Don’t Let Caracol Guts Ruin Your Night
Prior to moving to Spain we had every intention to learn Spanish. However, with our hectic lives and the mere fact we never really used Spanish in Denver, there was always something more important than Spanish classes.
Fast forward to living in Spain for almost 2 years, we wanted to put into practice what we’ve learned through Duolingo, our weekly in person lessons and now lessons through Baselang.
We met two wonderful chicas named Tamara and Beti at a neighborhood “Sardinata”. The Sardinata is a traditional neighborhood festival. They grill sardines, serve traditional dense bread called “Pan de maiz, Spanish tortilla, listened to live music, and drank cerveza. Very similar to what we would call a block party in the states, with a different menu.
Following the Sardinata, I thought it would be a good idea to reach out to Tamara and Beti and offer a free hair service in exchange for Spanish Conversation.
One is fluent in English and the other spoke a little and wanted to learn more English. The conversation exchange evolved from doing a hair service to conversing in Spanish and English over dinner.
For dinner we planned to make a roasted sage butternut squash with balsamic tomatoes, black lentils and two types of salmon blackened and a soy maple so we could introduce a different type of cuisine than what’s offered here in Galicia. For dessert we had a key lime pie ice cream using coconut milk and oat milk for the base and added the Spanish version of graham crackers in with the ice cream sprinkled with homemade toffee bits.
The morning of the dinner in true “living in Spain” style, it was completely unpredictable. I went up to our cottage to exercise and noticed the electrical was out. The night before there was a pretty violent thunder and hail storm so we thought maybe it tripped the circuit.
The electrical in our cottage was also on the same breaker as our dining room in the main house along with our freezer.
As long as we could still use the stove, we could have them over for dinner, albeit a candlelit dinner with the sound of rain and thunder. Regardless, it would be fun and exciting and allow for some content to enrich our conversations.
The sky became angry and it started hailing once again, the blue skies were trying their best to make an appearance and peak through. Kyle ran to the electrical panel out by our stone house and tried to reset it. As soon as he flipped the switch it kept flipping back down. He thought maybe there’s water in it that shortened the circuit.
While was trouble shooting the cause, I carried on with cleaning up the house. When I folded a blanket on the couch it hit the wall sconce causing a screw to fly loose and the fixture to spin around.
As I was trying to make sense of what happened, I got a text from Kyle telling me the cause of the power shortage.
Snail guts!
A snail went into the panel and got electrocuted, and the slime from the snail just blew that circuit. Honestly, I couldn’t hold my composure, I was laughing out loud at how ridiculous this situation was.
How out of the ordinary for something like that to happen, and now the light fixture to add to it, on today of all days!
I found it funny that we didn’t skip a beat, instead we kept on moving forward.
It was also kismet how electricity was one of the words in Duolingo that day!
Our electrical box located outside on our stone wall is so outdated and wired strangely, thankfully with the help of Santi, one of our friends that’s an electrician, he was able to walk Kyle through on how to fix it.
After the strange events the morning brought, the rest of the day was smooth sailing. The dinner came together beautifully. We feel very fortunate to find such kind hearted patient people that share the same interest in learning languages. Kyle shared the story about the snail getting electrocuted in Spanish, and we learned a new word “caracol” which is Spanish for snail.
I was thankful I got to share my language of cooking and attempt to speak a little Spanish, I’ve perfected how to say “Más vino tinto”
