A Small Taste of Heaven

Let us begin with a most fabulous tale. The protagonists are myself and the wonderful 'cheese and ham croquetas'. Our heroes met on a thunderous Wednesday evening: it really was love at first bite... Melted cheese wrapped in succulent ham, enclosed in a wrapper of breadcrumbs and drizzled with sauce; let's hope that this is the beginning of a long and successful love affair.

Describing the evening as thunderous is an outrageous understatment. For about 2 hours, the hardest rain I have ever seen exploded from the sky. 5 seconds was enough to be drenched. It was painful rainfall. When Cristian and I finally left my hotel and headed to his house, we had the aftermath to contend with. The size of puddles and flooding was such that we had to change our route at least 4 times. The pavement was often blocked, meaning we had to risk it on the roads; the bridge we needed was impassable and a detour was necessary, involving a treacherous crossing over a newly formed river, with only the metal bars of a gate to aid us. We even had to use the underside of a metal stairway to cross into Cristian's road. It was a quest of epic proportions and the reward was similarly magnificent: more croquetas! I couldn't have been happier... There was another food called 'mapue', which on another day might have loved, but it just couldn't compete with the croquetas...

I had spent vast periods of the weekend either drunk or dehydrated. On Saturday, Cristian made a cocktail-type drink, using rum (of course), strawberry powder, and two tins of baby food! I can only assume that this reduces the alcohol percentage because it didn't change the flavour. Once past midnight, it was Abi's birthday and I managed to persuade the group we were with to all sing for her. The video is very funny because I have no idea what the words are and am therefore hopelessly attempting to mime wherever I can.

The following evening, I went out with Cristian's neighbour, Jan Carlos, and some of his friends. We went to a sort of street disco: loads of people and loud music, spilling all over the road. February is carnival month here and every Sunday there are celebrations. Several people appeared wearing incredibly feathery and colourful costumes, purely intent on dancing. After some beer, we moved onto some... That's right, you guessed it: RUM! As you can imagine, work on Monday was not ideal...

I'm very excited because the family are coming to visit and I'm staying with them for the week. Last night, Cristian insisted that we make some cocktails for them. So, they will be trying the rum, strawberry and baby food concoction, as well as a raspberry milkshake and sambuca tasting liquor. I hope they like it!