El gallitto

Language alert (but not the whole entry, so keep reading commoners):  there are only two double consonant letters in the natural Spanish language- ll and rr.  I say in the natural Spanish language because there is the zz in pizza, which isn't a Spanish word, and I'm sure there are others from borrowed words.  A gallo is a rooster, with the -ito ending in the diminutive form, for those of you out there paying attention!

So, I met Maribel at school this morning at 8:50 to retrieve my boxes from Guadalajara that had been sent to her office.  We opened them and went through their contents.  It all arrived.  It was a bit battered and beaten, but it was all there.  I am sooooo excited to have some things that make sense to me.  Maybe I will begin to feel like I know how to teach again!

After we unloaded the boxes, and Maribel oohed and ahhed, we went on our way to have breakfast.  The restaurant was called El Gallitto.  

The inside was very cute.  It felt like a restaurant Amanda would take me to.  We sat and looked over the menu.  Maribel had never been there but had heard it was just delicious.  It took awhile to figure out what we wanted.  We ordered our juice (must've been squeezed while we waited with huge chunks of pulp-my fave!) and kept browsing.  I settled upon El Gallitto D'Leonor.  The apostrophe is also non-existent in natural Spanish.  My plate would come with a corn tamal (think corn bread, and realize that this trip was the first time I realized the singular of tamales is tamal and not tamale), a quesadilla, this chips and salsa type thing (different from what you're thinking), and beans and cheese.  At the table, we were served tortillas that were crispy-not my fave.

We ate and chatted.  It was fun and filling.  Maribel taught at Moorehead State for a year.  While there, she lived with a couple in their 50s who had no children, so they treated her like one.  They took her all over the place.  She went back to visit every year for Christmas, Spring Break and summer (she had a honey)- and I think they paid for it- for nine years.  She and her daughters are planning on going to Disney World (or were planning until the dollar became unaffordable) and will stay in a house owned by this family.  She said every time she goes to visit, she orders a Papa John's pizza and reheats it all week.  She also must go to Rafferty's and have ribs.  Those are the two things she misses.  My food list will be much longer when I leave here.

She asked me questions about my family and we also discussed some of the cultural things.  She told me that whenever she thinks about me, she worries that I'm not being well enough taken care of since she's been there.  She also lived in Seattle for a bit as a student and had a terrible  experience with the family there.  She just wants the best for me, which is good.

I know that right now I couldn't find the restaurant again, but I could find the general vicinity.  To those of you planning trips here, if you're interested in an eight-dollar breakfast that will fill you all day, remind me of El Gallitto.  With two t's.