Poblet: Or Not-Subtle, Excessive, and Sometimes Vaguely Homoerotic Alcohol Drinking, Catalan style

Ohhhh, Poblet. Poblet is a monastery outside of Tarragona. We ventured 2 hours outside of Barça with our new professor, the fabulous and extremely tiny Universitat Pompeu Fabra professor M...aria M... orras (name distortion because I seriously DO NOT WANT her to google herself and find this blog. Not okay.)

Anyway, similar to last week’s excursion to Tarragona, I absorbed so very very little of anything even vaguely educational at Poblet. There must be something genetically wrong with me: I actually have no interest whatsoever in walking around ruins for three hours listening to a tour guide tell me about the eating habits of Benedictine monks of the 14^th century. Sorry, UChicago.

Lucky for me, the monastery happened to also be a haven for a large and var var var adorable population of KICHAS!!! Урааааааааа!

Read more after le jump.

So, as our tour guide rambled on and on about the bead count of rosaries throughout the ages, I was busy observing the adorable kichas around me. A scene:

Creepily-Small-Mouthed Tour Guide (CSM TG): Oh, and the monks, they liv-ED in a great nation, the greatest people of the CATALAN, they use-ED-

(kicha approaches CSM TG)

Kicha: Mrowww (translation: feed me!!!)

Liza: KITTEH!!

CSM TG: (ignoring kicha) words of the Catalan, and they lov-ED their flag, that carri-ED

Kicha: Mrowww mrowwww mrowww (translation: or you could pet me! I am not so picky!)

Liza: KITTEH!!

CSM TG: (still ignoring kicha) the strip-ES, oh yes and it was oldest of the-

(kicha rubs up against CSM TG’s leg)

Kicha: Mrowwwwwwwwwwwww (translation: meowwwwww, I am a cat!!)

CSM TG: (how is he still ignoring this adorable kicha???) flags in our EUROPE, no?

Liza: KITTEHHHHHH!!

In short: the kichas were easily the best part. Rolling in the sun, being fluffy, generally being cute. Best evah.

Sadly, eventually we had to actually enter the monastery, aka cold and cat-less zone of sadness. On top of the cat-separation-anxiety, we were all also freezing cold. Literally for the entire tour, our extremely-sensitive-to-cold-now-that-Chicago-is-so-far-away group was shivering in the 30-degree temperatures. Kind of pathetic, really.

I mean, in some rooms I could see my own breath (most freezing, ironically, was the heating room of the monastery. 12^th century design failure, clearly)... that is a big deal in the Mediterranean, OKAY???

Seriously, though, coldness + hunger + tiredness + ambivalence to topic discussed + lack of desire to stare at creepily-small-mouth tour guide’s creepily small mouth = college students goin’ loco.

Therefore, I just turned into an anthropological chronicler vs. listener i.e. chronicled how UChicago students tried to stay warm despite their complete lack of warm clothes.

Exhibit A: Huddle for warmth

Exhibit B: Improvising

Exhibit C: Leave the monastery, go live in a puddle of cats. (not pictured)

Anyway. The tour was, thank Jesus, shorter than any of our past tours have been, and therefore by 1 PM we were free for lunch—the best part of any excursion, every time.

In true form, lunch was epic. If you have seen Anthony Bourdain in Spain, you will understand my excitement to be eating and drinking the way my man Mr. Bourdain did—that’s right: Catalan cookout.

Here's the clip from Anthony Bourdain, if you haven't seen it already (notably, calçots (the monster leeks) are made from sprouted onions. Clauj would be proud):

So, yes, grilled calçots: it’s a thing. Actually, easily the most interesting thing creepily-small-mouthed TG told us was about him and his bros making calçots and drinking wine at the caixa. Chillen tha most.

The calçots are, admittedly, not so delicious on their own, but tasty as all hell with the romanescu sauce (almonds, tomatoes, oil, garlic). More entertaining: the wine cask, called a Porrón.  Yeahhhhh, it pretty much is the most phallic thing. I mean, drinking out of a glass with a giant penis, whatever. Let’s not discuss it...

That said, the true test of a man is how far he can get away from the flask without spilling the wine all over his face...? Eyebrow raise.

Mastering the art of drinking with this vessel involves a) lack of fear of drowning in wine, b) lack of attachment to one’s clothes to the point that staining them profusely with strong-smelling cheap red wine is not an issue, c) coordination. I obvs. lack all three of these qualities, but luckily many of the bros in our group fit this criteria perfectly. Namely, Mr. Mikey Lipkowitz. Observe the master.

Our group was divided into three tables, each with its own pile of grilled leeks and flasks of wine. Our table, for whatever reason, was what I would call the “trust-fall table.” Everyone ate one calçot, and tried using the Porrón once, everyone clapped and smiled and took pictures afterwards, and then we were done! Honestly, it was like a Catalonia-visit episode of Oprah: At the end, we had 90% of our leeks left, and two 70%-filled things with wine, and we all felt accomplished for trying it, and we all had a million pictures doing it, and we all felt empowered!!! In contrast to us, the other two tables were what I would describe as the “FUCK YES CRUNK TIMES… and also leeks” tables. They finished all their leeks and wine, and then went over to our table to finish what we had left.

I myself only did it once (Love bein' at the trust fall table!), sucked at it, almost stained my beautiful shirt, and was therefore not encouraged to try again. Guess I'm not a real Catalan man!

.... Pffft. Tell me something I didn't know.

(note the wine-bib they gave to all of us n00bz)

Something no one (including the adults around us) seemed to notice was that, in our competitions to see who could perform this act of heroic, super manly drinking, we were all … drinking. A lot. 

We then proceeded to lunch. It was deliciousssss. Essentially two extremely-somber-looking waiters walked around with these piping hot platters of meat, serving generous portions of grilled sausages, chicken, beef, pork, beans, and potatoes to all. In retrospect, this was important, as the wine was flowing very freely, and we needed to coat our stomachs, lest vomit up some calçotes.

Of note: I tried blood sausage. It wasn’t horrible, but was thematically too much for me to eat a lot of. Also, it looked like a turd. Seriously.

Oh, jeez, by the end of lunch…. What can I even say. Of course,  on top of the endless wine we had all also consumed the free coffee. Meaning, ~2-3 glasses of wine a person + café con leche = 4LOKO, Catalan style. People were yelling and stumbling. Michael knocked over some chairs.  Sleezah was extra unfocused. It was not pretty.

I’m pretty certain every single person around me was drunk, with one notable exception—M. Morras, noted Spanish Middle Ages scholar and all-around adorable Spanish lady. At one point I have a foggy memory of hearing her say, “The first time I saw a man where he drink so much that next day, he don’t remember what happen to him, this was when I was 25, and grad student in the California. We do not drink as that aqui, en España”

… Ummmmmmmmm, woops. Of course within a day of encountering M. Morras, we all get too crunk to function. Making a good impression, the Amurrrican way.

Luckily, our drunken mass was quickly confined to the bus for two hours for the ride home. After the first 40 minutes of people screaming, yelling, rolling around, etc, we all conked out to sleep off the wine. So, in the end, it worked out. No one stripped naked and jumped in any fountains (even if there was loud talk of integrating the Porrón into the beer bong canon of Fiji). Just mild discussions on penises and lesbianism, NBD. M. Morras = unfazed.

Well rested, we returned home filled with food, cheeks still rosy with wine, content with our day in the Catalonian countryside. Just wish I had taken one of those cats with me.