I live in the capital city of what airport billboards assure me is the best small country in the world. Sounds good. However, although living in Edinburgh provides many exciting opportunities on a daily basis, such as being rained on, wrestling with a laughable public transport system, enduring a culture of binge drinking and casual violence, and observing the slow and tragic decline into directionless malaise of a once bustling centre of industry, I occasionally still feel the need to get out into the wider world. This time, my target was southern Europe. Destination: Barcelona! The capital of Catalonia, it has culture, tastes and even language distinct from that that of Castilian Spain (For those less cultured beans out there, the Catalan language is indistinguishable from Castilian Spanish in almost all respects, except vocabulary, spelling, grammar and punctuation).
I did indeed see and experience many wonders in this city of great architecture and alien customs, such as this building, this building, this Smurf-flavoured ice cream, this other building and this man being horrifically consumed by a deadly horde of evil flowers. However, as an amateur foodie - which is basically synonymous with "fat pie" - I thought that I would like to instead share a food-related tale. It began on that fateful Saturday night...

I was determined to immerse myself in all aspects of the local culture. Well, you know what they say, "When in Rome, take a lunge at the Pope. You know, just to see how far you get." Although, more pertinently, they also say, "Do as the Romans do." Is Barcelona the same as Rome? I don't know. It's all in continental Europe anyway, so close enough. In this spirit, I decided to be slightly adventurous when it came to tasting the local dishes. Imagine my delight, then, when I noticed that the joint I was occupying that night appeared to be serving Admiral Ackbar's people as a starter, in the form of "Calamari risotto". Despite my initial reservations that such a dish was not suitably daring, I was persuaded by the addendum, "Served in squid ink". "Squid ink?" thought I, "That sounds like something you would never in your right mind eat at home.", so I ordered it. In due course, as I warmed up with a few rounds of bread rolls, said dish was brought unto my table. Ladies, droids and gentlemen, allow me to assure you that you have never seen such a sight as this. I can describe its appearance only as that of frog spawn soaked in tar. And the odour...As a fully paid-up holder of a geek card, my first thought upon experiencing the olfactory sensation of the poor creature's excretions was, of course, "Oooooohhh...and I thought they smelled bad on the outside." What did it all taste like, you perhaps wonder? For the curious, it was kind of like eating a mix of wood shavings, macaroni cheese and crude oil. I don't like macaroni cheese.

For the next course, I had decided to take the slightly safer route of tackling a whole ox crab (not actually, as it turns out, a genetic cross-breed of an ox and a crab, to my considerable disappointment). Now, it is important to note that I was approaching the dark abyss of inebriation at this point in time. All I can say is that me trying to crack open a crab whilst drunk should be filmed for a public information video about the evils of alcohol, or at least of cheap wine. In my defence, though, I was presented with a dizzying array of instruments prior to the crab's arrival. I actually began to ponder whether the restaurant staff realised that I was going to eat the beast, not perform some sort of open heart surgery on it. Then, for one terrifying moment, as I beheld the arsenal of serrated tools before me, I was gripped by the thought that the crab might not even be killed before being brought to me. I steeled myself for a Geonosian-esque gladiatorial fight to the death across the restaurant floor. Oh, how the balladeers of years to come would sing of this day, such would be the magnitude of the spectacular clash twixt man and sea dweller! How the thundering blow of claw against odd-looking plier implement would ring through the centuries, rendering Obi-Wan's fight with the Acklay a mere children's puppet show by comparison! The fame! The glory! The rapture! The movie deals! The...Oh, it's already dead after all. I'll just prod it with this elongated fork to make sure. Aye, it's dead, or at least in some sort of permanent comatose state. Apart from the rather tricky aspect of trying to decide whether any parts of the thing were poisonous and, if so, if it was the kind of poison that would go well with a Sauvignon Blanc, that was very much the end of the excitement with that meal, and so the end of this tale.

Yet my gastronomic adventures were not over. The following Monday marked my first encounter with so-called "tapas". The primary thrust of tapas is to eat from the many and varied dishes brought to you until your stomach walls rupture under the terrible pressure, and to then continue eating until all of your abdominal cavities are filled with cheese and meat and you succumb to the cold and strangely spicy embrace of death. I survived, of course, and decided to take my leave of the country before the locals could succeed in their continuing attempts to assassinate me through culinary means.

Unfortunately, since then, the squid has been attempting to exact its revenge from beyond the grave, further extending my absence from the lovely folk of the blogs. And soon I shall be voluntarily doing the same. Being absent, that is, not exacting post mortal vengeance. Unless...Nah. As a few of you are already aware, I shall be departing for foreign shores once more in less than two weeks. This time, it is in Japan that I hope to spread the Green and White gospel. What sights shall I see? What Star Wars madness shall I uncover in the neon-lit depths of Tokyo's urban sprawl? What new monstrosities of the ocean shall I encounter and presumably end up eating with a bowl of rice? Only time will tell, although I would come to my blog afterwards to double check the facts. Until then, my incomparable pretties, remain in a low temperature condition and suspend yourselves in a lackadaisical fashion. Green and white for life.