Thanksgiving in Europe

As most of you know, we were fortunate enough to find very cheap plane tickets for a direct flight from Sofia to Valencia, Spain for Thanksgiving.  We chose to spend two nights in Valencia and two nights in Madrid.  It was an amazing trip, filled with great food, beautiful art, fresh ocean air, fun city lights, and I have 180 photos to show for it!  I'm going to blog this in multiple posts.  This first one, appropriately, is all about the food.  

Horchata de chufas, the Spanish drink made of ground tigernuts, water, vanilla, and sugar, was invented in Valencia.  (There is a Mexican version in the US made of rice milk...also good, but Spainish is better.)  My personal goal was to consume as much horchata as possible while in town...as you can see, I found one as big as my head, and practically floated away drinking it!

               

Also invented in Valencia, is Paella Valenciana.  Unlike the paella most of us know, made with seafood, this one has chicken, rabbit, white and green beans.  It was one of the most delicious meals I have ever eaten.  (Thank you Samantha Brown for the restaurant suggestion.)

In honor of Sharon's chestnut stuffing, I indulged in chestnuts on the street on Thanksgiving!

Not to be upstaged by the horchata, Spain takes great pride in their hot chocolate.  It's typically served with churros; the chocolate is so rich, I think adding the fried dough is a bit excessive (though that didn't stop me from ordering them - twice!)

Several meals were comprised entirely of tapas.  At 1.50 or 1.80 each, we were able to sample nearly all of these tasty treats.
     

Other delicious Spanish desserts!


Of course, we went to the Nespresso bar and enjoyed complimentary coffee after Greg made a purchase to restock his personal supply.

And finally, in the lovely land of oranges, we enjoyed fresh squeezed juego del naranajas!