Food for Thought

I said a while ago that I would do a post about the food in Spain and I’m finally doing it. To sum up food here: It’s really good! I definitely lucked out with my host family because Juan is a great cook. Every now and then, he goes to the txoko. This is the place where men get together and cook, then eat the food they have made together. Up until a few years ago, women could not even go to the txoko. Now, they can go, but only to eat the food – not prepare it. However, the txoko we go to for my practicum class, makes a special exception for us.

One thing about Spanish cooking is that it is centered around pork and bread! I am pretty sure I eat some type of pork just about every day here whether it’s ham, lomo (pork loin), chorizo, etc. My host family has a baguette delivered fresh to our apartment every day. And between la comida (lunch) and cena (dinner), it is almost always gone by the next day. My host sister and her husband come over for lunch every day. Sometimes my host brother’s girlfriend comes over too. Meals are definitely family time.

I try to take pictures of the food when I can. Here are some of my favorite meals (notice the bread in almost every picture!):

Paella - a rice dish with meat and vegetables 

Definitely one of my favorites

Tortilla de patata (tortilla española) - the only ingredients are eggs and potatoes!

Tortilla francesa - an omelete but really good with chorizo

Menestra - peas, fried potatoes, ham, eggs, and olive oil

This is calamari and my host dad cooks it with the ink! *Yes, those are french fries on top!* So it's extremely black, but really good. It can also stain - hence the bib

Between my cooking class at school and learning from Juan, I know quite a few dishes that I will be bringing back to the US with me. My host mom was proud to tell me at the beginning of the semester that all of her host students have gained weight while in Bilbao. So, she is quite disappointed that I am not gaining weight. (I definitely would though if it weren't for all of the walking!) However, I have received the award for the best eater they have had. According to Maite, I don’t eat a lot, but I will at least try everything. And about 98% of the time I like it!

I will also be bringing home a jar of Juan's homemade hot sauce/oil. Yum.

Madrid was "el crack"

The weekend after Paris, I left Bilbao again. This time, we went on a school excursion to Madrid for the weekend. We had to wake up at the crack of dawn to take a 5 hour bus ride with only one stop. Needless to say, I slept most of the time. So, I can’t tell you too much about the scenery!

We got to our hotel in Madrid, Hotel Tryp, in the early afternoon. The hotel was really nice, had a good buffet, and we were able to choose our own roommates. Perfect for evening debauchery…

After lunch, we all got back on the bus and headed to the Palacio Real where the royal family used to live and Almudena Cathedral. We couldn’t take pictures in the palace, but I snuck a couple in…

Unfortunately for us, the weather in Madrid was pretty horrible this weekend, so it was raining almost the whole weekend. This was not the most ideal weather for the walking tour we did of Madrid after leaving the Cathedral.

After months of dealing with Bilbao rain, my umbrella was pretty much shot. It’s like Katt Williams says about winter coats in Chicago: You have to get your umbrella for Spain, IN Spain. After a quick stop at everyone’s favorite Spanish department store, El Corte Ingles, for a new umbrella, Dayna and I went to the Museo de Reina Sofia. Everyone else was pretty wet and tired from the day. At the Museum, we were able to see Picasso’s famous Guernika painting.

After the museum, we returned to the hotel to celebrate Unofficial! That Friday was Unofficial Saint Patrick’s Day at U of I and we would have been remiss to not celebrate in Spain and share this Illini holiday with our fellow students :P Before leaving Bilbao, at one of the Chinese stores in Las Arenas, I was able to find a green feather boa, a green furry headband, light up green ears, and green silly string (all of which will be seen again for Unofficial 2011!). There were green feathers all over the halls of the hotel from the boas Katie and I were wearing.

We were also able to share Unofficial with our teachers! That is my teacher for pretty much every class Ana and another teacher, Francisco, wearing Katie and my light up ears.

The next morning, we went to Segovia, an old town a few hours outside of Madrid. The drive went through the mountains where it was snowing! Segovia is known for its aqueduct, which is believed to be from the 1st or 2nd century AD! What is so interesting about the aqueduct is that it was made with just good engineering. There is no cement or anything holding the rocks together. They are just placed so precisely that they have been able to stay together for years!

Nothing in between!

Segovia also has a nice cathedral and an old castle.

For lunch, we had a Segovian specialty: pig ear soup. Ew. Everything besides this (and a metal screw someone found in her bread) was good though!

Later that night, we met one of Morgan’s host brothers, Diego, who lives in Madrid. He invited us to come to his friend’s restaurant that evening. We met some... interesting characters that night, but had so much fun. My favorite new friend was a random mannequin in the restaurant wearing the restaurant owner's uniform from his days in the Kosovo War. We got along quite well...

Juan, who owned the restaurant, was great. He was hilarious and made us lots of food (croquetas, fried eggs, fries, etc...) I would recommend going back to his restaurant, but it is no longer there lol. It was a fun night with great food, salsa, talk about “ladyboys,” and other random, hilarious events.

The next day, we went to the Prado Museum. It was a really nice museum, but everyone in the entire program was extremely tired from staying up late the night before. After the museum, we went to Parque del Retiro, a park in the middle of Madrid, before getting on the bus to head back to Bilbao. I would have taken pictures of the park, but my camera broke! I was cameraless for a good 2 weeks. I am glad that my old camera had a great last night in Madrid. It took some hilarious pictures. R.I.P.

I Swear I'm a Student Too... Sometimes!

So pretty much all of my posts have been about traveling, partying, and fun. And while that is a large part of my semester here, I do actually attend class *shock*

My school is an open air campus, so it is really pretty (when the weather is nice!)

I’m taking 5 classes here and I really like them! This semester has been a great break from memos, cases, debits/credits, and random marketing classes that everyone falls asleep in. These are my classes:


Spanish Conversation: In this class, we practice speaking with presentations and conversations in class. We learn a lot through these discussions, such as that friends with benefits is "amigo con el derecho de roze" in Spanish and why people don’t smile on the streets (they either think you are crazy or that you are flirting with them). We also have conversation partners. These are Spanish students studying English. We spend half the class speaking in Spanish and the other half speaking in English. In my group, there is one other American student and 3 Spanish girls. They are really nice and it’s cool to talk to them and hear about their lives, etc. For our project, we are supposed to ask them questions about a cultural topic, then do a presentation in class. We chose to talk about Spanish/Basque traditions, dances, and music. I’ll have to let you know how our presentation turns out because we spend most of our time NOT talking about this topic lol. For the Spanish students’ project, they have to interview the American students and decide who is "the most international student." It’s a pretty strange topic and could potentially be damaging to someone’s self-esteem... But we’ll see what happens!

Spanish Grammar: Pretty self-explanatory... But the great part about this class is that we learn Spanish sayings and other fun expressions. For example, when a person has rolls on their stomach (aka muffin top), that is "tener michelines" like the Michelin Man lol

Culture, Politics, and Society in Contemporary Spain: This is a culture class about Spain from 1975 until now. We talk about a lot of different subjects: climate, population issues, Spanish traditions, politics, film, education, etc. It’s a really interesting class too. I’m learning more about Spanish culture in this one semester than I have learned in my many years of studying Spainsh!

Practicum: Now this is the really fun class. The class is supposed to teach us how to use Spanish in everyday contexts/situations. We meet twice a week: on Mondays we have theater and on Wednesdays we do cooking! We play games in the theater class and at the end of the program, we will be performing a short play for the rest of the students in the program. It will be my Spanish acting debut! I’m really enjoying the cooking part of the class too. We go to a txoko three times during the semester. The txoko is a place where traditionally Spanish men go to cook and eat together. We also go on small field trips for wine tastings and to try pintxos, the Basque version of tapas. I will definitely be bringing back some good recipes :)

That is Javi, the guy helping us cook, on the right

Europe in the World: This is the one class I have that is a little closer to business for me. This class is about the European Union, the role in plays in European politics, etc. I had to take it to finish my Spanish minor and I was worried that it would be deathly boring, but I actually like it! The whole class is basically just discussion and it is really stretching me to discuss politics in Spanish! I barely know how to talk about those things in English… The teacher helps us with our Spanish though and is pretty funny.

The teachers are great too. I have the same teacher for every class except Europe in the World and the theater part of Practicum. The teachers also take us on our excursions on the weekends, so we really get to know them. All I know is, these classes are too fun and interesting to be true. I’m actually enjoying going to class!

Is this real life?

Gay Paree! (Is for Lovers)

The last weekend in February, I went to Paris for the weekend with my friend Dayna and we met up with 2 other girls from our program. It was another crazy travel weekend, but I hearted Paris.

To start out, at the beginning of the week we were supposed to travel, news hit that there was an air traffic controllers’ strike in France. Great! On the day we were supposed to leave (which was already a rough day after dealing with the Spanish post office grr…), a random man claiming he was from the airport called Dayna and I to tell us that we should try to get to the airport early to try to get on an earlier flight. So, I skipped class to get to the airport early. We were greeted at the airport with news that there was no earlier flight and this sign:

And in case you don't know Spanish, that means....

After waiting at the airport for a few hours, we finally were able to take off and head to Paris. In Paris, it turns out that the shuttle system from the airport is undergoing renovation, so everyone was herded onto buses to take us into the city. Since I know about as much French as Darryl (it’s spelled like Darryl but pronounced Dar-rell), I soon realized how difficult this weekend might be. Imagine my relief when we get on the bus and a Jay-Z song was on, a Jay-Z song was on… I think I can get along just fine in any culture that listens to “On to the Next One.” After the bus ride, we accidentally took the wrong metro train to our hotel and ended up at the opposite end of Paris than our hotel. It was already getting late, so we took a cab to our hotel, Hotel ABC Champerret. We were supposed to have a room for 4 people, but the room only had one King sized bed and a small bed. Since the hotel forgot to bring in an extra cot, Dayna and I were able to get our own room for the night.

The next morning, we woke up bright and early to a yummy Parisian breakfast and began our busy sightseeing day.

 Notre Dame

The Lourve Art Museum

The Egyptian obelisk - Paris' oldest monument

 With stores like Louis Vuitton on the Champs Elysees, it is clearly not made for those of us on a student budget!

Arc de Triomphe

It started to rain for a while when we were walking, but luckily the sky cleared up and we had beautiful weather the rest of the weekend.

Random: I liked the bathrooms on the streets in Paris. After each person uses the bathroom, the door closes and the bathroom cleans itself!

After walking up Champs d’Elysees, we went to Galleries Lafayette, a large mall in Paris. I quickly realized I wouldn’t be buying anything when I saw the 12,000 euro diamond studded iPod cases.

Next, we began to walk towards Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, the highest point in Paris. Along the way, we spotted a familiar looking red windmill… Of course, it was the infamous Moulin Rouge!

After taking a few pictures here, we continued on and went to the Sacre Coeur. There were great views of the whole city from the the area where this church sits. After walking around for a while, we took a break to just take in the views and collect ourselves. 

Then, we went to this busy street where there were many stores with touristy items and some other stores with sales on shoes, clothes, etc. We had worked up an appetite at this point, so we stopped to have crepes!

Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to plan our trip to the Eiffel Tower so that we could get pictures of it at night and during the day without having to take multiple trips. After the obligatory touristy photo leaning on the Eiffel Tower (which was a major task in itself…), we waited in line to go up to the top of the Eiffel Tower. There are 2 different levels you can go to – a middle level and the very top. We chose the latter and began to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I soon found out that I was one of the only ones in my group not afraid of heights! So, I took many pictures for myself and with other people’s cameras. Like most things in Paris, it was sooo beautiful! I could have spent hours just looking at the views.

 

 

 I have no idea who would want to drink while standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower, but whatever floats your boat…

Every night, the Eiffel Tower sparkles for 5 minutes at the beginning of every hour. So, after we came down from the top, we found a bench away from the Tower, so we could see it sparkle.

  

Every Friday, students can get into the Lourve Art Museum for free, so that was our next stop. It was getting pretty late and the museum was about to close, so we went directly to the main attraction: the Mona Lisa.

After a loooong day, we opted to stay in for the evening and rest up for the next day. The next morning, our group split up and Dayna and I went back to the Notre Dame. We wanted to go to the top and see the bell tower, but it had been closed on Friday. So, on Saturday, we waited in line to get to the bell tower. I don’t know what I expected, but I did not expect the many, many stairs we had to climb to get to the top. To say it was a workout would be an understatement. But there were also great views from here as well. And I got to see where Quasimodo hangs out!

Later, Dayna and I walked around the area near the Notre Dame and found a small market. Here, we bought meat, salads, vegetables, bread, and all of the other necessities for a picnic. We went back to the Sacre Coeur and had a nice romantic picnic. We had the John Legend and other slow jams playing… Oooh la la!

After this, we went shopping because you can’t go to Paris and NOT go shopping! Then, we finally caught up with Ernest, a friend from high school, who is studying in Paris. After a delicious dinner of salmon pasta and great conversation, we decided to meet up later that night to go out at a bar called Longhop and celebrate Megan’s birthday and our last night in Paris.

Ernest and I - a mini-H-F reunion

Me, Dayna, Brittany, and Megan

Everything was going well until we realized that we had missed the last metro for our connection to head back to the hotel. So, we had to exit the metro in a random part of Paris and try to find a taxi home. This was quite difficult seeing as how none of us knew French and of course, it started to rain! We made it home though!

The next morning, we prepared to leave the hotel and had a little scare when the guy working the front desk swore up and down that the safe deposit box where we put our passports had been broken for months. He was quite embarrassed when it opened and 2 much-needed passports were sitting right there. Based on one of Ernest’s recommendations, Dayna and I went to the Museé d'Orsay, an art museum with lots of art from Van Gogh and other artists from the Impressionist Era.

Then, one of our friends who was also in Paris for the weekend called us to say that many flights back to Bilbao were being cancelled due to a huge storm that was coming. After dealing with the confusing shuttle again, we hurried to the airport and found out that our flight was still scheduled to leave. The wait in the airport at least allowed us to slow down and rest from a busy but extremely fun weekend in a beautiful city.