'Are you the chocolate girl?' or, Susan hits the language barrier

Of all the things I read about Spain before arriving here, one of the things that got my attention was the concept of drinking a thick cup of hot chocolate with a churro to dunk in it.

After visiting Alhambra today (more on that in a future post, to be sure), my classmate Jenny and I decided to stop by a convenient 'churreria', which seemed like a perfect place to sample this local delicacy.

You'd think that requesting the treat that this establishment was named after would be straightforward enough. But alas, when I asked if they had 'chocolate y churro', the man asked if I wanted coffee with chocolate... or juice... and then he indicated that we should wait at a table and he would find someone who spoke more English.

A moment later he returned to ask me if I was the one asking about the chocolate. His actual words, were, however, 'Are you the chocolate girl?'

After replying in the affirmative, I was escorted to speak with the woman behind the counter who pointed at their chocolate treats available: pudding and cake. Well, no, that wasn't what we had in mind, thank you very much, so we headed down the way to try our luck at another establishment.

The next place we tried advertised 'churros y chocolate' very clearly on the sign above their door, but after our previous experience I was a bit skeptical of our chances of success when I didn't see any mention of said churros or chocolate on the menu in the window.

But our luck had changed, for this man seemed to know exactly what we wanted, so we ordered 'para dos'.

After a couple of minutes, our pudding-like hot chocolate arrived (indeed, there was no point in attempting to drink it; spoons were the only option for consumption). And after a few minutes (when I had started to think that the churros had fallen victim to translation) the plate of hot-out-of-the-oil churros, piled high, arrived at our table. ¡Dios mio! I had expected one for each of us, but they had served us a full meal of churros!

Fortunately, Jenny had been saying she was hungry, and as I always have room in my gullet for tasty local treats, we devoured them all.

A successful leap over the language barrier after smacking into it on the first try... Score one for Susan!