El Radler

Ametlla de Mar – El Sanatori, Spain

When Diana and I were in college, we took one of those Eurail trips with backpacks. 

Okay, sorry. I know I’m only one sentence in – but I just have to add some important parenthetical information. We went for something like three weeks, and our total budget was like $400 each – whatever we could scrounge up from our minimum wage type jobs… So we had big, heavy backpacks with our camping gear and everything. Collectively, we lugged a lot of weight around the continent. But in the last day of the trip Diana pulls a big, heavy cotton sweatshirt out of the bottom of her pack. We had been lugging that stupid sweatshirt all over Europe so she could wear it once on the last day.

Still bitter about that …

Bitterness aside, back to the story… It’s about me and beer and Europe. Now, I can’t remember if I was 21 yet, but it didn’t really matter, because I have never been much of a beer drinker – so it’s not like I would have been imbibing a lot either way…

I didn’t know one beer from another; they were all the same to this lightweight… But on the backpacking trip, I found a beer I actually liked: A Radler.

I was pretty proud of myself. I actually knew a beer. I bragged to Diana about it. And I kept ordering Radlers.

Every chance I got. 

Eventually though, my bubble was burst when I discovered that a Radler was not a brand of beer, but rather a shi-shi drink – half beer and half lemonade.

I guess I wasn’t quite the manly man that I thought I was … 

Of course, if you’ve been following the blog since we were in St. Louis last fall, you know I am still not much of a serious beer drinker. After all, when we toured the Anheuser Bush Brewery, I discovered that Bud Light was my favorite beer. My friends tell me that I should be ashamed myself…

It seems like every country has its own favorite beer. (Like, for instance, Gallo in Guatemala.) Except for maybe Morocco. Officially, they don’t drink beer in Muslim countries, or really any alcohol at all. But, based upon the number of liquor stores we saw, I’m guessing that “unofficially,” there probably is a favorite beer in Morocco … Maybe it’s Budweiser…

We’ve been a little confused on the Cerveza front in Spain. It’s weird. When you order a beer here, they don’t ask you what kind you want. Instead, they always seem to bring you the same thing: Estrella Galicia. It’s OK, but maybe a little too manly for me – too much hops for my tastes…

With the relaxed schedule around here, Diana and I have not exactly been getting up at the crack of dawn, or starting as early as we have in some other places, most notably, Columbia, where it was so hot we had to start riding early or risk frying like an egg on the pavement. When we do finish our rides on the earlier side, I’ve discovered that having a beer is great for both replenishing fluids and staving off the inevitable hunger that I have before dinner. And today, miraculously, we actually arrived at the campground by 4 PM. So, naturally, I thought it would be a good idea to have a beer. But I didn’t want one of those harsh Spanish specials. Fortunately, I’m one of those sucker type people where advertising actually works. Earlier in the day I saw a few billboard ads for… yes, you guessed it… A Radler. And, encouraged by the advertising, I actually found a can of Radler in the local gas station.

Pretty much made my day. Replenishing, yet tastes like lemonade! Great combination. And it looks like you’re drinking a beer so all the brawny German guys at the campsite still respect me…

We didn’t end up eating until 8 PM – kind of the normal time for the Spaniards, but incredibly late for us. I still almost fainted from hunger, but the Radler certainly helped me survive. Of course, none of this matters to Diana. She’s never hungry or thirsty. And, while my interest was putting up the tent, maybe finishing my last blog entry, and relaxing a bit, she was hoping to go for a swim across the Mediterranean and back before dinner. So she had no time or interest in my Radler.

Another good day of biking… Having learned our lesson the other day, we stuck to Google maps – driving no highways today. Pretty ride with some nice views of the Mediterranean and the mountains, but definitely not a top 10 type cycling day.

A great day nonetheless. In Tarragona we even saw some cool Roman ruins of an old coliseum where gladiators fought and stuff.

We have been going long enough in Spain that we have actually developed a pretty good routine by now. Make breakfast at the campsite – either oatmeal or eggs or both (this morning we had scrambled eggs and bread with butter on the side – you have to have butter – especially when Diana is around), and then make sandwiches for lunch along the side of the road, or at a park if we can find one.

I should note that today’s scrambled eggs were special for two reasons. First, we finally have the camp stove working well enough that we can modulate the heat enough so that we can make eggs without burning the crap out of both the eggs and the pan. Second, the eggs were particularly good this morning because we managed to find some wild rosemary growing near the campsite. Turns out scrambled eggs with rosemary and Moroccan cheese (because the Moroccan grocery store was the only place open yesterday) is a pretty good combination.

But the thing is, good as our current routine is, it will likely have to be scrapped as soon as we cross the border into France. That’s one of the things you don’t think about when you plan a trip like this. Every time you enter a new country, you have to develop a whole new set of routines that work with the particular new country you are in. Which, by the way, is easier said than done. You have to figure out the options – what’s open, what’s not, what’s good, what’s bad – and what we can mutually agree on… It’s like your marriage gets weekly new stress tests – figuring out all the little things together…

We’ve settled in pretty good in Spain. For example, now that we are on the coast of Spain, there are campsites about every 2 miles. There are grocery stores all over the place. And the bread is good, so you can actually make things like sandwiches and buttered bread. Oh, and by the way, there is actually readily available butter here as well. You wouldn’t think that would be an issue, but once you’ve traveled through Central and South America, you realize that butter is not a universal.

Well, on to Barcelona tomorrow, we’ll spend a few days there, and then head to Girona, and from there we hit France.

I guess it’s time to shift gears. No more Español. It will be all Monsieur this and Mademoiselle that for the next few weeks. Fortunately, Diana apparently learned some French when she was in elementary school and has been practicing on Pimsleur, our language program thing, for the past few weeks. Somehow, she seems to enjoy learning new languages, where for me it is basically a form of self flagellation.

Anyway, send your last Barcelona and Girona thoughts. And wish us luck as we enter the land of Napoleon…

No, not Napoleon dynamite. If that’s what you were thinking, I’m not sure I can help you.

Although we do love that movie…

Vote for Pedro!