Gadget cat.

There is a popular cartoon here imported from Japan called "Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future."

It is probably the worst cartoon ever. It's just over-expressive (you can tell by the mouths that take up half the face in the above photo) people interacting with a cat that is gigantic and doesn't do anything impressive. 

It isn't funny or clever.

Did I mention it's from the 70s? I mean, live action TV back then was awful (Batman). Just imagine cartoons, and international cartoons. 

Ugh, and of course it is dubbed, but since these people are so expressive and whiny and annoying, half the dubs are just sound effects of heavy breathing or "ahhh!" or "ayy!" when people are falling over.

It just wastes a half hour time slot of TV while we could all be watching something else. However, Lucas and Lucia love it.

Cristina and Pichon hate it. As did Rocio. Clearly parents hate it all over.

One thing is for sure: Doraemon will NOT be on my list of  "things I will miss when I go back home."

A gorgeous Saturday in Valencia

Yesterday was my last Saturday in Valencia.

My host family is in Munera for the weekend, since one of Pichon's cousins has her communion.

I decided that I would make a trip into the heart of the city and spend all day long shopping, eating, people-watching, etc.

I walked to the metro train near my house, and when I got there, there was an older man (in his 60s) who said "Siempre las más blancas son las más guapas. No te pongas morena!" which translates to "It's always the palest girls who are the prettiest! Don't you ever get tan!"

I got on the train, and at the transfer station (to switch to the more city-centered green/red lines), there was a little toddler playing with a plastic toy on the platform (he was very far from the edge, don't worry). I was watching, along with the lady next to me on the bench, because well, kids are cute. The little boy then jumped, tripped, and launched the little toy out of his hands. It was like slow motion, bouncing, bouncing...and it got all the way to the edge of the platform, bounced, and then FELL. Onto the tracks. It was pretty suspenseful, and I  audibly went "awwww, no!" And the lady next to me turned to me and laughed. The poor kid. The dad, smartly, didn't go after the toy and just told the kid it was too late, and it met it's demise, four feet down on the tracks. How unfortunate.

I got off the train at the Colón (as in, Crístobal Colón, who you might know as Christopher Columbus) stop, and I immediately found the 7 Camicie store I was looking for. When my parents and I were in Portugal, my dad went into this store and fell in love with their snazzy shirts, but they didn't have a particular one (double collar, black and white stripes) in his size. I found out there was another one in Valencia, so after my parents were gone, I checked it out. As I have mentioned, these stores have about 10 shirts in each size. No luck at the Valencia one, or even the Alicante one for that matter. This was my last shot, and THERE IT WAS! I thought there was going to be something wrong. I have been to three stores already with no luck. There was no way I could have found it. But alas, I did. The funny thing is, I have passed this store a million times, since I get off that metro stop a lot. However, I always ignore it because although the pretty colors in the windows catch my eye, I am always like "oh, it's just men's shirts. PASS."

I then went to the Correos, or mail, building in the main city plaza. That building is one of the older buildings of the city, and has a huge main hall with marble columns and three floors looking into the center area, topped with a glass dome. Epic. Cristina's mom worried me on Friday by saying "When [not if] you need to ship stuff home, it will be helpful to know how much it costs. When Cristina studied in Italy, she shipped a lot of stuff home, and it was cheaper than paying for extra luggage." I hope I don't have to ship stuff home. I never had to do that before. Also, I don't think that shipping stuff home will be cheaper for me. I think extra luggage costs like $70, and I found out yesterday that approximately the same size and weight box would cost 150 EUROS ($195) to ship. So yeah, I REALLY hope I don't have to ship stuff. I'll just be that obnoxious person with lots of carry on stuff that just barely works into the limitations. However, if I remember correct, that first plane to France is tiny. I remember thinking that a Harry Potter book in my lap was cramped.

Now that my "stuff I really have to get done today" was done, I was free to roam the city. I dipped into Mercadona, the grocery store, to see if anything looked yummy to grab-and-go. The produce section in this store is like, well, all Spanish produce sections in that you have to weigh and sticker your bag with a price before checking out, unlike in the US, where they do it for you at checkout. Each produce item has a number next to it, so you know what button to press on the scale. If you forget, there is also a sign above the scale with typical produce items and their keycodes. I saw a girl (maybe a couple years younger than me) go to the scale and look really confused. She stared at the fruit, then at the board above the keypad, trying to find her item. She just had this hopeless look on her face, like "I have no idea what I am doing." She found her item on the list, punched it in, then she took a minute finding where the sticker ejects from the machine. Then she slowly grabbed her stuff with this "I hope that's it" look on her face, and immediately bumps into an elderly man behind her. She looked so shaken. I felt like a senior watching a freshman get to class for the first time. "I was you, once."

I didn't end up getting anything because I forgot that they don't refrigerate any soft drinks, so although that 20 cent can of Sprite was calling me, it was room temperature. And who likes that? No one.

I then hopped over to El Corte Ingles, where I spent the next hour and a half. I have mentioned this store before, but if you forgot, it is like a Macy's on steroids. It is a department store, but with SO MUCH MORE! There is a massive stationery section, gift section, tourist gift section, bookstore, music store, makeup area, clothing area, shoe section, etc and the list goes on. These stores are massive and there are THREE on Colón street alone. Their gift section is awesome. They have a purse in the shape of a giant Converse shoe, phones in the shape of hamburgers or high heels, plastic ice cubes in the shape of anchors and ships, magnets that play music, and other random cool stuff. The stationery section is equally awesome, and the epitome of window shopping: there is so much cool stuff to look at, even though you already know you won't buy anything. Is that a Swarovski crystal pencil? Is that a notepad in the shape of a chocolate bar? Are those erasers in the shape of 3D cars that have real wheels? Is that a journal made of Lego bricks? YES, yes, yes yes! Cristina gave me a coupon the other day for "spend 60 euros, get 6 euros back". I could easily spend 60 euros, since I had souvenirs and gifts to buy! However, I came up short, since there was a book in my purchase and the coupon couldn't be used on books. I wasn't going to spend 10 more euros to save 6...that didn't make any sense at all.

On my way to finding food (I already had a crepe restaurant in mind), I ducked in to a couple more stores that I came across. Hey, I have no rush, no plans, just hours and hours to spend doing whatever I please! I went into a store and immediately noticed a wall of American-themed clothing. Ironically enough, I come across the globe to be surrounded by all things American. At Corte Ingles, there were notepads with major American cities but NO Spanish cities! I was thinking "Hey this would be a great gift" but I wasn't going to get a notepad with New York or LA or Seattle on it. I mean Seattle? Really? How do you have Seattle and no Madrid or Barcelona? Do Spanish people even know what or where Seattle is? I doubt it. This one clothing store was obnoxious in its display of USA and red/white/blue clothing. Now I know I should travel to Spain to get 4th of July clothes. They had jeans with a giant American flag painted on them. They had flag scarves. Flag halters. Tops. Skirts, shirts, shoes, socks. Seriously, America is in fashion right now.

I got to the crepe place near the Virgin plaza. I saw it when my parents were here, but we didn't end up eating there. I got a table outside, and there were already tons of people at the other tables and nearby restaurants (it was 3pm). Prime time people-watching. The waiter saw me alone and gave me a bowl of crayons. The tablecloth was paper, so maybe he thought it would be less boring eating alone. I have always felt self-conscious eating alone in restaurants (which is why it almost never happens). You feel like you are always being stared at, and unless you have a book to read, that is all you are doing to other people. However, I was super comfortable here. I had my back against a fence and my table facing outward (so French...if you didn't already know, patio tables at French cafes always have chairs facing the street). There I was, enjoying my goat cheese/raisin/walnut/spinach galette while listening to a street performer play accordion music, watching people walk by. It was perfect.  After the meal, I went inside to use the restroom and I saw the inside for the first time...the bar was made out of a car! Like, the entire shell of a car was used as the bar, and the bartenders peeked through the windows, and also the car was covered in seashells. It was really cool.

After lunch, I noticed some homeless women on the church steps asking for money, so I went to a nearby sandwich shop, got a tuna/egg/tomato bocadillo (sandwich on french bread), and had the waiter cut it in half. I presented the two ladies with the halves, and the latter bothered me because as I was giving the first lady half, she was like "What about me!?" and when I gave her the half, she was like "What about water?!" There are fountains throughout the city. I think you should be happy with that.

I walked toward the Virgin plaza and there was a group of homeless men nearby, one of which hollered at me something about me being pale and needing to get out in the sun more. Then I think he said something dirty. Wonderful! I kept walking and there was a younger homeless guy (no more than 25) walking in the same direction. A few blocks later, I noticed he was still there, even when there were very few people on the street. I quickly ducked into a souvenir shop to get away from the dude, bought a Valencian flag, and he was gone when I got back out. But it made me paranoid for the rest of the day. Normally I wouldn't mind walking down side streets or alleyways at 4pm, but now I was like "He might be there, WAITING!"

My next mission was to find somewhere to grab a coffee and something sweet. I wandered and wandered because I wanted a cute place with lots of people, but also not a touristy part of the city where it'd be expensive. I ended up at the same spot I've been with my parents and Carly and Sarah, on Carrer de Ribera. It's a little gelato shop, and I got a coffee and ice cream and sat and people watched for a good half hour or so. It was nice having no obligations.

I got up and headed over to Carrer de Russafa which has a bunch of cute clothing shops that I saw when I went to the American store a few weeks ago. After my feet couldn't take it any longer, I got back on the train home.

I pulled out Thank you for Smoking and I, Robot (here called Yo, Robot. Yo robot, how you doin'?) from Cristina's uncle's movie collection and watched those, ordering online from Telepizza a BBQ chicken, pineapple and onion pizza. When the delivery man came, I stupidly left the front door open and Gin escaped, leading the next ten minutes to be spent searching in the neighbor's yard for the cat. Luckily the neighbors were home and could let me into their yard. I was so scared that THIS would be the time (Gin's escaped a lot) that he escaped and was never to be seen again, especially when Cristina and Pichon weren't home. "Oh hey, while you were out, I lost your cat." But he was hanging out in the neighbors' bushes, and after the neighbor offered him some ham, I grabbed him and shooed him into our house.


Aw man, it was wonderful. No obligations, no rush, no one to need to talk to/call/email. It was great.

RIP, fishie fish.

Remember how we had a fish in the house?


By causes unknown (seriously, Gin was not at fault), the fish died last week.

Just floating on the top of his dirty little fish tank, mouth gaping open.

Rest in peace, unnamed fish that we completely forgot about.

Judging by your movie collection...

Cristina informed me recently that after her uncle passed away, she got to keep his entire movie collection.

He has a massive movie collection, and I just spent yesterday and today going through it all.

How many, you ask?

Well, he keeps them in those little paper CD sleeves, and they have four shelves, 20 inches wide, filled with DVDs. Each row probably has over 70.

I picked out movies that I want to watch, and I noticed a pattern. See if you can guess by my picks:
Across the Universe
I, Robot
Young Frankenstein
Watchmen
Twilight
Ray
The Prestige
Marie Antoinette
Tommy
Aviator
Walk the Line

Figured it out yet? Well, about 70% of those movies either are biopics about musicians (Ray, Walk the Line), are musicals with real rock songs (Across the Universe, Tommy), have kickass soundtracks (Twilight, Marie Antoinette and Watchmen) or feature musicians (that's trying to fit I, Robot in the mix here with Will Smith). Then Young Frankenstein is thrown in for good measure, and The Prestige and Aviator because maybe I didn't want to go too girly in my choices?

But seriously, if you haven't heard those movie soundtracks yet, GET ON IT.
Twilight: pop, emo, punk music
Marie Antoinette: mixes new wave punk music with classical
Watchmen: All over the place, but it made me think My Chemical Romance could do more than emo, and they used Bob Dylan in the opening credits and it was amazing, as well as making KC and the Sunshine Band sound so cool during a flamethrower scene. Yes, disco and flamethrowers.


I was going through the DVDs, and I could only make a stereotypical assumption of her uncle based on the following finds:
Pink Flamingo (created by Roger Waters, of Hairspray fame. The movie starred a transgender)
The entire Roger and Hammerstein collection (And Oklahoma! starring Hugh Jackman)
Transamerica
Several unknown romantic comedies about homosexual couples
Several movies I didn't know the plot of but used any circular letter to display gender symbols
Moulin Rouge!
Marie Antoinette
Several Andy Warhol movies
To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar
Twilight
Like, any movie starring Ginger Rogers or Fred Astaire or both


When Cristina came downstairs, I was like "I have a question, and I do not mean to offend if I am wrong. But was your uncle gay?"

"Yes, yes he was."

I knew it.

Pulled pork and Budweiser.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have photos from American night. I didn't go overboard this time, and only took several. 

Click on any picture to blow it up full screen.

I just love this picture because Lucia is at the end of the table wearing a leotard, looking super serious as Maria and Dani listen intently to whatever she is saying. "...And that is how the Union won the American Civil War."

This photo (and Lucia's facial expression) make it a lot more believable when I tell you that Lucia wore the skirt UNDER the leotard instead of on top. And she wore it allllll night.

You can see the chips and guac and cocktail meatballs in the foreground.

Left to right: Maria, Monica, Lucas, Lucia, Maria, Dani, Marina, Mayte.

Cristina and Mari Carmen. Here you can see the punch bowl!

Mashed potatoes, baked mac and cheese, punch, green beans, Caesar salad, iced tea, pulled pork, hot dogs...it's like HOME!

That's Laura peeking in on the left, and Mari Carmen's husband holding up his pulled pork and Budweiser. Pichon and Jose Enrique are standing up.

Marina, Miguel (Mayte's BF), Maria, Josep (Maria's BF), Lucia, Dani, Maria, myself

Oven baked smores. Mmmmmmm....

I know, there weren't a lot of close ups of food. I figured faces were more important.

"I always thought the white stuff was cheese!"

So here was my menu for American night, and a rundown of the reactions to the various foods.


Appetizers
Chili Dip
Cocktail meatballs
Guacamole

Drinks
Punch
Arnold Palmer

Sides
Mashed potatoes & gravy
Green beans
Baked beans

Main Courses
Chicago-Style hot dogs
Meatloaf & gravy
Pulled pork sandwiches
Baked mac and cheese
Chicken pot pie turnovers

Desserts
Smores
Ice Cream pie with Oreo crust
Chocolate chip cookies
Brownies
Peanut Butter balls

I know it sounds like a lot. There were 14 people including myself, and I wanted to make some food I know they probably haven´t had before, so I got a random sampling of stuff that I thought was very "American," and therefore went a little overboard. Yes, there were leftovers.

Let´s start at the beginning. I felt very much like my dad on Thanksgiving, with food already in the oven before people came over, and a list planned out for the "schedule of events" aka "when to put stuff in the oven and take it out." I also felt very much like my dad, shooing people out of the kitchen while trying to be a friendly host at the same time.

Fallas Video!!!

Just a few random moments/memories I wanted to share about Las Fallas:

Almost everyone in the group lost their voices, starting on day one. The second morning of Fallas, Marina, Cristina(not my host mom, but her friend), Maria and Josep slept over at the apartment we stayed at (it was an extra empty apartment owned by Cristina's parents). When I woke up, Marina was on the mattress across the room in her sleeping bag. She whispered loudly in a gruff voice (like I said, she lost her voice), "MELISSA. MELISSA. DO YOU HAVE A KLEENEX?" Maria was laughing because I didn't hear her, and Marina said "Guys, will you please help me over here?" referring to how they needed to gang up and shout to me because Marina couldn't do it alone. Then, about 15 minutes later (we were all still laying down), she said "I'm really hot." Cristina told her to take off her sleeping bag, and Marina replied, "I can't. I am not wearing any pants."

One of the nights over dinner, the conversation turned to the USA and cultural differences. Laura and her husband got married last fall and took their honeymoon on a road trip to the southwestern US. She was telling me about things she encountered, such as:

• "They had ice machines in hotels! They have these little tubs with lids in your room, specifically for ice! You go to the machine (there is one on every floor), and you fill it up with ice to keep in your room! We had one of our hotel rooms near one of those machines, but we didn't know how noisy it would be in the middle of the night! It was a learning experience!"
• "They like ice...almost every restaurant gave you ice in your water. I always had to ask for an extra cup because I like my water room temperature, so I always took out the ice."
• "What are those bags called for extra food from restaurants? Doggy bags? I love that phrase!"

Everyone at the table was as amused as she was by these American wonders. I asked her what the weirdest thing she ate was, and she said Beef Tartar. I have heard of it, but I didn't know what it is. She told me there was raw meat in it, so that is probably why I've never had it.

Then the conversation drifted to my American experience aka: my life, and more specifically, high school. Some of the questions asked:

• "Did you have cheerleaders at your school!?"
• "Did you have Prom? Who'd you go with? Did you get one of those wrist flower things? (corsage) Did they have PUNCH to drink at the prom?! Did people really pour alcohol in the punch bowl!?"
• "Did you have LOCKERS!?"
• "Do people really get rejection letters from universities when they apply? Is it really that big of a deal?"

They were so amused by these things and the responses. Everything they were referring to, of course, was something they had seen in a movie. So some were accurate, and some were not (like spiking the punch...since our school just had pop cans). 

One of the nights was costume night, and Marina left right after dinner to meet with a friend, then came back for the dance part (after dinner, the casal turned into a private night club--fallas people only!). So she had to take off her costume, which she was wearing over street clothes. However, she decided to "change" right next to the table, so one of her friends made a comment that she was doing a strip tease (again, she was fully clothed underneath) next to us. In response, Marina took off her costume's belt and started swinging it around her head in this jokingly-sexy way, and almost hit three people at the table behind her. It was hilarious.

That night, during costume night, all of the men at one of the tables dressed up as the Village People. Then, later during dance time, the DJ played "YMCA" and "In The Navy." I thought it was great that people gestured the wrong letters during the YMCA, just waving their hands in a general upwards direction if they weren't sure (the letters are obviously said in English, which many don't know). 

Mayte had a fairly new boyfriend, who wasn't in the casal, so she was constantly calling him on her cell, then sneaking off to chat for an hour. One of those times, she came back downstairs where we were eating after being gone for nearly an hour, and our whole table (my host family's friends) start singing the Spanish equivalent of "K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Mayte with the baby carriage..." She was a little embarrassed. 

Anyways, the moment you've all been waiting for: The video for Las Fallas.



Some explanations of on-screen stuff...
0:00-0:31 La Mascleta--The noisy firecracker show they did every day at 2pm March 1st until the end of Las Fallas. Marina, Maria Carmen, Maria, Lucia and Pichon are all there with me.
0:31-0:37 Fallas monuments and lights throughout the
0:38-0:43 Nachete (Maria's nephew), Lucas, and Dani running around the casal when they were bored.
0:43-0:45 Dani, Maria and Lucia staring at our giant falla monument.
0:46-0:56 The DaVinci fall monument. It was huge.
0:57-1:02 Hospital-themed falla (the large falla of the casal that Marina made her falla for)
1:02-1:19 Various fallas monuments from throughout the city, including the AWESOME lights for the France-themed falla.
1:20-1:33 Photos. See my other post for descriptions.
1:34-1:41 Pasacalles with our casal faller.
1:42-1:48 Marina's carousel falla monument that she designed, painted and constructed. You can see the awards it won, also (3rd place in special section, 2nd place for cleverness and humor).
1:49-1:50 More pasacalles of our casal faller, this time in the morning.
1:51-2:00 Lucia, Lucas and Maria throwing firecrackers and poppers.
2:01-2:17 Various fallas monuments
2:18-2:21 Pichon made paella one night, and that's Jose Enrique trying it out.
2:22-2:27 A casal faller heading to the ofrenda in the morning, view from our apartment's balcony. Notice the bobbing dresses dancing to the music...
2:28-2:51 Laura, Maria Carmen, Mayte, Marina, Jose Enrique and Pichon, everyone dancing. Jose Enrique and Pichon reenacted the dance scene from Dirty Dancing when the DJ played "I've Had the Time of My Life." To be honest, they knew more about the dance than I did (I only remembered the jump-into-his-arms part)
2:51-2:58 Some other costumes in the casal on costume night. Yes, that is a man dressed as Snow White.
2:59-3:00 You can see some of the "Village People" dancing in the background...
3:01-3:02 Every night, before dinner, the fallera mayor descended down the stairs as everyone stood up and applauded. Then we all took our seats when she took hers.
3:03-3:14 The kids' costume night: Sherlock Holmes, cute kitty cats, Dani as a fireman, Maria as Minnie Mouse, and Nachete as a pirate. It was really cutely organized: The kids got to the stairs, were asked their name and costume on the microphone, then they walked down the "runway" to the front, where they got a pair of spring-loaded googly eye glasses.
3:15-3:17 Marina getting her prize with the little falleras from the casal that she designed her falla monument for. They go up on a stage in the town square, pose for a picture, and pic up a flag/banner to carry around town in pride.
3:18-3:19 Dani with Lucas's and his school mascots, Peca y Lino. Lucas had them over the weekend to take pictures of to put in Peca and Lino's journal, like the traveling gnome.
3:20-3:25 More pasacalles with our casal faller. Like our very own marching band that followed us.
3:26-3:33 Monday night there was a random Christians and Moors parade.
3:33-3:37 The giant virgin Mary statue, whose dress is made of flowers from the Ofrenda. It is huge, as you can see.
3:38-3:42 More of our pasacalle
3:42-3:49 Skirt fluffing, bandana tying, dancing, flower grabbing, veil arranging...all steps for the big Ofrenda! Marina is the one getting her veil arranged by Cristina's mom. To be honest, her dress was my favorite of the whole group.
3:50-4:02 The Ofrenda.
4:03-4:39 Monica lighting the wick (for the kids to go off and light firecrackers), Lucia's school's falla monument, kids from the casal setting off fire fountains, fireworks from the falla monument burning, our fallera prepping to set our falla monument on fire, Dani looking on in his fireman's costume, our mini falla monument burning all the way to the ground, as the music from our marching band plays on.

The falla from Lucia's school took three minutes to burn. The kids made it, and it was mostly paper and cardboard. The professional falla infantil from our casal took over 15 minutes to burn (it was the same size). The latter was made with styrofoam and wood.

Yes, it smelled bad.
Yes, I probably took 3 years off my life from being in attendance.
Yes, ash flew into my hair.

Yes, it was amazing to watch.

Cinco de Mayo, American night!

I told my host mom I wanted to have an "American Night" to cook American food for her and her friends from the Casal Faller.

My host mom finally confirmed a date for American night: Cinco de Mayo (May 5th).

 She told me her friends are planning on wearing costumes. "Typical American things." I immediately imagined a cowboy. She told me "Cheerleaders, hotdogs..." Oh. Those "typical American things."

Fallas Photos!

Remember when I said I'd post Fallas pictures? Well, that time has come, finally. 

As with my previous photo post, please click the photos to enlarge them. I made them super small to load faster. 

First, we start a few days before Las Fallas weekend, when Lucas and Lucia each had their own fallas monuments at school. Lucas' school didn't burn them (the kids are too little) but they did put them out on display. Lucas' class's theme was spiders. Each kid made a spider in class, and if they wanted to, they could make one at home. His is the giant one on top (the one he made at home) with the purple Play-Dough eyes...

The other classes' monuments.

You'll notice from now on a lot of these artist-looking shirts. These are typical fallas shirts, and basically what I wore all weekend long (the kids did, too, along with all of Cristina's friends). They have a few buttons on top, then just flow down. Obviously you need to wear a shirt underneath. Sometimes people wear it with a handkerchief around the neck.

Dani and Lucas, playing with the little cars after school in the play area.

Lucia's class's falla monument. The theme was a garden. You may remember she goes to an English school, hence the obvious signage.

Lucia, after the falla burned. It kind of looks like it's her fault.

Our falla monument was just a block away from the casal. On Thursday night we "moved in" to the apartment in the city to be close to all of the activities downtown and with the casal. That is the best night to go out and see the other falla monuments throughout the city, since there are very few tourists. We went out from 1am-4am to check out the monuments. And surprisingly, there were many people doing the same (although not nearly as many as I would imagine on Fri or Sat night).

Some of the makeup setups from the falla. Gothic, warpaint and cubist paintings/makeup.

The main "doll."

See more photos after the page break!

Lorax: En búsqueda de la Trúfula Perdida

During my long Easter weekend, the host family and I had the chance to go to see The Lorax, or as it is known here, Lorax: En búsqueda de la Trúfula Perdida. If you aren't sure what this is, it's an animated movie about the Dr. Seuss book (which is a story about wastefulness and nature and caring about the environment, in an easy-to-swallow, chewable kids vitamin format).

 Much like my time going to the Spanish soccer game, this was my first time ever going to a Spanish movie theater. Why hasn't it happened before this weekend? For two reasons: One, I don't go to movies very much in the US either (the most recent movie I saw in theaters, prior to this, was Tron: 3D in January 2011, and before that...I can't even remember). Two, I really dislike Spanish dubbing (no subtitles here!) because the voices are annoying and it's hard to follow an actor when their lips mouth English and a dub speaks Spanish. Movie trailers are hard to follow because I don't know if I am listening to a voice dub of an onscreen actor or a trailer narration. But in Spain, it's a huge industry for dubbing, so every show/movie imported here is dubbed. Period.

"Taylor Swift, Zac Efron, Betty White: all voices you WON'T hear in this movie!"

So here are some observations I made during my very first Spanish movie theater experience...

 1. The theatre was huge; it felt like I was in an airport. You could even buy tickets at the window or at a machine, like when you check in for a flight. The analogies are endless with the airport situation. More on that later... This is an actual photo from the website of the Kinepolis theater in Valencia.

 2. There were opening previews for movies like Ice Age: 4 (yes, really), Despicable Me: 2, and commercials for Kinepolis itself. Kinepolis is the name of the theater/entertainment complex that contains the theater. This complex includes bowling, various restaurants, a huge play area (with giant buttons that play cartoon SFX), arcade, etc. Now let me tell you about the announcement itself: It was not appropriate for children. The beginning was like "Kinepolis is not only great for a Sunday morning..." followed by shots of happy parents and kids playing at the arcade, seeing movies, eating lunch, bowling, etc, "but it's great for a Sunday afternoon." followed by a shot of the two exhausted children sleeping on a couch, while sounds of mattress springs and the parents' screams of ecstasy play in the background. Yes, this ad infers "take your kids to Kinepolis in the AM, wear them out, then while they take their afternoon nap, you parents can get busy in the bedroom without interruption." Interesting for a theater whose audience was about 90% children under the age of ten. Then again, on mid-day TV, Coming to America was on, and the bathing scene at the beginning featured topless servant women giving Eddie Murphy a bath. Not topless women with blurs. Just topless women. Being naked.

 3. I was confused at times, having this be my second language and all. That's a given. However, being Dr. Seuss, there were a lot of made-up words. For me, they just sound like Spanish. I asked Cristina what a "trufula" was, and she didn´t know and said she thought it was probably made up. Then I realized it is the equivalent of asking her what a "thneed," a "Once-ler" or a "lorax" was. They are not real things, in case you couldn't figure it out. I also had no idea, the entire duration of the movie, what "A no ser" meant, etched on what looked like a gravestone.

Oh.

 4. The arm rests at this theater were DOUBLE WIDTH! Two arms fit on one armrest. The US needs to get on that, asap.

 5. We had assigned seats. Maybe it was because we bought the tickets early, to ensure seats. But the theatre was like, less than 10% full for our movie, which I thought made it funnier that the host family was checking each ticket "are you seat 16 or 18? 18? Okay, I go here and Lucia goes in 17." I was thinking to myself "you do realize we have THE ENTIRE ROW to ourselves, right? And the row in front of us? And the row in front of that? And the next row? There are about 6 empty rows between us and the other fifteen people in this theatre." I wonder if they were like "THAT´S NOT YOUR ASSIGNED SEAT!" when I got up and moved a few rows down because Lucia was literally jumping in her seat halfway through the movie (Lucia gonna be Lucia) and therefore being quite distracting.

 6.My host family was also very against the idea of bringing snacks with you. "THEY DON´T ALLOW OUTSIDE SNACKS." Really? No one ever checked. It´s not like we were at an airport. Or maybe they thought we were because of the design. But having Pichón be a Lays Chip distributor, we happened to have a giant box of chips, cheese doodles and what-have-you in the kitchen that day that made me wanna stash some for the movie. "NO OUTSIDE SNACKS!" my host family said. I thought "Wow, for a country of people who park wherever they please (yellow striped areas, medians, the entire lane closest to the parallel parking that is a DRIVING lane), smoke weed in public (my dad and I smelled the wofting odor of marijuana in some plaza in Barcelona), and burn giant foam and wood sculptures ten feet away from inhabited buildings, they sure are afraid of what might happen if you bring outside snacks to a movie theatre. The movie theatres seem to have induced more fear over outside snacks than the law enforcement over enforcing actual laws. For all I know, bringing in outside snacks could induce the worst punishment of all. Now I am thinking what that could possibly be, but really, I think a parking ticket would make me more fearful.

 7. No Taylor Swift. No Zac Efron. No Taylor Swift and Zac Efron song over closing credits. I just found out there was no Zac Efron and Taylor Swift duet. But how am I supposed to know when it is all DUBBED!? If I haven't mentioned it before, Spain has a huge business for dubbing, and there are actors hired to be voices of specific English-speaking actors. There is a "George Clooney voice" and "Julia Roberts voice" and "Hugh Jackman voice." There is a person for that voice, so when you hear it in a commercial, you can be like "Hey that's (fake) George Clooney talking to me!"

"Starring: SOMEONE ELSE as TAYLOR SWIFT as AUDREY!" 

No Danny Devito as The Lorax. OH WAIT, yes he was. Yes, that's right, Danny Devito voiced himself in Spanish. And apparently also Latin-American Spanish, Italian, German, and Russian. My host mom said she recognized the voice as being foreign, but she said it was hard to figure out where he was from. I heard the Danny Devito trivia fact after seeing the movie, so I didn´t fully enjoy his accent during the movie. Oh well. The producers of the film were glad he wanted to do the foreign voices because other actors can´t portray the role like the chosen actor does. TELL ME ABOUT IT. All of the breathy, ditzy-sounding voices used for every female American actress on TV here is quite grating. It´s like the Spanish equivalent of Marilyn Monroe is voicing every character from House's Olivia Wilde to Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester to Gilmore Girls' Alexis Bledel. Although, I was really happy about the voice they used for Taylor Swift´s movie character. For once it didn't sound like a sex-kitten voice. Or the voice of an adult imitating a child´s voice (which happens in basically any adult-oriented show that features children. So, any show except ones that would normally air in the US on Cartoon Network, Disney Channel or Nickelodeon). It was just a run-of-the-mill, normal girl's voice.

An Idiot's Guide to Fallas Monuments

I hate to call my readers idiots. However, I can't write "FAQs" since there technically aren't any questions involved. So pardon the insult and just take it as "A person who doesn't know much about Fallas's guide to Fallas Monuments"

Let me briefly explain Fallas (not the festival, but the actual Fallas monuments themselves):

Casal Faller

Each Casal Faller has two fallas. They have a large one, for the adults, and a smaller one, for the kids. The small one is called the "falla infantil." 

Both are made out of wood and styrofoam, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts (about going to the warehouse where they are stored).

There are many many Casal Falleres throughout the city. Since there are two fallas for each casal, you can imagine how many are sprinkled throughout the city...how many, to be exact? 764. There are 382 casal falleres. 

The two types of Fallas monuments

The large one usually is three or four stories high. They require a crane to set up. They are usually satirical or humorous, because this is all about fun times, remember? They can be crude (as you will see in photos I post of our falla that include, ahem, hair styles for below the belt), rude, vulgar (swearing in fallas caption cards is welcome!), and uncensored (lots of naked bodies. I am a bit desensitized).

The fallas infantiles, on the other hand, are for the kids. They are smaller, only about 10 feet high at most. They are cute and kid-themed. Some themes I saw this year were carousels (like Marina's), babies, Las Fallas festival itself, storybook characters (like ours), the circus, pirates, puppets, etc.

How they are categorized

There is a contest run every year for the fallas, therefore encouraging beautiful, unique and creative designs for the monuments. However, to have a bunch of judges judge over 700 monuments throughout the entire city would probably be exhausting.

First of all, they judge the large fallas separately from the fallas infantiles. They are each in their own field of judging, like how basketball teams don't play against football teams. They are two completely different things.
The fallas are divided into levels, based on cost. Obviously the ones in the highest cost tier are the coolest because they have lots of money to design the best thing ever. Those are the ones with the most visitors, too, since even the locals make an effort to see these higher-tier fallas. It also makes sense to split them by cost, because then you don't have this magnificent one competing against some dinky cheap one, because the winner would be obvious.

The best of the best, or the highest tier of fallas for the infantiles is called "sección especial" and below that is "sección 1," "sección 2" etc. The special section this year contained 13 fallas in the 20,000 to 78,000 euros price bracket. Our casal faller was in the 9th section, which had a cost between 3,500 to 3,515 euros. And guess what? We got first place in our section!

The larger fallas are a little more complicated in their section labelings. Like the infantiles, there is a "sección especial." But below that, there is section 1A, section 1B, section1C, then section 2A, 2B,2C...etc with ABC in each all the way through 7. We were in section 1A and won 7th place  (out of 19). The price bracket we were in was 30,000 to 84,000 euros. The special section's price bracket was between 100,000 and 400,000 euros. Yes, they spent a US graduate's typical student debt on a styrofoam sculpture. Doesn't that make you feel good.

The judging is done based on overall design, and those are the prizes I mentioned. However, there are also creativity or humor awards, but those are just icing on the cake. You want the meaty, overall prize before any of those additional ones, since they don't mean as much.

Where the money comes from

These monuments cost a lot of money. Artists spend several months working on them: sketching, collecting materials, designing, forming the shapes, painting, assembling...and those artists have to be paid. And those materials cost money too.

As I have said, a Casal Faller is like a club in the way that you pay fees and dues. You pay a monthly membership to be in the casal. And your kids pay memberships to be in it, too. And there are many people in each falla. Not all of them participate in the various activities year round (like the little parade we did in February, or Valentine's Day dinners or whatnot). Some people join a Casal just to participate in the 4 days of Fallas, where they join up to eat, walk around in their Fallera dresses, and offer flowers to the Virgin Mary during the Ofrenda (more on this in another post). Why? It's tradition and it's fun. Why do people join knitting circles? Or soccer teams? Because they like it, and they like to meet people and it's something to do. But fallas also has a bit of tradition behind it, which gives it a "I'm a proud Valencian" vibe.

Larger casals obviously have more money, since more people are in them. You can really join any one you like. Cristina and her family changed casals only a few years ago because they wanted a change.

Each casal faller has a place to meet up. They are places specifically for meeting up with the others in the casal. Ours, many years ago, used to be a nightclub. Upstairs there are a couple bathrooms and a kitchen and bar area with dining tables. Downstairs looks like a nightclub with low ceilings (it's a basement) and not much else. There are folding tables that we occasionally use when we are eating there.

So where do the membership costs go? Ours goes to the upkeep of the casal faller, like electricity, water, heat, etc. It also goes to the flower bouquets the falleras carry in the Ofrenda, the food/drinks we consume throughout the year and during fallas weekend, as well as paying the Falla artist and paying for the falla monuments themselves.

What happens to the fallas monuments after Las Fallas

The artist gets an opportunity to pick a ninot, or a doll, from their falla to keep before it burns. Marina, since she makes jewelry with her very distinct style of whimsy, wanted to keep a ninot to put in one of the stores where she sells jewelry. I am not sure which one she chose, but I believe she can pick any she wants. Before she picks hers, however, the fallera infantil (a girl from the casal who decides to be that casal's fallera, kind of like a pageant queen for the casal who dresses up all the time for any casal event) gets first dibs on picking a ninot to keep.

The same occurs for the large falla monument. The artist picks a ninot to keep, and I believe the fallera  mayor (a woman in her 20s, usually, who is also a "pageant queen" of sorts for the casal) picks one to keep as well. I am sure about the infantil one, but this one I am not so sure about.

And then what happens? On March 19th, they burn them.

As I mentioned before, the large ones are aimed at the adults, and the small ones at the kids. Therefore the small ones are burned early around 10pm (yes, for Spain that's early), so the kids don't stay up super late to get to see theirs burn. The fallera infantil lights a string of firecrackers that is attached to the monument and up it goes in flames (we didn't have a fallera infantil this year, so the fallera mayor did it). The large ones are burned around midnight or sometimes 2am.

Before burning them, they have firemen scope out the scene, checking that the barricades are at a proper distance for spectators and that other hazards are taken care of. Then someone sprinkles some kerosene around the monument, strings it with some firecracker-laced wicking, then rolls out a string long enough for the fallera to light it without setting her dress on fire.

The result is a fireworks show that is accompanied by marching band music as the crowd watches the monument burn.

For the larger ones, the firefighters start hosing down nearby buildings, bus stops, and other structures and continue the water flow until the falla monument is a pile of ashes and not emitting much heat, so that stuff doesn't catch on fire.

The fallas monuments are all designed and structured in a way so they will collapse inward, so that 3 story sculpture doesn't just fall plop into the crowd. And the firefighters are there early setting up, checking for weather conditions and stuff. If it's windy, they won't burn it until it calms down.

I know what you're thinking. They burn these things that COST MONEY? Yes. Yes they do. 400,000 euros, spent on something that takes several months to create all to be set on fire. Kind of cathartic, right?

GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

A couple weeks ago, on March 11, the family and I went to the Valencia CF fútbol (soccer) game with the kids and Monica and Cristina. It is the first soccer game I've been to in my life, as well as the first sporting event I've attended in Spain.

I've attended university football games, high school football games, Cubs game (singular, just once), Sox games, Bulls games, etc. I have even been to hockey games. I am no pro in the subject, since baseball is the only sport I fully understand and could explain to someone (football is completely foreign to me), but I am saying that yes, I have experience attending sporting events.

Well, as this is the first time attending a foreign sports game, I experienced quite a few things different from my American sports experiences.

The view from our seats, only 6 rows away from the field.

1. First of all, everyone cares about the game. We were playing against RCD Mallorca, which isn't a very good team (I looked them up on the rankings. We are in 3rd place and Mallorca, at the time, was 17th. Out of 20). Therefore it shouldn't have been a real edge-of-your-seat game. Yet everyone in the stands were just enthralled. I mean ENTHRALLED.  The seats were only about 80% full, but that's still pretty good attendance, right? When you watch a baseball game on TV, count how many times the camera cuts to an audience member talking on the phone. I'll do the math for you now: 843. I never once saw someone on their phone or paying attention to anything OTHER than the game. Obviously yes, you are there to see the game, but these people take it a step further. 
2. On that note, there are no distractions from the game. No cheerleaders. No mascots dancing the hokey pokey. No announcers blasting a play-by-play over the loudspeakers. No occasional YMCA lyrics shouted at the audience to make them dance. No entertainment during time-outs or breaks that involve 10-year-olds doing grocery cart races across the field or stuffing themselves into round cages and rolling towards giant bowling pins. NONE OF THAT. This is soccer. In Europe. Thou shall not need entertainment, other than the joy of WATCHING YOUR TEAM PLAY. And a 10-person marching band that circled the field once during halftime, playing to an apathetic crowd.
3. I know this is the 3rd point on the topic, but seriously, this is ridiculous. On the concourse, aka the inside covered area where you can buy snacks, use the bathroom, etc, THERE WAS NO ONE. Not one soul. During my bathroom break, during the moment I wanted a snack...both times I saw no people. Other than one security guard and the people running concessions. I didn't get up during the half-time break, which I know was busy since I saw a lot of people getting up. Any other time, aka any time the team was playing, NO ONE WOULD DARE LEAVE. The bathroom was dead. I could choose any stall! No lines! NO LINES! Let me say that again: Sports arena. No Lines. Cubs game? Head to the concourse at any given moment and the line is 10 people deep for a hot dog. Or 20 people deep for a beer. Let's not even TALK about the long lines at the bathrooms.
4. There are no people offering snacks walking down the aisles. No "PEANUTS! GET YOUR PEANUTS!" 
5. The food offered on the concourse is obviously of a different variety. When I think of "arena food" I think nachos, popcorn, candy, hot dogs, rib sandwiches, cheeseburgers, etc. Not surprisingly, those are very American foods. Hell, you might even get sushi (at Ichi-roll at the Seattle Mariners stadium) in the US. Being in Spain, one will not find American food. They will find popcorn, since that's a staple at these sorts of events. Other than candy (which is severely lacking in the chocolate variety and instead is like, a million ways to serve a gummy bear), the food options are quite different from the US. Instead, get excited to buy a HAM AND CHEESE SANDWICH! Wooo! Nothing says "Let's go team" like a ham and cheese sandwich.
6. Water is served in cups. No bottled water. Actually, maybe the same is done in the US. From the Spanish side of my POV, I find this odd. Bottled water is everywhere you go; it's impossible to get a cup of tap water anywhere (and the water is nowhere near Mexico-levels of stomach poison...so I don't really know what the problem is). 
7. Speaking of food, the concourse was only open for the first half! RIDICULOUS! I went out to look for ice cream about halfway through the second half and guess what? Everything was closed. As I mentioned above, it's not like they had long lines to start with, so I guess they weren't losing too much business. 
8. Any sports game in the US of A will begin with the national anthem because this is AMURICAH. Hands on your hearts! In Spain, it opened with a "minute of silence" for a coach that recently passed away. And the minute was only about 15 seconds. No Spain national anthem, no hands on hearts. 
9. It's really quiet. As I said, there is no announcer or music, so there's none of that. But there also isn't a lot of noise from the crowd. Except during a goal, or a big play. Not even the occasional drunk dude shouting "C'MON JAVI! KICK THE DAMN BALL!" If you looked away, you wouldn't have any idea what was going on on the field. Maybe that's why people don't go on the concourse?
10. This isn't so much of a cultural difference as it is a sports difference: the game is precisely the time on the clock. With time outs, delays, halftimes, etc that I am used to from almost any American sport, games never can be predicted as far as duration. Bears games can last 5 hours. Or so it sometimes feels. Baseball games are the most engaging for me because I actually understand, but to be honest, they are major nap-time material. Not a lotta action. Soccer? 45 minutes first half. Short halftime break. 45 minutes break. You are in and out of there in less than 2 hours, guaranteed. Like going to a movie. 
11. Smoking is allowed in the seats. Recently they banned smoking in enclosed areas in Spain (a huuuuge move that makes going to dinner/bars 10000x more pleasant). However, this is a soccer stadium. Therefore it is "outdoors." So yes, there was a dude smoking his way through a pack of cigs about 5 feet away from me.

YA ESTAMOS EN FALLAS!

Fallas are here! Fallas are here! Fallas are here! Fallas are here! Fallas are here! Fallas are here!

If you are somewhat familiar with Las Fallas, you are probably like "Um, no, they aren't...it takes place on March 19th, always the day before Father's Day in Spain."

Well, yes, you are right in the fact that the main burnings happen that day.

But today commenced the Fallas season, with several fun happenings.

And if I don't tell you them right now in quick fashion, I will probably never get around to writing this blog and you will forever be in the dark about this wondrous occasion.

Onward!

First, a little background. I have mentioned this Fallas thing for you several times before, even providing links describing Las Fallas. But some of you aren't listening (Read: Eric, my brother).

So, to really really simplify it for you, this is what it is: Las Fallas is a celebration in Valencia (the city, not the province) and ONLY Valencia, where they build giant expensive Fallas (made out of wood and styrofoam and paper mache...that somehow manage to cost several thousand dollars each) just to burn them in various locations around the city. Why? Because. They like spending months making things to burn them, I guess. I don't ask why the Spanish do some of the things they do, like hang cured ham legs in stores. They just do things to be special!

But Las Fallas takes a lot of preparation, and there are a bunch of other things associated with this festival that don't include burning stuff.

If you followed my other study abroad blog, you would know that I visited Valencia during Las Fallas in 2010. It was a frenzy.

But I didn't get to experience what I am experiencing right now, from the POV of a family that is part of a Casal Faller, which is much like a rotary club that you pay membership fees to participate in things throughout the year.

Anywho, today our Casal Faller went to the warehouse where the Falla is being constructed. Marina, Cristina's friend, is constructing a falla infantil that is a carousel, painted with cute little animals that totally resemble the jewelry she makes. Each Casal Faller has a different Falla. There are big ones and small ones (infantiles). And because there are so many Casal Falleres, there are about 300 or MORE of these paper mache structures throughout the city.

We went to the warehouse storing our Falla and Marina's falla.

And you are thinking "paper mache" and "big structures" and most likely thinking of ruffly little parade floats.

No, these are smooth and beautiful and perfect and look like they are made out of clay and sanded down to shiny perfection. NOT what you'd expect people would make just to set on fire.

Anyways, on to the pictures!!! (Click pictures to view full size)



Marina's small falla is a carousel with cute little kids and animals...

A view of some parts of our Falla, including a giant head that is temporarily covered in a tarp.



The theme of our falla is "makeup" and you will see a few women primping in outlines of mirrors, with empty hands (the lipstick and small props will be added later).

I took a pic of the inside/underside of that giant head. Inside you will see stacks and stacks of styrofoam, with a wooden frame and Great Stuff. As you can imagine, I was thinking about the impact on the ozone from burning 300 of these over the course of a week. I don't think anyone else was thinking about that, though.

A lot of Fallas have political jests or vulgar jokes. Our Falla has a naked woman with her butt cheeks being spread by a man standing behind her. What "props" will be inserted in that man's hands? Only time will tell.

Oh, look, a naked nurse (with accurate upper body anatomy!).

Homer Simpson? Now I am really confused about this so-called "theme."

Marionettes and schoolchildren?

I got a close-up shot of this Falla face of a soldier (or American revolution era man?) so you can see that it is way more than paper mache and foam.

After we visited the warehouse, we went to the ayuntamiento, or city hall/main plaza, where it was jam-packed with people. There was the mascleta (If you haven't looked this up on wikipedia yet, get on it! All the info you need is there!). The pretty, colorful background on my blog here isn't for nothing. It is the mascleta, in all its glory. It looks like flags and whatnot, but what it really is is little firecrackers that are set on fire from one end, setting the whole string on fire and coordinating a wonderful, noisy, fiery show to kick off Las Fallas. You can really only see the prettiness from high above if you are in a balcony of the post office or other buildings in the plaza. If you are on the ground, like us, you get to see the smoke and hear the noise that accompanies it. The whole town it seemed gathered on foot to the plaza, for this 5-minute procession. It was a sunny gorgeous day, so much so that it was hard for me to film since there was a glare. I filmed it nonetheless, but I will upload the video sometime this week. We were lucky that the heavy smoke from the firecrackers wafted over to the sun and shaded the city momentarily. No joke, the sunglasses came off after the first minute.

Then, tonight Cristina had her friends from the Casal Faller over (just a group of 10 or 12 of us), including some of the people I met earlier when we went to dinner one night. Laura, Marina, Maria Carmen, Maite, etc were all there. We had pizza bagels (or something very similar) and a bunch of other tapas. I wasn't too hungry from the McDonalds we had at lunch (can I just make a side note about how expensive it is here? I don't eat it ever in the US, but it seems like 4 happy meals, 3 chicken sandwiches and 2 big macs with 4 pops and 4 fries should not cost FIFTY EUROS). Although I saved room for Marina's homemade strawberry ice cream. Oh my, so good.

While eating, the TV was on the Valencian channel (that speaks in Valenciano, not Castellano or Spanish), showing live footage of the big event downtown. They had the main Fallera (seriously, Fallas, Fallera and Casal Faller? We need to find new words to make this less confusing) announcing to the city some stuff in Valencian about Las Fallas, including "Hey guess what chicos, WE'RE GONNA BURN THIS CITY DOWN!" Except not really. But kind of.
Then there was a song, in Valencian. Cristina and all her friends stood up to sing it, like it was some kind of national anthem minus the hand on the heart. Dani danced. He dances to anything that has a tune.


So now, my friends and family, begins the madness of Fallas. And seriously, if you haven't read up on my previous experience at Las Fallas, get on that. If hosing down buildings is a typical behavior to prevent giant burning sculptures from catching nearby apartments on fire doesn't seem like motivation to keep reading, I don't know what does.

Christmas, New Years, and Reyes Magos (three holidays in one video!)

This is a tad late, since the last of the three was celebrated on January 6th, but here is a video mashup of my holiday experience at home and abroad!

Hey, it could be later. I still have 2009 vaca footage from Seattle that is untouched.


Oh, and the song isn't very holiday-ish. Although it's by a band I heard on Spanish MTV, called Chinese Christmas Cards. So, technically it IS within theme?

Grillin' in the park

This past Saturday was the "Valentine's Day" dance for the kids at their Falla. The theme was 50s dress up, like the movie Grease. They also had an American-style lunch/snack, with cheeseburgers and shoestring potato chips. There were extras on the table and I was practically drooling I wanted one so badly. But I resisted.

Here is a group photo of all the kids in the falla. Lucia, Dani, Maria and Lucas are front and center.

The kids didn't have very "50s"-ish clothes, but we tried our best to dress them up.

Then, on Sunday, in the plaza near Pichon's parent's house, there was some kind of festival where we brought a grill and made a fire on the ground and cooked food. There were a bunch of other people around making little fires and grilling sausages and snacks. It was more of an "almuerzo" since it was around 10am that we were nibbling on chorizo and fried tomato bocadillos.

There were a bunch of little tents selling stuff, like the previous weekend with the paella. Of course, being a plaza in Spain, there was a giant clocktower that would chime a LOT. The kids were especially mesmerized.

Staring at the clock...

Maria and Lucia also enjoyed sticking their hands in these giant head masks (yes, people plop those on their heads...and see through the mouths). I took a picture, and Lucia made a silly face.

It was fun. And my coat didn't reek as much as it did from the paella festival, where it smelled like I sat inside of a barbecue overnight or something.

Why? Why must you rub this in my face?

A couple weekends ago, we were going to eat lunch at Foster's Hollywood.

Foster's Hollywood is a chain restaurant in Spain with American style food. Burgers. Ribs. Fries.

Burgers here are apparently so uncommon (I didn't think they were that rare, but here you go) that my coworkers were talking about how crazy it is that they ask you so many questions about your burger at Fosters. "How do you want it cooked? Rare? Medium Rare?" "Lettuce Tomato and Onion?" "Cheese?" etc. I was like "What do they ask you at the other burger places?" And they were like "What other burger places? McDonalds?"

I was really really really excited about going there for lunch. All day, I was thinking "Should I order a big juicy burger? Or smoked ribs? Or other items with BBQ sauce? Or other forms of red meat?"

Then Pichon and his dad were chopping firewood for a really long time, leading to us leaving the house later, and therefore arriving during prime lunch rush. There were long lines and Cristina decided we'd eat at McDonalds.

It wasn't too bad. I got a McWrap, which is a breaded chicken breast in a tortilla with lettuce and tomato.

Side note: They have a McJamon, which is like a big mac with Spanish jamon on it. It makes me laugh.

And for dessert, there was a fancy little McCafe, and I had a macaroon and a lemon cupcake. Fancy!

I swear, I have eaten more McDonalds in the past two months here than I have in the past 5 YEARS in the US. Which isn't a lot. Three isn't a lot.



One day, I have hopes that we will return to Fosters and I will get that meal.


As for now, these targeted ads on my web browser taunt me. They know I want that Fosters. And they are gonna wave it in my face.