Long Weekend

It's rare when there is an American holiday that falls on a regular Spanish work day, but yesterday, a regular work day in Spain, was observed as Memorial Day in the U.S. In addition to its historic significance as a day to honor soldiers who have given their lives for their country, it has always, in my lifetime, at least, signified the unofficial beginning of the summer season. When I was a child we had usually finished school for the year just before the weekend, and as I recall, the municipal swimming pool opened on Memorial Day. But I also remember marching in the Memorial Day parade--all the Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops marched and participated in the solemn memorial at the town cemetery, where graves of soldiers had been decorated. One year I got to carry the flag. I'm not sure whether parades still exist as a major focus of the day or not. Perhaps they expired when the date was moved to always fall on a Monday instead of on May 30.

I got into the "summer-start" spirit of the long weekend this year, helped by email reminders on Friday from people at work that Monday was a holiday and also by virtue of the fact that Algorfa, the town we live in, was holding its third annual Ruta de Tapas starting on Saturday. I don't know whatever happened to the first and second tapas routes--we never heard about them until they were over, but this year, I got an email notice because somehow (probably by signing up for a Spanish class) I have gotten on to the mailing list for cultural events in town. Saturday turned out to be a beautiful early summer day, and we headed off at 12:30 with friends we had not seen in awhile to explore Algorfa and the ten or eleven restaurants that were listed on the brochure produced by the town hall. This number of participants is "manageable," the four of us agreed, and because the village is an authentic Spanish village and the restaurants are not all located in one strip, we had to walk through the sun for a few blocks as we followed our "route." I shielded myself from too much sun with the Venetian parasol I had won at a silent auction at St. Johns Unitarian-Universalist Church in Cincinnati last November.

We went first to Bar Algorfa, which turns out to be a delightful British-run Mexican restaurant, where we could choose between chicken or beef fajitas and chili with Mexican tortilla chips, and most of us enjoyed a beer. Then on to a real Spanish bar, where it was so crowded we could hardly make our way through to order from a selection of eight or so different small dishes. I can't remember what I had there, but I enjoyed it with a small glass of white wine. Then on to Badulake, our favorite place in Algorfa, because it is right by the ayuntamiento, so whenever we have official business (and often even when we don't) we stop by for a cafe con leche. This time we enjoyed an open-faced sandwich (montadito) of quail egg with shrimp on small pieces of salmon and ham, with cold agua con gas. Then we moved across the town plaza to the Centro Social and finished off with a mini hamburguesa and glass of red wine. We took our time, talked a lot about what had happened in the past month and what was upcoming, and enjoyed the social life of Spain, which is almost always outdoors with family members of all ages, especially on such a beautiful day.

Back at home after the tapas. Photo c2012 Johannes Bjorner.

The weekend continued on Sunday with our traditional trip to the Zoco market to get fresh fruit and vegetables, and the free Norwegian newspapers, and there we read about a new Danish restaurant opening in Torrevieja. It was still early in the day, so we decided to drive into the city to locate it for future reference. With the excellent location information in the Norwegian newspaper announcement and the detailed map of Torrevieja that resides in our car, we found Restaurant Danmark easily enough, even though it was on the beach in a part of town that we do not know at all. We greeted the proprietor, who previously had run a Danish polser stand at the other Sunday market on Lemon Tree Road, and discovered that he had only been open for 16 days. We settled down for a beer and ended up by enjoying the menu del dia, which today was a delicious shrimp cocktail, a gently sauteed whitefish filet with more shrimp and remoulade sauce, and aeblekage (apple cake) and ice cream for dessert. All for ten euros apiece, which makes it a very good deal. Our outside table provided a leisurely view of all the beach activity on a Sunday early afternoon, and cool breezes.

By this point in the weekend I thought I would use the Monday holiday to write my traditional Sunday blog, but that turned out to be a busier day than I had envisioned--it was, after all, not a holiday in Spain. But more on that later. This was a very pleasant beginning-of-summer weekend.