From my chocolate ear

#12 Panaderia

Ha - fooled! Panaderia is not a place, but a bakery. But such a Panaderia played a central role on the twelfth day of our big journey...

After our trip to Almeria, we limited our activities today to a tour of the city center of Aguadulce. The center is actually not a center. Life takes place along the N-340a, the main road along the coast, next to the A-7. Almost all shops, restaurants, doctors, and authorities line up like tin soldiers along the roadside, competing with colorful billboards and beautifully decorated shop windows for their customers.

It was towards the end of our long walk when the scent of almonds, cinnamon, and freshly baked goods tickled my nose and automatically raised my operating temperature by three or four degrees. I love sweets, baked goods, preferably well protected in a thick chocolate coating. It may be due to the temperatures that the baked goods down here are usually thinly dressed, as far as the coating is concerned. However, the baker of this Panaderia was an exception, a specialist, a true chocolatier. Just one look into the shop window made my taste buds somersault. Cakes, muffins, cakes, pastries in all sizes and shapes, artfully arranged puff pastry sticks, and all in this delightful, wonderful brown, in all shades...

I had almost put one foot over the threshold when someone slipped past me in a flash. "Darling, have you seen the pig's ears? They look splendid," squeaked Icke. "I'll get you one. Will you take care of the dogs?"

So there I stood with a flattened nose against the shop window, two dog leashes in my left hand, a stroller in my right hand, and watched as Icke flirted with the baker with radiant eyes. The young man with his baker's cap on his head was just packing the pig's ear when I heard Icke half German, half Spanish, ask him with hands and feet if he knew what this pastry was called in Germany. That was the moment when I wasn't so sad anymore that I wasn't standing in the store. I had already witnessed Icke once asking a server if the meat on her plate was pork. Since apparently she is not familiar with the word for pig in Spanish, she grunted - and that - admittedly - not bad at all. Only so loud that it suddenly became dead silence in the crowded restaurant. She must have practiced that at home, because such a grunt ... But let's leave it at that. When I saw through the shop window how Icke touched her ear, I suddenly felt a tug on the leashes. Even the dogs couldn't bear to see that.

"Look what I brought you," Icke came laughing hopping after us. "And guess what, he didn't even know it was a pig's ear." Oh really!

If we hadn't only had 200 meters to our accommodation, I would probably have sunk into the ground on the way there. In any case, I managed - our pig's ear, which was actually my pig's ear, didn't make it that far. I first heard rustling. "Can I try if it really tastes as good as it looks?" When my dear Icke then said that it tasted even better than she thought, I knew that my pig's ear wouldn't make it. Whether I minded if we shared it. She would buy me another one tomorrow, which would then be just for me. And oops, now there was suddenly only a small piece left... What a tragedy! How could that happen? I certainly wouldn't attach much importance to this tiny piece anymore and whoosh, it was gone - my pig's ear. A clear case of theft. It was abolished in 1975 - if they had already known Icke back then, who knows...