First, it was crepes in Paris, covered with nutella. But we didn't really know how bad it could get. Next, in Italy, it was tiramisu -- sometimes two or three a day, in whatever form was available.
Then he moved on to ice cream in Ireland, scoops and scoops.
But I can truly say that the epidemic reached its peak in Barcelona with the meringue shop. We'd never seen meringues like these before. Chocolate, strawberry, coffee, lemon . . . the options were seemingly endless (especially when you're willing to eat the same flavor twice). They were sticky, light, beautiful confection and only cost a couple of Euros each. Not only did we eat many, we brought some home.
JFG and I spent four days in Barcelona over my birthday this year, two of them before he came down with a nasty flu bug. We dedicated one day to seeing the three major Antonio Gaudi structures, a second day exploring the historical museum, and the third day at Monserrat, a 10th century monastery outside the city where we got into an argument about the difference between cable cars, trollies and funiculars.
We actually managed fairly well on my 12-year-old Spanish, especially since I'd dramatically under-estimated the difference between Mexican Spanish (mine) and Catalonian Spanish. In fact, I go so far as to claim that Catalonian is really a mixture of French and Italian more than it is a version of Spanish. Fortunately, we usually ended up with the food we thought we'd ordered (except for the time we ordered asparagus and ended up with mushrooms and sausage) and in the proper Metro station.
But what we'll remember, what we'll deeply value about this trip, is wandering the city at 7:00 am looking for aspirin on the first morning Jesse had the flu, complete with a fever.
No, I'm kidding, of course. We'll remember the meringues.
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