Friday, 3 June
This morning, we had to get out of one small Airbnb flat in central Oviedo and into another. I decided to brave the 7-minute walk, seeing as I can now hobble. There were two hours between check-out of one and check-in to the other, so we stopped at a bar on the way. It may have been just gone noon, but everyone was there drinking the house vermouth, beers and bottles of wine and plowing through tapas.
Our friendly waitress waited patiently for me to figure out how to place my order in Spanish – two vermouths and two ‘shrimps in a trench-coat’ (large fried shrimps in a corn batter which are the house specialty). She asked whether we were doing the Camino. I haltingly explained, and we briefly commiserated. (I really need to brush up my past tenses.)
We spent an enjoyable few hours outside and then inside the bar (it had started to rain). It was bustling, but not too loud, and both of us got a decent way through our books. In fact, I read all of Alfie’s over the past two days while he was out on errands (and I highly recommend it). Thus, I’m back in 1930s Spain – familiar in so many ways and yet utterly remote, a rougher and more colourful world full of peasants, travellers, sailors, circuses and the scent of revolution.
The new Airbnb is not accessible by lift – as was stated in the listing. Rather, it’s on 6th floor, and the lift only reaches the 5th. I was frustrated by this, of course, but I felt very lucky that I can now make my way very gingerly up some steps (if I have a railing to lean on!). Our lunch inside consisted of remnants of queso and a bit of empanada from yesterday – washed down with actual bubbly water this time, not ‘gaseosa’ (lemonade)!
The empanadas here are not like the South American kind. Rather, they’re big flat pies with crimped edges, which are often filled with meat or fish. Our box was marked ‘Atún’ (a popular flavour here) – or so we thought. It turned out that we’d been given an ‘Asturiana’ instead (chorizo picadillo, bacón y huevo cocido). It was pleasant enough, but one was starting to long for a fresh green vegetable…
Spoiler alert: dinner brought no such verdancy. To cure the afternoon’s lethargy, we decided on another (slooow) 7-minute walk to a well-reviewed sidrería. We were worried about its proximity to the train station, but everything inside felt very real, and everyone there was Spanish. The waiter informed us that they only had their menu del día on – apparently, nothing else on the menu was available. This seemed authentic, and we decided to be spontaneous.
This was our first experience with the gimmicky-looking machines that sit on top of a bottle of sidra and perform the function of aeration for you at the push of a button. We have decided that these gadgets are to be embraced: they’re less awkward than waiting around for the waiter, and no cider is wasted by pouring antics. We also got a botella of water, which was revealed to be highly necessary as the meal went on.
It began with a very salty stew of vegetables, dried peas and highly gelatinous meat (including on small piece of very fatty chorizo for each), along with the obligatory hard and dry pan. We enjoyed it very much, but also started to wonder how we were going to eat anything else. Luckily, the waiter intervened, saying ‘Vamos a comer el segundo’ as he whisked the soup and bowls away (I’m not sure why he was including himself there). Meanwhile, I was starting to notice that the people around us were not eating the same food as us. Had they preordered their non-del día items?
Then, the second course came: a platter of meat, potatoes and peas that looked suspiciously like the stew, just in bigger chunks (it turned out they were seasoned slightly differently), and a plate of what can only be described as Spanish fish and chips (4 smaller fillets in extremely salty batter). Things were filling up around us on the sparsely decorated mezzanine, with its weird blue walls and dark green disposable tablecloths (the packed bar was below).
The food seemed yummy at first, but quickly became too salty even for me. True, I was getting much-needed collagen for my ailing foot, but I was also getting dehydrated. Moreover, I couldn’t help noticing how plenty of people around us were ordering off the supposedly unavailable menu. Calamari, scallops, olives…hmmm.
Trying to ignore the nagging feeling that we had been preemptively ‘spared’ anything that might offend the tourist’s palate (even though this meant we only paid for the cheap menu del día when we could have ordered something more expensive), I enjoyed watching the other customers. A large man in a sailor-striped shirt sat alone pouring copious brandy into his coffee, before standing for the waiter to hook his umbrella over his arm. Three couples around a big table guzzled sidra and red wine alternately as they jovially passed around the calamari. Two elderly ladies daintily shared something fishy-looking in a terra-cotta pot between them, miraculously not getting any crumbs from their bread on the table.
We may have had our experience slightly curated for us without our consent (I would be interested to hear if anyone else has ever been subjected to this, especially in Spain), but it was a fun and interesting experience nonetheless. I sure was glad that there were two big bottles of cold water in our fridge at home!
– Bea