pizza!

We went out for pizza last night. We drove into a nearby town called Puerto Serrano. All the little towns (and even the big ones) are strange to drive through! The streets tend to not be laid out in any kind of scheme, and they are rarely wide enough for traffic to flow through easily. American drivers would have a hard time here, being unable to navigate, or having to have patience in a blocked street. That just seems to be part of the psyche here, however, to let traffic happen. You can go or you can’t and there’s nothing that can be done but sit and wait. People even seem to approach it with some humor, honking at the pedestrians who just wander in clouds, or flitting around little trucks parked in the middle of streets.

We listened to KISS FM in the car. I think every country the world over must have this radio station. It plays the best mix of today and the 80s (with a handful of Spanish tunes). And at the Hacienda, when the radio isn’t playing this ubiquitous station, there is some kind of soft rock or American pop coming from the CD player. One can only take so much Lionel Ritchie. However, I must say I did approve of Jack Johnson, and wonder how soon we can hear that one again. Today at lunch we were graced with Van Morrison.

Moritz had given us the name of a place that sold good Italian pizza. The only things Italian about the place, however, were the pizza and possibly the little old man who worked there. The walls were covered in the oddest assortment of pictures from Tarifa to Geronimo. The radio played cheesy music, and a large television set on top of the dessert freezer was showing Sesame Street with no sound. Each table held a Connect-4 set from full- to travel-size. After we each ate a pizza on ultra-thin crust, cheesier than the radio, we shared a piadina, a specialty from the owner’s region. I was amused to note that we have that very same specialty in Central PA and call it a bilby.