espresso

"cafe con leche". this was a usual order of ours come 10am if we happened to enter a small town or village along the road. i (jes) joined the crew in a couple of these our first few days in barcelona, but i soon remembered that i don't really like milk, so attempted to switch to "cafe negro", expecting black coffee. 

"cafe negro" seemed to be translated as "cafe solo" which translates back to english as plain and simple, one shot of espresso. the first few times this was placed in front of me, i immediately ordered a large glass of water to accompany my tiny shot, and proceeded to talk half an hour to drink the black tar like substance, jittering for the rest of the day. by about the half way point of our trip however, i no longer attempted to order a "cafe negro" but went straight for the "cafe solo", often opting for the up-sale of a "cafe doble".

let's just say returning back to the world of regular drip coffee in the Minnesota airport was a bit of a shock to the system. and by shock, i mean it was like luke warm water compared to the beautiful espressos of gorgeous spain.