A weekend in rural Spain is exactly what I needed

I'm not a city girl. I live in the city, but this is what I want. Gonna manifest that. So this weekend in Spain is a puente. A puente is like a holiday, a vacation day. Do I know what the puente is for? No. Am I gonna celebrate it? You know, you know what I'm gonna do. I gotta be one with the Spanish people. I can't be out here working when they're not. I gotta adapt, you know? So this weekend we're gonna go to La Rioja, which is the wine region of Spain. Well, there are various wine regions of Spain, but this is probably the most, the most whiny wine region. What's happening in this town? There are so many differences in the way that they eat here versus the way we eat in the U.S. I could go on for days, weeks, months, years, explaining the differences, not only in the foods themselves, but the differences in the culture surrounding food. I plan on making a lot of videos about this topic because I think it can be really helpful to people trying to find a healthier lifestyle, but also a healthier lifestyle that they actually enjoy. And trust me, I am enjoying this lifestyle and I don't feel restricted in any way. But anyways, for now, just enjoy these beautiful images of some delicious meals I had while in La Rioja. Are you actually European? Unless you have a Vespa. I don't know. This is the most mountainous part of La Rioja. It's very hard. But this doesn't last long, right? The fire. Just enough to eat. Ah, that's good. That's the good thing about it. It's very fast. Yes. I think this was my favorite meal we had on this trip. We had barbecued lamb chops. When I say barbecue, I just mean that it was made on the grill, like on the barbecue. I really don't know how to differentiate those two things. It doesn't have barbecue sauce. That's not a thing here. Barbecued pancetta, salad, homemade spicy chorizo, homemade roasted red peppers. Everything was so local, so fresh. It's so good. Time for the post-lunch cafecito. I love closing off a meal with a coffee. I just think it's the absolute best way to end a meal. It's like a ritual. I don't know. I love it so much and I will do this in any country that I live in from now on. They're different from my father's, because, well, when you leave it without picking it up, what do you do? Here, these... Theoretically, when you pick it up, you have to come at dawn so that these tips don't get sunburned. So this... So you have to go looking for it. When the soil is well prepared, I don't have any grass here. Yes. So as soon as the soil is a little more developed, they come out. I've never seen them on the ground. This is my dream life. Well, this isn't my life, but one day, I hope so. He told me that they're gonna put here tomatoes, squash, watermelon, peppers, literally everything you could ever imagine. Like, you could live off of this only. I'm not a city girl. I live in the city, but this is what I want. It's gonna manifest that. I don't care. Oh, you're making more for dinner. Yes, because... Well, it depends. It's a little scary, but... In theory, Galicians have to do five or seven. Diego, how long does it take from here to Villarreal and Tafel? An hour and a half. One of my favorite things about Spain in general, but especially in rural Spain, is the ability for people to relax and live slowly. All across Spain on the weekends, you'll find families and friends gathering all day long, Saturday and Sunday, having long lunches, enjoying each other's presence. A four-hour lunch in Spain on the weekends is completely normal. Everyone just takes the time to eat and enjoy non-processed, delicious local food, many times with a glass of wine or two, coffee, fruit, dessert, always followed by a nice sobremesa, which is where they sit around the table and talk and laugh, and sometimes even argue about politics or something. But there's always this sense of underlying respect. And even if you get in a huge screaming argument, it doesn't mean that you hate each other, and you're probably going to go have lunch with them again tomorrow and spend four hours talking. And then after the sobremesa, maybe they take a walk through their town or city, and you just look around, and you can feel that no one is in a hurry. For those of us from countries that don't practice these habits, it is really hard sometimes to slow down and do this. It's even hard for me sometimes, and I've lived here for almost five years. Sometimes I just get antsy, and I kind of want to move on to the next thing and go work or go do errands or whatever. But I know that these moments are so much more important than they seem, these moments of just relaxing and disconnecting. And I know that they're literally going to add years to my life.