After a goodnight's sleep, the jet lag is much, much better! Today we went to a place called Museo del Jamón for lunch. There are tons of these all over Madrid, and they are restaurants as well as meat shops. The picture above is what you see as soon as you walk in the door. I was in awe and slightly horrified at how much meat was hanging from the wall. It was very heartbreaking to think of all the animals killed to make all that meat. Anyways we got a huge table because the entire group ate together. This was the meal where we all realized how different the food is in Spain. We all got to choose a dish for our first course and our second course. Most of us chose paella for our first choice. The paella was very delicious, however it had mussels and shrimp in it. The shrimp was good, but in Spain, they cook the shrimp and it still has the entire shell on it, the legs are still there, and its head and eyes. I was so freaked out by the eyes that I had to cut the head off and hide it under a mussel. I couldn't eat the shrimp with its eyes staring at me from the plate. It was just too weird and it made me feel that much more guilty for eating it. My friend Hannah order beef and I guess they don't cook their meat very much because it was really red and bloody. I gave her a lot of credit for eating it, because I don't think I could have eaten it. I ordered fish for my second course and I was so afraid it was going to come with the head still on. Thankfully it didn't; however, I had to pick at it a bunch to eat the actual fish because there were a ton of bones to navigate around. It was good fish, though after seeing all the meat on the wall, dealing with the shrimp eyes on my plate, and seeing Hannah's almost raw meat, my appetite had diminished a bit. And the cultural adjustment begins!
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