Category Archives: twitter

impromptu

19 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in food & drink, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, twitter, wine, work

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It’s been a bit of a crazy week, especially with me thinking I was quite mad to have taken on five – FIVE! – tapas tours during Semana Santa. The logistics of trying to organise the tours so as to avoid crowds and processions has been challenging to say the least. And so, having just finished three days in a row of evening tours – which all went very well I am happy to report – I was looking forward to making a nice meal at home and putting my feet up this evening.

So Nog & I went out to the Encarnación market (under Las Setas) to see what looked good and I decided to check out the little café/bar inside the market that Agustín had told me about. A bit like La Cantina in the Feria market, La Encarnación has a short list of daily fish on offer which they will fry or grill for you. Super fresh and very tasty.

Then along came a couple who asked if we spoke English and Spanish and said they needed our help. Turns out they wanted to find out if “huevas” were the same as shad roe and I suggested that they should try a tapa of it right then and there. Which they did. Verdict: almost the same but shad roe wasn’t quite so dry.

So after chatting a while and tweeting this photo of Philip with his huevas (which Fiona said came so near to being a naughty comment!) I mentioned my tapas blog and the tours and it turns out that I won’t be putting my feet up tonight. Instead I’ll be meeting Philip and Mary from New York at their hotel and going out on an impromptu tapas tour! They even invited Nog along.

As it’s been raining off and on all afternoon I don’t expect there to be many (if any) processions tonight, but that doesn’t mean that the bars won’t be crazy busy. Anyhooo… I just love it when stuff like this happens. And I’m quite looking forward to doing something a bit different tour-wise tonight as Philip & Mary have expressed an interest in trying out Flores Jamones & Vinos, which isn’t usually on my list as they don’t do tapas per se. They also told me that they didn’t mind if we had to get a taxi to go somewhere special – cool!

Stay tuned to my Sevilla Tapas twitter feed later if you’d like to come along…

how old are you?

12 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in life stuff, twitter

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This morning someone asked on Twitter:

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”

I knew immediately. I’d be 42 3/4, the age I was when this photo was taken . That is to say, aside from an extra 11+ years and many extra kilos, this is how old I actually feel.

This was also just before my hysterectomy, when my body started to go wonky, and so was probably the last time I ever felt “healthy & whole”. But my mind and my heart still feel as alive and vibrant as that colourful “sangria dress”.

Oh, and this pic was taken at my friend Pablo’s house – there’s no way I’d have those awful gold curtains at casa az!  😉

So, how about you?

easyjet az

06 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by in blogging, computers, culture, fiestas, friends, internet, iphone, sevilla, social media, spam, twitter, work

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Yesterday evening I was thrilled when I got an email from Annie Manson saying that while flying from Geneva to Málaga she’d seen me mentioned and quoted in the EasyJet’s April Inflight magazine, and congratulating me on such a great PR coup. At first I was totally flummoxed as I had no idea why I would be in there, then when I saw the article (about the Feria in Sevilla) written by Derek Workman, I remembered meeting Derek for tapas a while back and spending a pleasant leisurely lunchtime chatting about Sevilla stuff. He was in town doing research for this article as EasyJet was about to launch a new London-Sevilla route in April. So that was quite exciting! If you want to read the article (which starts on page 50) you’ll have to register, which is a bit of a pain but only takes a minute.

Anyhow, after a few emails back and forth to Annie I got into bed with my iPhone to read a few last tweets and emails before sleeping and saw that one of my favourite tapas bars was mentioned in an article by Shaney Hudson, an Australian travel writer now living in Holland who was here on a research visit last autumn. Then I saw that my tapas tours got a personal recommendation from Shaney in her Essential Guide to Sevilla (!!!). How cool is that?

All of which has me thinking this morning about all the amazing connections I’ve made, and continue to make, via my blogs, Twitter and – okay I admit it – even Facebook.  I’ve made friends and biz contacts, and have also found work, as a result of not only sitting in front of my laptop (or with iPhone in hand) several hours a day, but also by going out to meet many of these people when they are in town. Which of course I love as one of my favourite things to do is show people “my Sevilla” and especially take them out for tapas. So anyone who still thinks social media is silly is, well, silly.  😉

 

 

more sevilla english

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by in social media, twitter, websites, work

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Two years ago I set up this Sevilla English site to try and scare up a bit of business in the classes and translations department, which never really took off. Then today I decided to take it a step further and get Nog involved, switching his Twitter account name (which he rarely used) from the_noggin to SevillaEnglish, and I also set up a Facebook Fan Page for which we are both administrators but that he can mostly maintain.

I reckon that getting active in social media and connecting with local people and businesses may end up helping him get enough work so that he won’t have to pack up and go back to Wales. So let’s hope he sticks with this and gets things happening!

a tale of two azoteas

18 Friday Mar 2011

Posted by in food & drink, friends, home, restaurants, sevilla, tapas, television, twitter

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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