Monday, October 6th "Betis; Festival de las Naciones again; Haunted, or a Publicity Stunt?"

Betis tied Athletic Bilbao on Saturday, making it the third straight tie at home. We've yet to see a victory in Ruiz de Lopera but as Betis continues to win in the away games we're able to suffer some without too many problems. Asunçao scored a goal in the last 10 minutes to even things at 1-1. I think Asunçao has now scored a goal to tie or win in 3 games now and it's time someone else stepped up to help the team out. We now have a week off and then the derby!

We again hit the Festival de las Naciones yesterday for a another day of eating. This time we hit the Mexican restaurant for tacos. Our taco choice was pork with vinegar, very similar to NC barbecue with the absence of red pepper. Gives me hope for recreating my favorite dish in Sevilla, though. We were invited to shots of tequila on the house after our meal and this must have been the worst tequila you could find. I understand why it was free - they must have to give this stuff away to get rid of it. Afterwards we hit the Argentinean restaurant for chorizo and a steak...finally, a real steak. Beef here in general tends to be absent of flavor so it was a treat to have a grilled steak with genuine beef taste. I posted it here sometime before, but the Festival is located in the Prado de San Sebastian and runs until November 2nd, so there's plenty of time to make it out there. Entry is 1,50€ during the week and 3,50€ on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

A local restaurant claims to be haunted. Viandas, located just off Imagen in the Calle Arguijo, claims strange noises and movements are coming from the third floor storage/dressing room such as faucets and windows opening, pictures moving or falling of the wall, mysterious shadows and voices. Waiters now refuse to go upstairs and some local ghost hunters have begun to study the situation. Possible causes for the haunting include a military officer who hung himself in the same building and may still be around. Interesting that included in the article was a good number of dishes offered in the restaurant by one of the waiters. Read as if you were sitting at a table listening to a list of specials of the day, he mentioned these were rich foods to keep you from running out of the restaurant in fear of all the paranormal activity. This is a nice restaurant with a second floor dining room that never seems to have many people. Maybe they just need the publicity, so I remain a skeptic.