A little gross and a lot of delicious

Friday: went to a bullfight. why? I figured it would be a good idea to go once in my life. Now i can judge it-- yes it's still terrible and I dont see other people's "artistic appreciation". The killing at the end isn't even the worst part- although it is pretty bad (especially the first of the 6 bulls they had to stab repeatedly because the toreador sucked and couldnt do it in one swift jab). Before the final kill, the bull is taunted around the pin and then the 4 or 5 helpers take their little spears and prance around the bull and then stab him in the back to weaken him for the final "dance" wth the toreador. It was even more disgusting than I thought it would be. I left during the intermission and the ticket man asked me as I was leaving, "aww did you cry for the bulls." (I definately was not crying) Ew- give me a break. Some things that were cool about it: 1. the stadium "plaza de ventas" is really old and cool. The seating is slabs of concrete and there are no walk-ways: every seat is just row after row, so your feet are behind someone's back. Also there's a special section for the royal family... no one was in there though :( 2. the audience interaction is interesting. A lot of the people who go are really into the bull fights and know all of the technique, so to show the footing of the toreador is too simplistic or if he is standing too far away from the bull, the crowd whistles- a socially acceptable "boo".

Saturday: We had the goodbye dinner with the program. I cant beleive people are starting to go home! We went to a fancy-ish restaurant and had an incredible Spanish meal. First, 100 appetizers, then the paella was reallllly good. Each person had a crab, mini lobster, skrimps, and the rest of the ocean on their plate. heaven. Family, you'd be proud of the crab-opening lessons I gave. Although they were about 2 inches long, so not so good (Reason #8 to come home *HINT*). And for dessert- dried fruit and ice cream. Ever eaten a dried orange? Theres peel and everything.

Sunday: Little bit of studying and Lots of park with Esmeralda.

Today: Lots of studying :( ...ok 4 days til Barcelona.... :)

Cooking:Reason 1 of 7 to Come Back

After attending a required seminar on "reverse culture shock: re-entry into the united states", and found the advice pretty useless, I decided to take matter into my own hands and deal with the inevitable disappointment the best way i know how- making a list. I'm thinking of the little things that Im looking forward to at home. So far the list is fairly short:

• free texting
• minimal overt prostitution
• no school
• Ocean City
• no smoking in public buildings
• COOKING

I cannot wait to... 1. choose what I eat instead of the (admittedly exciting) surprise of what is waiting for me every night for dinner. My host mom has pulled out some doozies over the past few months i.e. mayonnaise with vegetables (and not the other way around) or boiled zucchini filled with hardboiled egg, gogi berries, and vineagar... there have been a lot of non-gross things too. Aside from previus rampages on cupcakes and bagels, Im currently obsessing over grilled food. Id literally take anything grilled (almost). I dream about the smokey charred barbeque flavor. yummm.

2.Cook the things I want. Im taking full advantage of the opportunity to cook while im here and make a "thank you" dinner for my host mom and daughters (yes, this invitation includes baby Tomas too) I tried to think of an American menu, but at the same time, nothing too boring or fast-foody. Ive decided on the following:

Turkey burgers with a mango avocado salsa* Side of spiced sweet potato fries* Summer cucumber and tomato salad* S'mores (microwaved-style unfortunately)

...As you can expect, Im beyond excited. Next, Im going to exploit the inexposure of my spanish friends to peanut butter. Some have tried it (and not liked it) and other are afraid. (They compared the strangeness of a spanish favorite to PB&Js: melon with ham on top.) I am thinking they have just not tried the appropriate proportions of PB to J, so im organizing a picnic in the park where ill bring mini pbj and grilled cheese sandwiches for my little cultural experiment. Yeah- it isnt much of cooking, but it's the closest im going to get, so ill take it.

According to my hosing agreement we are provided with breakfast and dinner, and no "kitchen rights" aka no cooking....but of course ive eased into it :) STAGE1: no cooking, occasional sandwhich assembly STAGE2: salads which involve chopping on the cutting board STAGE3: Elvira bought be stove-top oatmeal which meant it was socially acceptable to use the stove to boil stuff. And in 2 or 3 weeks when I make Elvira's thank you dinner, Ill have progressed into full-fledged cooking mode.

3. Im especially excited to return home to try out the recipes Ive accumulated on my travels. I have a Moroccan soup recipe from the peace corps friends we met there, a paella recipe from my intercambio's mom, and then I told Elvira that I will be stealing a wole box of recipes from her before I leave-- she is the queen of soups. Im really regretting not getting the recipes from the Chinese family that hosted me for dinner one night while I was there!!!

"Hiking"

My definition of hiking: walking up an incline in a moderately- strenuous fashion; usually done on a mountain.

The program's definition of hiking: We took a bus from Moncloa to the mountains outside of the city (the same ones I hiked in February in the snow). We get there, and continue to drive up the mountain. We are let off at a rest stop for a 20 minute pre-hiking bathroom and snack break. (We left Madrid an hour ago where we just ate breakfast). Then we began our stroll DOWN the mountain, where we were informed it would all be downhill. I was bummed but figured at least Id be outside in the sun. And then we were informed, most of it would be in the shade. So, we began our leisurley shaded descent, and 1.5 hours later we were given our 1.5 hour lunch break. On the second half of the climb, we diverged from the mountain trial, and walked along a road (like with cars). At the end of the road, we had yet another snack break at the cafe while we waited for the bus to drive us home.
<---- The "hiking trail"

The non-hiking hiking trip highlights: saw 2 lizards, took advantage of the times we were out of the sun and got a little tan, and now Im not sore for my run tomorrow.

Park or Study? Park.

Just got a telemarketer on my spanish cellphone. Feels pretty legit.


(written at 1:30 pm on May 21)
Today is sooo nice out and I have no class cause it's Friday. This means really tough decisions: pack a picnic for the park or study for my final and do projects for next week? I just have to pass the classes....

(written at 8:30 am on May 22)
Yep, I chose outside versus homework, and am quite pleased with that decision. Yesterday was Amy's birthday, so she, Shannelie who was visiting from studying abroad in Milan, and I went to Maoz, a new (for me) vegtarian/falafal restaurant to pick up lunch and had a picnic in the park. We then walked home from the park all the way home which is like an hour walk. The walk to so uncomfortably hot, we saw an icecream shop sold ice-ees "granizados". My coffee one was unebelievably refreshing.

Then I did exactly 45 minutes of my paper.

It was another friend visiting from Georgetown's, David, last night in Madrid, so we went to chill at an outside terrace. We awkwardly waited while a table freed up and had to fight the 2 guys also lurking. Luckily a second table opened up and little blood was shed.

Today we are going "hiking" with the program. Im not really sure what this hiking will entail. All I know is it means Sunday= homework time. for real.

Dia de San Isidro: the day dedicated to cool people in Madrid

Fiesta de San Isidro is a day for Madrid to celebrate itself and how cool the people are. Seriously. The traditional costume for this holiday is called "chulapa" for girls and "chulapos" for guys, and Im not sure what the direct translation would be, but chulo=cool. To celebrate, I went to the offcial park of San Isidro (this festival one day a year gets its own park!), la Pradera de San Isidro, with Esmerelda and 3 of her friends. We got there around 12, and there were people wandering by the food stands and game tents, but not too many on the grass. We got a good spot on the hill and set up our picnic. When we left 6 hours later, the blankets next to us were overlapped with people and you couldnt see any grass anymore.

I learned some good new card games, and learned that there is such a thing as a Spanish deck of cards. Instead of the Queen, its a caballero, there are no numbers 8 and 9, and instead of the 4 suits, they have gold, cups, swords, and clubs. This whole time I thought a deck of cards was a standardized concept- ahhhh my world has shifted. Anyway hilarious playing poker with Spanish people because they pronounce the ace = "ass". So phrases like "ass is high" or "pair of asses" are always funny. I looked around and all the other blanket groups around us were playing cards too. We were the only ones with a legit breifcase of poker chips though.

My friends' moms all made tortilla espanola to bring to the picnic. Have I shared my love for this spanish delicacy? If not, its kind of like a cross between scrambled eggs and hashbrowns in one gushy, yet perplexingly delightful, mass. Im not sure how something so simple can be so delicious-- im thinking its probably the obscene amounts of olive oil, but so ill stick with not asking.

Once we couldn't take the stupid 14 year old girl puking a few blankets over, we walked around the park. It was just like Ocean City boarwalk, with stands for crappy food, dart/basketball games to win your typical oversized suffed animal or equally exciting, a leg of ham. There was one game where your ONLY option was a pig's leg. There were about 200 legs hanging on the wall behind the targets, and it the most popular one, I meant to go back and take a picture later when there were less people, but we didn't pass by it on the walk back. Im sure that ridiculous image in your head is what it really looked like.

Almost every festival in Spain has its own pastry dedicated to it. I like trying them because 1. theyre usually really interesting and really good i.e. for Easter the french toast-like pastry or the pastry with a big chocolate egg in the center 2. they're only available for a limited time, so you feel accomplished by tasting the fleeting wonder. The rosquillas for San Isidro are a cross between a cookie and a donut and there are 2 basic varieties: "listas", or smart ones, have sugar and "tontas", or stupid ones, are plain. I really like the names :) However, the pastries themselves...so gross and so disappointing. They taste like a stale wafery cookie, and I tried a lista! ***Side note: another Spanish nickname whose translation is really cute: you know the white weed puffball things that flutter through the air... I dont even know what they are... they look like a little cotton fuzz? Well they call them "abuelitos", Grandads.

Wifi Fail

Tuesday my morning class was cancelled, so instead of sleeping in to take advantage of no 8am class, I got up and went to work on the business plan that's ruining my life. Its a minimum 50 page business plan, that's due a week earlier than I thought. So---- it has become my life this week. Anyways, on Tuesday I went to Starbucks to be extra productive.... and was with the 45 minute sessions of wifi that come with every purchase. (I don't even want to know how much money Ive invested into Starbucks by now.) When I got back from class, I opened up my laptop ready for another marathon business plan writting-sesh to find my internet wasn't working. Oh well- a good excuse to skip out on work and go out to dinner. Wednesday I normally only have a class at 4, but coincidently it was also cancelled, so I had ALL DAY to devote to this project. I made plans with friends to meet in my fav cafe which has FREE wifi (a huge rarity here) and DELICIOUS smoothies. We arrived only to find a paper sign on the door saying they were closed. Since the internet in the apartment still was broken, I had no choice but to study in a cafe with internet (50 pages in Spanish=wordreference.com=internet). So, we went to Starbucks once again to live on the 45 min sessions. I got home last night, excited to finally have internet!!! Then this morning, I had a group project- which meant.... cafe time once again. A friend knew of another cafe which has free wifi! I couldnt beleive I hadn't found it first, especially not before the wifi fisaco yesterday. So, this morning, I get to the undiscovered wifi cafe early to work before the group comes. I order and then ask if I need a code to access the internet. "Theres wifi from 4:30pm til close" WHATTTTTTTTTTTTT. Strike 3,340,203. I DO have one more place to try on my list- the huge department stores, El Corte Ingles, apparently have wifi in their cafes, but Im afraid of the disappointment...

On a happier note: Im hunting down American food for my Spanish friends as a "cultural experience". This means bagels tomorrow with Esmeralda and cupcakes on Saturday with Ana. YES! btw- Im blaming this all on last week's peanut butter downfall. I havent left completely, we are also being Spanishy: going to see Goya's tomb tomorrow morning and tomorrow night to a concert, its a guitarist from Cadiz, Carlos Chaouen.

Granada

This was our last program-sponsored trip and it was also my favorite! Friday night when we arrived after a 6 hour bus ride, we walked to the top of the town and watched la Alhambra light up as the sun went down. (So you don't have to wikipedia it: La Alhambra- Muslim palace from when the Moors were in Spain, and then later taken over by the Reyes Catolicos). For dinner, we went to an Arabic restaurant and had hummus, tagine, and couscous. The tagine was really different from the kind I had in Morocco, so it looks like ill just have to go back to Marrakech to double check. Saturday was the big sightseeing day. We started off seeing the cathedral where the Reyes Catolicos are buried- normally Im not into visiting dead people in old churches, BUT I have a history class where so far 100% has been the "power and politics" of the Catholic Monarchs, so this was cool and more appreciated knowing the background. Then, we visited historic arabic baths (similar to the functioning ones we visited later that night!!!). We spent the rest of the afternoon at la Alhambra and the Generalife gardens which were incredible. The gardens reminded me of Alice in Wonderland with a Moroccan twist:

Fun fact: a popular beer in Granada is also called La Alhambra. Kind of ironic- a beer named after a historically muslim monument.

Today was the perfect day of all my days in Spain for the arabic baths. Im not exactly sure what the difference is between that an a hammam, but we got 15 minute LEGIT back massages instead of scrub-downs. We had to get our massages in shifts, so we waited in huge hot tubs and drank tea. I have to find one in the US and/or import the idea and start my own. Sunday, it rained... seeing the trend with every other trip? So, we headed back to Madrid early.


Next Stop: Barcelona in June!

A Week in the Life of BB

MON Peanut Butter Update: I know the results are really exciting...AND drumroll..... It's strange. It tastes like natural peanut butter, but it's somehow not nearly good as I remember. I have no idea how it could taste different because it literally only has one ingredient. Maybe they use Spanish peanuts rather than American peanuts? Maybe that makes it taste worse because American peanuts are dusted with a delicious dash of salmonella?

TUES I decided to get a haircut. I'm not very loyal or attached to my hairdresser at home, so I figured NBD. I went to the hairdresser of a friend. I came out with my hair 5 inches shorter :( I admit, it does look healthier, but I feel exposed! My hair hasn't been this short in sooo long.

WED Cinco de Mayo and Renee's Birthday= all day celebration

TODAY Took Esmeralda to the only good pizza place in Madrid. I snagged a picture of the owner tossing our pizzas.

TOMORRW: GOING TO GRANADA for 3 days :)

Devolving back to the USA

So i did it. Number three on my Do not do while in Spain-list: I broke down and bought a jar of peanut butter. After holding off for over 3 months- It has happened. I thought reeses peanut butter cups that mom brought were holding me back... apparently not.

This is how it went down: I had some time to kill before tutoring today. I decided to browse the natural market next to the boys' appartment building. I spotted tasty-looking granola bars, tahini sauce that would be great for my hummus recipe, and some whole wheat pasta... but nothing was really worth getting until "pure de cacahuete" jumped off the shelf and into my hand. I was skeptical since there was no price sticker, and I was in a default-fancy natural market which means somewhere around 7euros or about $10. I looked at my watch and I still had 5 minutes to spare and did not want to spend 65 minutes playing swords with roudy little boys. So, I walked up to the counter to laugh at how ridiculously expensive the pure de cacahuete would be. She rang it up and there was no price. So, she pushed some buttons (aka Im pretty sure entered in "default price for moderately inexpensive item") and told me it would be 2.7euro. I think I heard the price started with a "2" and I was already out the door with the peanut butter in my bag.

Lesson learned: I cannot be overwhelmed with peanut butter sales and think clearly about my long term goals at the same time. Oh well- what's done is done and now my breakfast has devolved into complete americanism. Ive done away with corn flakes for Special K Redberry and now my cute little jars of apricot marmalade will be replaced with PEANUT BUTTER.

On that note: Im pretty excited for breakfast tomorrow morning.

Side note: I just re-read the label to check it out and noticed "Product of Spain." I'm a little scared now...

Georgetown Day in Madrid

To celebrate the last day of classes at Georgetown, we have an all day party on the front lawn with food, games, face paint, prizes, and of course laying out on the lawn. We decided that eventhough we're abroad, we couldn't miss the best day of the year at school. So, most of us from the program, went to Retiro park and had our own version of Georgetown Day. We brought lunch and sat outside (it was such a perfect day). We had speakers for music and I finally tried the best-advertised icecream cone Ive ever seen- Magnum. It was just as good as the ads make it seem. Then, just as everyone was leaving, my intercambio, Esmeralda, called and said she was coming to the park with all of her friends- so the party continued for another 2 hours. Finally, it was getting cold and late so Alex and I started to walk home when we were invited to drinks with some new friends. And then finally on our way home-for real this time- we passed a shoe store that was open (since its a holiday today hardly anything was open) and I got new flats. It was a great day that never ended. Though, I think Im going to end it now soon and go to sleep.

BTW- It's mother's day here tomorrow- so happy pseudo-dia de la madre, Mom.