Knowledge for the traveler

This is, of course, a café con leche, an important breakfast standby.



Or, if you are lactose intolerant, here is its cousin, the café solo.





For those who like just a little milk, there's the café cortado, above.



Finally, for those with a very sweet tooth indeed, (or with no teeth left, to speak of), there is this saccharine delight, the café bombón (café con leche condensada). I was first introduced to the café bombón by our somewhat sparse-toothed busdriver on the trip to the mountains last weekend. Fortuituosly, on the same day that I tracked down its correct spelling, I also learned that the correct spelling for those items that cheerleaders deploy


is pompons, and not pompoms, as I had always believed. For this piece of knowledge I am indebted to my good friend the O' Donovan, whose fine blog thedogspajamas I highly recommend.

The O' Donovan is also the source for the following excellent link: disapproving rabbits. You may think that you already have enough disapproval in your life (don't we all?), but these rabbits will make you think again.

Other useful Spanish for travelers:

This fine beer, possibly familiar to some of you from yesterday's cinco de mayo celebrations in the United States, is, of course, not called Corona in Spain, that brandname having already been taken by a popular brand of tobacco. Instead, you must ask for a Coronita.

The plain people of Ireland: Begob, but that's a fine-looking young wan above. You wouldn't happen to know her name, would you?
The management: As it happens, I do.
The plain people of Ireland: And?
The management: And nothing, that's what.
The plain people of Ireland: Yerra go on. We just want to send her a nice respectful e-mail.
The management: I'm sure you do. Tell you what. Since ye're such a dab hand at the googling, why not try doing an image search on "pompons" and see what ye might find out?
The plain people of Ireland: Right you are so. Liam, come over here! How does that google thing work again?
The management: That should keep them occupied for a while.

Finally, the Spanish for Imodium is ... Imodium.

The plain people of Ireland: Imodium, is it? Isn't that the stuff for..
The management: enfermedades del estomago. Yes, indeed.
The plain people of Ireland: Begob, you're not having such a great week, are you?
The management: I assure you, it's getting better by the hour.

And there we must leave things for this evening.