vegetarian" came with tuna and a fried egg on top. so, i began to eat the way i normally would at home, but to eat fish, seafood, jamon serrano (spanish ham, like prosciutto), chorizo,... when i was out or at a friend's house. now truth be told i have begun to think about becoming a vegitarian again, not because i dislike meat (that actually never was the case), but that is another post for another time. as far as spain goes and as far as animal rights here, i really need to look into things more. it seems that animals are much more likely to actually run around and live a normal life. so, i feel better about eating meat here than i do in the US. but, as i said, i should probably look more into this.

also, in moving to sevilla, as i got used to the late nights, the sleepiness that comes after a big 2-course lunch, and the many appointments over coffee, i began to drink café sólo (or espresso). the most common thing would have been café con leche, but since i am lactose intolerant, i opted for pure espresso. and i must say it is awfully good. it didn't take long to enjoy it. and i haven't been the same since.

i mean i still love just about anything healthy, but also love a good soy cappichino.

and while i'm not much of a fan of american watered down coffee (i learned to drink espresso coffee in spain and that is what i like), i love the smell of an open bag of coffee (which by the way, if it's spanish, smells like chocolate - really - and just fyi, the best kind in my opinion is saimaza natural). and i love my regular café con soja.

the mornings i make coffee, i brew my delicious coffee in a nice cafetera on the stove. i put a bit of soymilk in an italian frother (which unlike the fully silver one to the right has a cool green handle and plunger). i have to say that it is one of the best cappichino con soja i've had. i don't have it every morning, but recently it's been more often than not. and then i generally have a café sólo (espresso) after lunch to help me wake up from the food induced sleep of lunch.

so, all that to say, i like coffee, particularly espresso or a good soy cappichino.