one word: tapas

on monday i clarified that caroline’s and my reason for going to spain was to visit our old friends, sergio and roman.  while that may have been my original reason for going, it didn’t take long for me to realize my true purpose in spain (which very well may also be my purpose in life):  tapas. 
during my first few visits to spain, i foolishly did not utilize my access to tapas.  this time around, however, that was not the case. 

on our first day in granada, caroline and i were rewarded for making the trip from hell by a day of tapas (the first of many).

for those of you unfamiliar with the tapas routine (bless your poor little hearts), allow me to explain….

you walk into a tapas bar around siesta time (early afternoon) and you sit down at a table.  your spanish friend, who knows the owners/every member of the wait staff, walks up to the bar and orders “1 round.”  he does not know what he’s ordering, nor does he care, but he assures you you won’t be disappointed and so you choose to trust him.  minutes later, each member of the table is handed a drink (maybe a beer, sangria, fanta or lemonade) and minutes after that, 2 plates of an appetizer-sized meal magically appear on the table.  all people seated at said table partake in the immediate consumption of said appetizer-sized meal.  every one eats off the same plate and no one cares about hygiene.  after all, this is spain.  and besides that, it’s the best food you’ve ever tasted, so who cares about eating off the same plate?  once the drinks are finished, you repeat the whole process.

over.
and over.
and over again.
at the end (3 hours later), you pay less than 10 euro.
which confirms it:  you have, indeed, died and gone to heaven.

in all honesty, i didn’t eat everything that was served to me but i ate (or at least tried to eat) most of it.  there were some plates that made me want to vomit, though, in which case my friends were more than happy to eat my portion.  but what i did eat, i can tell you, was SO. GOOD.
i miss it every day.
and i don’t even normally eat seafood (apart from, you know, fish tacos maybe?). 
but i think if i lived in granada, i’d eat it weekly/daily/hourly.

                       
if you’re wondering why there is a different plate of food in every photo, it is because we literally ate around 20 plates of food. 
a country which advocates breaking the work day in half in order to nap AND eating in excessive amounts?  my kind of country.