Ensaladilla de Gambas

There is finally a positive reply on Couchsurfing -- I had sent my requests late, only a week or two before leaving, and at the start of this trip I had resigned myself to hostels until the last two nights at Granada (from where a couple replied immediately with an invitation) -- earlier today I stopped at an internet centre to check email on the off-chance, and lucked out: Sara from Sevilla has replied, and offered to host for two days. I find Felipe Segundo, the street name on the paper I have written down, two stops by bus from the bus station. There I find the building number, then go to a small cafe next door to finish dinner before going to her house.

It is around eight o clock, at the café people are gathering to watch Sevilla FC play a Uefa cup match against a Turkish team. Through warm-ups and team formations this little place has filled up, although I’m the only one eating. It is a European quarterfinal and the team whose home ground is right down the road -- Sara tells me later -- is playing; those gathered at the cafe, like the staff who wait for the coffee to drip from the filter into the cup placed underneath, watch.

At the house I meet Sara and Juani, I leave my bag there and we go out soon after. On Felipe Segundo every cafetaria and bar that I passed on my way here has filled up. People spill out onto the pavement; all are watching the football. "So everyone supports Sevilla FC?", I ask. "And Real Betis. In our city it is fifty-fifty." Sara is from a small town called Caceres, in the East of Andalucia, when she talks about her hometown her eyes light up. Juani is from Huelva, "It is a small place in a corner of Spain. Nobody knows it," she says rather self-deprecatingly by way of introduction. "Your football club, Recreativo Huelva, yes?", I ask, and her eyes almost pop out of her head. We grin; I remember Recreativo as one of the other teams that used to be involved in Star Sports's La Liga Match of the Week, the 'other' that used to get whipped by Barcelona or Real Madrid or Valencia. I don't mention that to her though.

We are going to Carboneria they tell me. I have come across the name before: when I had emailed people on Couchsurfing one had replied saying "Sorry I have people already, but when you are in Sevilla if you want to see our authentic music and dance you should go to Carboneria. Visitors go there but locals respect the place too." Near the large wooden door there are in-house posters of past performances. The walls are not even or polished, the rugged, jagged edges of the stone poke through the whitewash. The roof beams and benches are trunks of wood. It turns out there is an hour before the night’s performance begins, there are not many people here yet. This place has a rustic feel, and slightly dingy, like it is in the back of a building. Beer does not seem right tonight, no, Carboneria wants something more... solid. Maybe the Tinto Verrano? Sara suggests. It is an iced drink of red wine with soda, something of a national beverage in these parts where the temperature can hit fifty degrees in the summer. But, she says, when one is in Sevilla one must drink Agua de Sevilla -- Water of Sevilla. She delights in telling what goes into it: "it is made of rum, whisky, gin and vodka", counting each one off on her fingers as she's saying it, as her friend grins and nods her head vigorously in agreement.

By the time the performance starts Carboneria has filled up, eighty or perhaps a hundred people packed in, sitting and standing. On the small stage, in the backdrop of a collage of posters for music and flamenco festivals, three men sit leaning slightly forward, one with a guitar, one with a flute, and one man who uses the wooden floorboards of the stage and the crispness of his handclap to begin and to drive each song. A tall, muscular woman in a glittering orange dress is in front of them, as she begins to dance, the man starts to sing.

Happily, no one here buys Agua de Sevilla by the glass -- it is on half of the tables around ours and at the bar -- it is only procured in pitchers, large quantities of strong drink. Past midnight when the crowd has thinned -- and I am the only remaining non-local -- the music has become more impromptu. The musicians have short exchanges between songs to decide on what they will play next. A lady who was sipping a drink at the bar comes up on stage; while the gypsy dancer is more arresting, this lady in the shirt and jeans is more beautiful, with a sensuous figure and black hair flowing past her shoulders. From her first twirl on the tiny stage the crowd responds with vigour, shouting calls in time to her twirl, her clap adding to the polyrhythm, the men's claps more urgent, demanding of response, the rhythms are quickened now, cries of "olé!" from the tables below...

The taxi into which we gather ourselves outside -- the ground beneath our feet staggered too much tonight to walk -- drops us off at the beginning of Sara's road by the park; now we must stagger the five minutes to home. The day is crashing to an end, my head is spinning, but for a day like this, it does not seem an unsuited way to end. Unsightly maybe.

**

Next day starts late, three in the afternoon late; Aguas de Sevilla has taken its toll. The sun is shining brilliantly, especially in the Parc de Maria Luisa down the road from Sara's house. I walk the short distance to the streets near the bus station where I arrived yesterday, to go to the bocadillo shop I saw then. Its entrance is shaded behind the row of orange trees on the street, and you face the counter as soon as you enter. It is a plain shop, with a minimum of things in it. In the shelves by the counter there are large blocks of different kinds of meat, some processed and sausage-like, some raw, pale pink. Next to it are two big blocks of cheese. The price list on the walls has a single heading: Bocadillos, under it, y Queso ('and cheese') is common to all the items on the short list, beside it, the names of each of these meats. There are two men buying lunch in front of me, when they place their order, either verbally or by pointing to a block of meat, the man wordlessly takes it out from the shelf and places it on the counter. Then, using a machine (or a tool) whose action is not unlike that of a guillotine, he shaves a thick slice first off the block the meat, then off the cheese. The long bread is opened along its median and the slices are placed in between, their ends sticking out on all sides. Nothing else is added to it, no suggestion is made either: no "toppings", or "extras" can or will come in the way. It is probably to do with the foreignness of white bread to our food (even when bought to make a meal of at home), and also something to do with the way it is sold permutated and packaged as a staple of junk food pretty much everywhere in these parts of the world, but it is difficult for me to imagine a sandwich as traditional food; today, I'm seeing how it can be.

But even a good honest lunch cannot extinguish a hangover sometimes: I am only in the mood to amble now, I will go to the Alcazar tomorrow. Past a large square with benches and sculptures, at least ten streets with names like Barcelona, Valencia, Zaragoza, Madrid leading off from it, through Zaragoza past a small shop selling guitars, up a small street with many boutique shops but also a young man sitting on the ground by the pavement singing and playing chords on his guitar. Here I stop to watch for a few minutes. Weekday afternoon has turned to weekday evening, a steadily-increasing crowd of mostly office workers are now out (although it is difficult to imagine how anyone can work inside an office here -- it is easy to start thinking in a place like Sevilla that every person around you must also be ambling about dazed by orange gardens and streetnames). At the end of the street a lottery-ticket seller has set up a cycle cart and is calling out his wares. The tram, that remarkably noiseless vehicle, is fairly crowded with passengers. I sit at a bench near the square a few metres from the cathedral, and watch the tram go by every twelve minutes.

Mostly because I don't feel upto anything else yet. Again cursing the traces of this hangover that has still not completely disappeared, I head back towards Sara's house as the sun sets, deciding to stop off for dinner on the way. I had lost most of today to a late start, but I would make sure end the day well I reasoned, finding myself facing up to a tapas house five buildings from home. It is a lovely place inside, high ceilings and only a few tables in the large floor space. Each table has its own corner, some people standing in groups glasses of wine or beer in hand, an upright barrel forming their table, some eating quietly at tables, one or two standing at the counter smoking a cigarette and sipping beer, all left alone. A corner table is unoccupied, there is a long list of items on the menu, each with three prices listed according to the size of the dish: Racion / 1/2 Racion / Tapas. I put the guidebook to use presently -- in my toothless Rough Guide to Andalucia (must stick to Lonely Planet) there is a surprisingly detailed food glossary at the end -- and translate each dish on the menu before making my choice (the waitress grinning widely as she came up to my table and figured out what I was doing). I asked for Ensaladilla de Gambas, a salad of finely-chopped vegetables -- carrots, beans -- and tender, crisp prawns, mixed in a light cream. I ate it with pieces of bread -- this time I knew to ask for pan -- and a small glass tumbler of cerveza -- there is only one tap, one variety of beer available, no need to specify a brand. And then I went back to Sara's house for sleep.

If there is ever a single reason to come to Spain, it can quite possibly be for Ensaladilla de Gambas.