Azotea n. A rooftop terrace
This morning I meant to get up, get some work done, and then hit the gym. But then the guy from Digital+ called to say he could install the satellite dish and set up my new tv service, sooooo… I decided to just stick around at home and get it done. But because I was working downstairs and wasn’t paying attention to what the guy was doing, it was a bit of a bummer to find out he’d attached the dish to the side of the azotea wall (I thought it would be on the top of that pole) right where I want to put the barbeque (when I get one), but oh well. New service seems to be working fine and it’ll be cheaper than what I had with the dreaded Movistar. Also swapped internet and phone service yesterday to go with Vodafone, so in a week or so there should be no more Movistar in my life.
So having missed the gym there was nothing left to do but go out and eat a whack of tapas!
Yesterday I’d made plans to meed Dutch Twitter pal @Amiek who is in town on holiday, so we went out to La Azotea, one of my favourite places that I actually hadn’t been to for awhile. And well, it was fabulous as always and great to see everyone again. Spent a lovely afternoon chatting with Amiek, who has lived in Sevilla before and speaks fluent Spanish (have never met a Dutch person who didn’t speak at least five languages). She’s staying in her old ‘hood, but as it’s been awhile since she’s been here I’ll be giving her tips on the latest and greatest tapas bars, and will most likely see her again before she leaves on Tuesday. Damn but that Twitter thang is great. Lunch below, which Amiek very generously treated me to…
[click to enlarge]
espetos de pijotas (fish onna stick) with blood orange mayo
grilled morcilla with caramalised onion & quail egg
cod & wild mushroom canneloni with scallop sauce / grilled tuna with olive paté
presa (iberian pork) tataky with crushed pistachios & creamy idiazabal cheese sauce
casa azahar 
I always make a point to find out where the installer plans to set up things and try to make sure that it isn’t going to be someplace inconvenient.
In my case, it cannot be attached to the house, the roof, or directly to a fence (because of the co-op bylaws) so HAS to be on a pole, either free-standing or where I can secure the pole to the fence. Since the fence has to be replaced at some point, I put in the pole (or friends did it for me). It has to be pointing SW and since our house faces south, it blocks most of the convenient places to put it. Unfortunately, because the gate is on the west side of the yard, it can’t go on that side. There are lilacs all along the north side so it can’t go there. So, there is only one place that it can go – the east side of the yard, about the centre, high enough to get the signal over the roof. Of course THAT also makes it prone to wobbling and I still have to put cement around the base of the pole.
Oddly enough, despite the fact that when it was attached to the side of our old unit, we were ALWAYS losing our signal during rainy, stormy, or snowy weather, we didn’t lose it all winter…
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Well, I guess that since it’s on the roof here it doesn’t have to be any higher. Neighbours seem to have their dishes attached to any old pole, which this technician said would mean it could lose the signal in windy weather. I guess it doesn’t really matter that it’s where it is. I just now wish I’d been upstairs while he was doing this, though not really sure there would’ve been any better option. From where the disk is now, the cable fits neatly into the living room from outside, and I don’t have the extra crap I needed to get the tv signal from the router. So we’ll see how this new service goes…
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That blood orange mayo sounds interesting. I don’t trust anything “onna stick” – things like that always make me think of CMOT Dibbler!
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The mayo was perfect with the fish. Heh, I love “onna stick” and “inna bun”…
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I’ll have that dish on the top right thanks
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You’d love it. In fact, you’d love them all.
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The great thing about La Azotea is that there are not only daily specials (like the fish onna stick) but also weekly specials (the canneloni & presa in cheese sauce) so that every time you go you can try something new, as well as “old favourites”. Looking forward to their new place opening some time in May.
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