I Tried an Olive, and I Liked It

I got tapas for the first time today. I'm not entirely sure if it was real tapas or not.  There's a bit of miscommunication with all this Spanish flying around.  We ordered our drinks and got a piece of bread with some ham on it.  It was pretty good.  It also came with olives.  Green ones.  The kind I never touch but my mom loves.  I was extremely hungry, and being in Spain and all I popped one in my mouth.  At first I liked the saltiness and slightly tartness of it.  Then there was something hard.  I got confused.  The ones I've seen my mom eat have pimentos in the middle.  Are pimentos hard?  I spat it out. Why was there a pit in my olive?  Oh, right.  Spaniards leave lots of stuff in their food, like chicken bones.

My senora (the woman whose house I'm living in) asked me what I eat at home yesterday.  I told her chicken, beef, and pork.  I tried to convey meatloaf and pork roast, but it got lost in my poor vocabulary.  So today she made this chicken thing.  I have no idea what it's called, but it was delicious. I asked her later today what was in it: chicken (obviously), green peppers, onion, garlic and white wine. (Its no wonder I loved it, anything with garlic in it and I'm instantly enamored.)  There is something missing from what she told me she put in it.  Its the secret ingredient of Spain.  I'll give you a hint, it goes along with the olives.

Chicken bones.  I'm not kidding.  There were ribs, and leg bones and a whole bunch of other bones I didn't recognize.  I still ate it. 

Back to my tapas today, I was being adventurous.  Luckily there were no more surprise secret ingredients.  I ordered Camembert con Frambuesa and Mallorquin (which is apparently a Catalan dialect in Mallorca according to Wikipedia and not a food).  The Mallorquin had some cheese on it and a tomato paste type thing that reminded me of really thick pizza sauce but it didn't taste like pizza sauce or tomatoes (lucky me).  I would recommend simply to find out what a dialect of Catalan tastes like.  The Camembert con frambuesa I could probably eat forever.  Basically its a roll that is cut in half and toasted, cherry (frambuesa) jelly/marmalade is spread on top and two slices of Camembert were on top.  Camembert is a really creamy cheese.  It was so good.

While you were sleeping, I went to school

Today was my first day of classes.  They way they have it set up at CEGRI is that we all had to come at 8:45am and find out when our classes were.  Some of us had class at 9am while others didn't start for a few more hours.  Each class is 1 hour and 40 minutes with a 30 minute break between each class.  I'm one of the lucky (or unlucky depending on how you look at it) that has class all morning.  I'm so crazy that I not only wanted to study in Spain, but I had to take the maximum hours (9, or three classes).  I have class from 9 to 3, like all the other school children.  Most other students have a class that starts at 4:30 or 6 something. 

On my walk in the afternoon, after my siesta (oh yes, I took a nice 2 hour nap today) I found some interesting things:

This was a statue that I found while waiting for a friend at the river that I have to cross to get to the heart of the city.  It kind of looks like a monkey. And if you didn't know already, I kind of love monkeys.

This is by far my most favorite thing that I have found so far.  Please note the GLASS.  These products are on a shelf in Wal-mart.  I asked the person behind the counter how much the Cetaphil cost.  It cost 15,66 Euro (the comma is like the period in America) that's around $23.49 in dollars.  I have that exact same Cetaphil lotion, and I believe it cost around $8 dollars.

Anybody know who Johny Deep is?  I also find it interesting that Penelope Cruz's name is spelled correctly.  She is the Española afterall.

While you were bored, I went to the Alhambra

My visit to the Alhambra started with a 25 minute walk to a fountain in the center of Granada.  From there we walked up the steepest hill I've seen in a long time.  It was like walking up stairs and I was reminded of a stair stepper.  By the time we reached the main entrance for the fortress/city we were all sweating and ready to sit down and rest a while.  But that was only the beginning.

We had a private tour from the art history teacher from the school I will be attending here.  She really knew her stuff.  She explained all about the banos (not toilets but baths where they took actual baths in the olden days), the Muslim and Catholic differences from when each religion ruled the city, the symbols and paintings and everything else.  For 700 years the Muslims ruled most of Spain until the reconquest when the Catholics took it back (which is why the churches have mosque aspects to them).  Interestingly enough, Granada was reconquered in 1492 - the same year that Queen Isabella gave Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus) a ship to find India in Granada.

113 Tomatoes

This was my first meal in Spain.  Please note the tomatoes.

There aren’t actually 113 tomatoes in Spain, there’s probably more, but there are 113 stairs up to my floor in the hostel I’m staying at for the first couple of days.  It’s quite a workout and it’s no wonder why all the Spaniards are all thin.  When we first arrived we were waiting for the lift (elevator) for about 20 minutes before we gave up and decided to walk up the 113 steps (we didn’t know there were that many) with our luggage (mine was 30lbs).  When we got to the fourth floor (really the fifth because the bottom floor is 0) the elevator was waiting for us and we decided to get in.  It went back down to the 0^th floor.  We took it back up.

I would now like you to imaging yourself in a box that you can comfortably stand in.  Multiply that box by two and put four people in it.  That is our elevator.

All the readings I’ve done so far about Spain have been about olives.  There are olives everywhere.  They serve olives all the time.  There’s olive oil.  Olive this olive that.  I have seen no olives.  I have seen olive oil.  What they do serve all the time and I have only seen my breakfast “gratis” without a tomato.  Now, I don’t like tomatoes.  Can you see where this is starting to become a problem?

Tres Dias

I'm leaving for Spain in three days - more or less.  I'm super excited to start speaking some Spanish!  A song came on in my car today that was in Spanish and my cousin asked me if I knew what they were saying.  I'd heard the song enough times that I am now starting to pick up some of the words.  So of course I said yes.  That, and I like to keep up the illusion that I know more Spanish than I actually do.

I have three days to pack for 9 or so weeks of my life.  I have not yet started.  I have however "pre-packed."  That's the term I like to use to describe me thinking about packing.  It's an ordeal that lasts weeks.  I believe I started pre-packing back in early April.

Bienvenidos!

Bienvenidos a Las Lilas.  This was created for my mom (and dad and brother) so she can see what I'm up to while I'm off traveling in Europe.  When my mom and I were at the City Hall turning in my passport papers when I was 17 she told me to send her a postcard from all the places I visit with it.  I don't know if I will be able to send a postcard from five different countries but I'm going to try and hopefully this will fill in all the gaps.

This is also for my cousins and any friends who wish to see what I'm up to this summer.

I love you guys.

I am studying abroad this summer in Spain.  I'm quite excited.  Once I finish with learning, I will be traveling through Europe - mainly France, England, Portugal and Italy.