the times they are a-changin'

I’ve developed a number of things while on this trip. An appreciation for art. A love for Amsterdam, and Paris. A respect for different cultures, and a far more honest acknowledgement of my own comforts. And a pressing need, I’m told, to shave.

And, most recently and unexpectedly, a taste – it seems – for shellfish.

I used to eat the stuff all the time as a kid: shrimp, lobster, crab – I’d eat it all indiscriminately. But then, after my time in Japan, I went cold turkey – no one in the family really knows why (it has, in fact, been a subject of some debate and contention) – and these twenty years in between have been shellfish-free. And it never bothered me – I still think shrimp are strange, strange creatures. And I never thought I was missing out.

But then I figured – well, since I’m here seeing/doing/trying new things, why not re-examine the whole no-shellfish rule? So I did. And I suppose it didn’t hurt that I was on the coast of Spain, ten feet from the Mediterranean. Or that I was superfan starving. Or that I’d had more than a few glasses of sangria.

Or that the paella looked like this.

It was pretty amazing.

Shrimp, I think, is still low low low down on the list of things I’d order in a restaurant – and if it comes whole, I don’t think it’s worth the effort of de-shelling.

But I guess it’s just one more way I’ve changed - since way back when.