After school let out and my roommates jet-setted off to their own holiday adventures, I settled down and waited for my sister Angela to arrive in Granada. She arrived on the afternoon of the 23rd and we took it easy making our own cozy Christmas celebration. After some last minute shopping on the afternoon of the 23rd and the morning of the 24th and Skyping with our family, we bought some groceries then settled down to hibernate in the apartment (since most everything would be closed for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day).
For our
Nochebuena, Ange cooked lamb chops and I made some mashed potatoes and then we paired it off with a nice bottle of red wine. We went to mass on Christmas morning, had some
jamón and
queso for lunch while watching a movie, and then had a big juicy steak for dinner. Just a simple celebration (especially compared to Christmas back home in the Philippines); I was mostly happy just to have some family to be with for Christmas.
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| Christmas in our PJs :) |
On the 26th we were off to
La Rioja! A few months back, a friend of my other sister Isabel's friend had moved to Manila to work. I met her (Mar) when I was home in September and she invited me to go visit her family in Logroño. But we had recently found out that she too would be going home for the holidays to surprise her family, so it was nice to have her there.
We arrived in
Logroño in the evening and went out to have some
pintxos for dinner.
Pintxos are traditional in the north of Spain and are quite similar to tapas. They are usually served on a small piece of bread with a toothpick to keep the
tapa on the bread. It's from there that the name
pintxo (or
pincho) comes from, as
pincho means "thorn" or "spike."
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| Mar, Angela, Me |
Mar and her sister Andrea brought us to
Calle del Laurel to have
pintxos with their cousins. Calle del Laurel is the most famous street in Logroño to have
pintxos -- it is literally bar after bar after bar in this street, and it was packed with people.
What's really fun about this place is that each bar has its own
pintxo as its specialty. So we went bar hopping to about five different bars trying each one's specialty, along with a glass of wine at each place! I forgot to take a picture of the first
pintxo we ate, but you can see the rest below:
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| zapatilla de jamón - delicious jamón serrano on a toasted bread spread with tomato |
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| I forgot what this one was called! |
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| Setas (mushrooms) - not normally a fan of mushrooms but this was so good! |
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| My favorite - tortilla de patata |
I really love the
pintxos culture of the north, and they're also much more creative with their food. In Granada and the South you'll see more traditional
tapas with little variety.
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| Fun night with these people :) |
La Rioja's claim to fame is its wine, and, naturally, produces some of the best wine in Spain. Spread out over the region are many vineyards, and
Rioja wine is made from the grapes grown primarily in this region, but also in parts of
Navarra and
País Vasco. The day after we arrived we drove to
Haro, a small town in La Rioja known for its good red wine, to visit a winery. (There is also, apparently, a prominent wine festival held here every year). We visited
Bodegas Bilbaínas which is one of the oldest wineries in the region, and once used to supply wine to the royal family.
Our tour guide was unfortunately speaking in quite rapid Spanish, so I only understood bits and pieces. Andrea was kind enough to translate some information to us and I learned a few things about wine tasting, production and storage.
After our wine tasting morning, we had lunch at home with more wine, and in the evening went out for
pintxos and had even more wine. It was a full day of red wine drinking, but when in La Rioja, must take advantage of the good red wine!
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