Sunday with the kiddos

Today Monica and Cristina's parents (Alicia and Pepe) invited me over for lunch with them, Jose Enrique, Monica, Dani and Maria. I already knew it'd be great because Dani and Maria are so entertaining.


Dani asked his parents the other day, "How come Lucas has two mommies?"  referring to me and Cristina.

Sara, Alicia and Pepe's cat, was sitting on a chair near the window and Dani sees me near her and says "Isn't Sara just beautiful?"

Dani and Maria were playing hide-and-seek, and Dani was looking for Maria. We were on the top floor, and I was about to go to the bathroom. I enter the bathroom as Dani says "She's not up here anywhere." As he is talking to me, I am opening the lid to the toilet. I tell him "She might be downstairs." He looks in the toilet, then looks at me with a really confused face, and says "She's down THERE!??!"

We eat lunch (yummy meatballs and broth!) and had fresh strawberries (picked from the garden) for dessert. And then, out of nowhere, I get bombarded with unexpected gifts. Monica and Jose Enrique give me a ring and matching pin, and Jose Enrique jokingly says "I picked that one out. I spent all day in the store trying to find the right colors." Dani was by my side, helping me open every gift, telling me before opening each one "It is a SURPRISE!" I open a little box and inside is a personalized piggy bank with a photo of the kids dressed up for Las Fallas. It was from Maria and Dani. Then Alicia passes me a package of beans for when I make paella. She also passes me a wrapped gift, which was an apron and washcloth with a fallera printed on it, along with a recipe for paella. She told me "It's even more for your dad, who will be making the paella. Can you imagine him wearing this flowery apron?!"  Then Monica passed me yet another package, which included little earrings that Marina designed for her brand, Manitas de Plata. I loved them. Then I went around and gave cheek kisses to everyone as I wished them thank you.

Dani was rambling on about me going back to Chicago, and he said "And I am going with her. She'll drive the plane, and we are going straight to New York City."

An hour later, still clearly thinking about it, he told me out of the blue, "I want to go with you on a plane to Chicago."

Me too.

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.

Anything with the word storm sounds cool.

STORM CHASERS! STORMIN' NORMAN! STORMTROOPERS!

Everything sounds cool when it is associated with storms.

And that is why our casal faller's theme for the pre-fallas parade was communication in the future...with storms! And satellites! And planets!

This was a giant parade in the first weekend in March, which we began planning for back in February. The theme was communication in the future: the planets communicated with satellites, who fought with storms to send their messages around the universe. 

The parade was kids only. The older girls were the planets, the boys were the storms, the younger girls (early school age) were satellites, and the little tots (ages 3 and 4, therefore no Dani or Lucas) were stars. What the stars' roles were, I don't know. Look cute, I guess, as you will see below.

The parade went all through the city, and it was huge, because almost every casal faller participated. If you still have no idea what a casal faller is, look up my other posts with the "las fallas" tag to learn more.

Here are some photos from the day-long preparations. I made them super small to load quickly, but if you click on each one, they'll expand to full size.

Here is the group of kids practicing. The building for our casal is a bit small, so we finally got to go outside and practice the formations in a large plaza.

That's me and one of the planets. I volunteered to do makeup since I love it so much. It was a lot of fun getting creative with the girls' faces. I also helped with the satellites' makeup, as well as chasing down the boys to put on their silver lipstick. 

I feel like these girls look ready to attend a KISS concert. Especially Maria, on the left, who has her hair sprayed with water and seems extra goth. The girls were in the group of satellites. After getting their makeup done (I did Lucia's!), they got their hair done.

One of the older girls dressed as a "Fallera of the future." She stood on an elevated platform on wheels which was pushed from the inside by an adult. She had her hair sprayed gold, with a super tan and "futuristic" makeup look. Her sleeves featured gold foil doilies, and she also had satellites all over her skirt.

I just had to capture her frozen look of terror. She was quite nervous, and it showed. I wouldn't wanna stand on a rickety moving stage 20 feet off the ground, either.

Lucia, Dani and Maria. Dani brought a Spiderman costume because his parents knew he'd feel left out when he saw everyone else get to dress up and not him. So he dressed up. And the mask he wore meant he was constantly bumping into people, chairs, and walls.  

This is "Earth" with a moon headband.  The dresses had these huge metal hoops in them that were very Lady Gaga-ish.

The storms. Very super hero-y. I don't know if you can see any of them, but they are wearing these boot sleeves to look like they have giant cartoon shoes. It's great.

In case you missed this adorable little munchkin in the corner of the previous photo...I snapped a close up for you.

I just love these little satellite hats they have. Like a cross between a Baptist church attendee from the south and a 1960s flight attendant.

All the satellites, ready for the parade. We arrived on site an hour early. The kids began like this, but were pretty antsy 45 minutes later.

TOO MUCH CUTE!

This is Mercury, the girl I did makeup for in the previous photo of me with a paintbrush. 

The poster says "Communication in the future," the theme of our group. The "sun" is in the front. That girl also starred as Mary in the living nativity back in December. The "planets" held their skirts high while walking to the square, but I am sure by the end of the city-long parade, these skirts got quite dirty. 

And I have tons of footage from the parade. I am "editing" it. And when I put that in quotes, I mean it is on my to-do list and nowhere near started. Like my Fallas video. Sorry. But at least you got pictures here! From early March!

All of my dreams!

Last weekend we also had the chance to go to Jose Enrique's parents' house, where the Fallas dresses are stored.

We went so Lucia and Maria could try on their dresses to be sure they fit before Las Fallas (only 5 weeks away!) and make any changes if necessary. 

I have seen pictures of the dresses and know what they look like but OH MY GOD I was so jealous of the little ones. I mean, when I was little and I played with my American Girl doll, I always wanted to wear a dress like Felicity or Samantha. Those pretty old-fashioned gowns. I mean, it is my dream to get dressed up in all that old fashioned stuff. 

When we went to Williamsburg, I wanted to buy my prom dress there. I didn't. 

Then I saw these Fallas dresses, in person. I was like "Oh my...all of my dreams!"

The dresses are two parts. A skirt with a lightweight cotton tank attached to the top, then a woven bodice that ties in the front. 

The dresses weigh a LOT, probably 15 lbs or so. I don't actually have any idea and I am really bad at guessing, but that seems right (?). 

The white tank that's attached to the skirt even has padding in the shoulders just so the straps don't dig in from the weight. 

Here is Maria in the background, cutting the foam on the straps to adjust it, and the back of Lucia's dress.

If you were one of those girls who liked dress up, please tell me you are so jealous right now. THEY GET TO WEAR THESE ALL DAY LONG.

As you can see, Lucia's has a blue bow in the back, and since you can't see Maria's, I will tell you hers is purple.

Another thing you can't see is that the dress doesn't drag on the ground but instead is about four or five inches from the ground. Revealing the feet. What do they wear on the feet?

GORGEOUS MATCHING BROCADE SLIPPERS, THAT IS WHAT.

So. Jealous.

Once Maria put on her slippers, she was trotting around the room with such excitement. I later asked Cristina how the girls deal with wearing those shoes all day long (imagine 9am to midnight walking around downtown!). She was like "Oh, they are SO happy to just be wearing heels and being pretty that they completely ignore any pain, if they have any."

I don't know. Those look pretty blister-inducing.

What do the boys where on this occasion? They were pretty simple clothes compared to the girls. It kind of reminds me of a gypsy costume, actually. They wear white socks (or tights?) and baggy black shorts, and a black vest over a puffy pirate-y shirt. Dani is getting ready to try on his espadrilles (you know those women's shoes that have a platform and tie up the ankle? Those are Spanish, and they are called espadrilles). You can even see a bit of Monica's baby bump.

There was a point where Cristina and Monica said I could dress up with them for Fallas. But lately I haven't heard much about it. They have loads of extra dresses, but they say I am too tall so that too much of my feet will be showing, noticeably so. I don't think so, since they hang high off the ground. But the next worry is shoes. As you could tell, they are pretty matchy, and I have size ten feet. Monica has size 5 or something, and Cristina has size 7. None of their extra shoes would fit me. But again, when this was talked about as an actual this-really-might-happen idea way back a couple months ago, they said I could try extra dresses/shoes of their friend Maria Carmen, who is tall like me. But they haven't mentioned it since.


All I know is that all of my dreams would come true if I could dress up like that for a day. Well, at least one.

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.

It's...different.

One of the hardest things to get used to here in Spain, as with any country, is the food.

I wouldn't say my diet in the states is very healthy, but I take note of what I am eating, and I eat a pretty decent variety of foods.

For example, during the week I went home for Christmas, I can tell you what some of my meals included:
home-made pizza: crust, tomato sauce, green peppers, onions, sausage, pepperoni, asiago, parmesan, mozzarella, spices
waffles
potato soup: soup made with potatoes, cheddar, onions, cream
christmas dinner: ham, turkey, caesar salad (tomatoes, cheese, lettuce, etc), cookies, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, hot chocolate, cheddar potatoes, hawaiian bread roll
korean BBQ: skirt steak, radishes in vinegar sauce, bean sprouts, and literally a gazillion other random things that I don't normally eat but ate anyways
Thai restaurant: Sushi (crab, tuna, rice, seaweed, avocado, etc), beef, red peppers, rice, onions, edamame,
meatloaf dinner: green beans, meatloaf (ground beef, ground pork, vegetables, ketchup, bbq sauce, tomato sauce, etc)


and this wasn't in my trip home, but instead before my trip here:
Thanksgiving dinner: potatoes, turkey, stuffing (cranberries, raisins, giblits [yes, GIBLETS], onion, celery, spices, more stuff I can't remember...), green beans (mushroom soup, green beans, crunchy onions), cranberry sauce, gravy, sweet potatoes, etc.

Ok, you get it. You don't want me to list my entire diet. And I won't. I simply want to make the point that I eat a lot of different things. I am not super picky. Like every normal human being, there are things I really cannot eat without gagging (seafood [but i like fish], chewy meat, gristle on meat), and things I prefer not to eat but will eat (mushrooms, very salty food) and things I am allergic to, or at least told I was allergic to, since such a young age that I still don't bother to eat them on their own (oranges, orange juice [although I really really like ).

But of course, in the setting I am in, I come off as a picky eater. Because guess what? Being on the Mediterranean Sea supposedly allows for very fresh and very good (so I am told) seafood. Like these little seashell things that are the size of a quarter, octopus,  clams, mussels, squid, squid ink (yeah, that's a thing you can eat, even though it's supposedly poisonous in large doses. Bon apetit.), shrimp, baby shrimp, eel,  and cuttlefish. Yes, cuttlefish is a thing people eat.

Don't you want to eat me?

Some of this may sound appetizing to some people. Like calamari, or shrimp. My parents love those. But I just hate being tricked. Not on purpose, but when you see a dish and it looks and maybe even smells appetizing then find out it's something you hate, it kind of makes me sick. Like this:

That's not spaghetti. That's some baby eels you're lookin' at. Yum...?

But what I am getting at is that the food here, to me, an outsider, seems very much the same. Cheese. Bread. Ham. Not this ham:

This ham, although familiar, goes in the previously mentioned category of foods I choose not to eat, but will if I must, like mushrooms.

No, not that ham. This ham, also known as jamon iberico or jamon serrano:

Yes, this...thing is sitting on our kitchen counter as we speak. And Spanish people across the nation drool when the word jamon is merely mentioned.

It's actually uncooked ham, but it's cured, like beef jerky. So you'd think I'd like it because I LOVE me some beef jerky. But this jamon is very salty. Like licking a brick of salt. That's slimy with fat. That white stuff on the edge of the ham (as well as in that pile of sliced meat) in the photo? That's fat. And there is plenty to go around.
So what else...cheese, bread, jamon, rice (paella), fish, blood sausage (yes, sausage that has blood in it. Again, I eat that too.), calamari, shrimp, pork chops, and other meats.

I love meat. Let me just declare my love for meat, as gross as that sentence sounds. I could never become a vegetarian. I love red meat. Steak: skirt steak, filet mignon...other steaks, they are all good to me. Beef: oh my god, if you gave me a pile of ground beef (that somehow was immune to expiration) to eat for the rest of my life, I could probably live off of it. Tacos, meatloaf, burgers, stuffed green peppers, lasagna with meat sauce, meatballs, etc. I could find a new way to cook it every week, and it would be delicious.

I also eat white meat, but not so much (much to my mother's dismay, as well as my arteries'). I love a turkey sandwich, roasted turkey, or turkey pot pie. Chicken: although I prefer it off the bone, I still like it. Asian chicken dishes, roasted chicken, jerk chicken, chicken fajitas, etc. Pork I am not too keen on, but I'll still eat a pork loin that's on my plate. I prefer my pork in the form of pulled pork sandwiches. Oh my. Pulled pork sandwiches. With extra BBQ sauce. On an onion roll. With crispy onions on top.

Whoa, sorry. I just got pulled into a day dream of pulled pork sandwiches there. I digress.

So I eat meat. But here, the meat is not the variety of which I am familiar. Instead it's a lotta that jamon (eaten almost 3 times a day, I swear), as well as good old gristle. If you don't know what gristle is, it's because you throw that part away, or your butcher cuts it off before selling meat to you. It's the really fatty part of meat. Like on a t-bone steak, that white chunk along the side. The reasons why it is icky to eat? It's not only gross (because essentially you are just eating a huge chunk of animal fat), but you are eating a flavorless piece of the unwanted part in a dish. Really, I am ordering a steak. Not fat. Thank you.

"That red part looks gross, but gimme a big plate of that white stuff!"--Spaniard

The dishes I eat are mostly composed of mystery meats. Today, for example, at lunch we ate something that looked like overcooked skirt steak. Overcooked as in "hey, leave it on the grill for another few hours, it's still not carcinogen-y enough!" And in the end what was served looked like thin crispy slices of skirt steak, but not crispy as in "mmm, pan fried!" but crispy as in "this fell through the grates of the grill and stuck there until it landed in the pile of ashes, but I dusted it off a little and here you go!"
And upon placing it on my plate, my host mom's mother told me "You have to chew it a lot!" Which is always what you want to hear. How much you need to chew meat. Because let's face it, America's cuisine portrays the best meat as tender meat. Which means fatty, yes, but fat that somewhat melts away and isn't 90% of what is on your plate.
So I ate it. And chewed. A lot. And it tasted like burnt...gristle. Oh my god, just before the gag reflex started kicking in, I bit down on some hard piece that had to have been a bone. I stealthily slipped the tooth-sized white chunk out of my mouth and into my napkin as I grabbed my bread and took a big bite to mask whatever I was eating. And then drank water. Thank god I am used to taking big vitamins which prepared me for the mouthful of burnt gristle I had to down without chewing. And my host mom's mother asked me how I liked it. I said, "Well, it's...different."

Notice how I haven't mentioned veggies that much? Well, that's because they don't show up on the dinner table too often. Or the lunch table. It is very common to have fruit for dessert, and my oh my how people eat their fruit (my coworkers often bring two or three small oranges to eat after lunch). We have salads once in a while, but usually with some seafood in it (which I don't mind, because if it's absolutely icky, like baby eel, I can pick it out). But only once in a while. Other than that, we eat onions and garlic quite often (what is garlic? An herb, probably, not a vegetable. Oh well). And I had grilled asparagus on Thursday night. Only 3 pieces though, since it was shared and a small portion.

Mayonnaise is a pretty common thing here, too. The first time I tried cuttlefish, it it was wearing so much mayonnaise that I thought it was just a plate of plain mayo. And the other day I had salmon with a nice bread crust that tasted quite soggy. Why is it so soggy? It didn't have a bread crust, that's why. It just had a thick layer of mayo that had gotten slightly crisp in the oven, enough to look like breaded fish. But it was pure mayo.

But hey, I am changing. I used to hate all seafood before my first trip to Spain. But now I eat hake (I know you are like "What is that?" It's a white fish. And tender, not chewy, like cod. And they love it here.) as well as cod (chewy at times, but I eat it). I don't know how I would've survived if I didn't eat any cod. It was practically the main course of everything we ever cooked in my cooking class in San Sebastian. And I already mentioned the thing about blood sausage, which I eat, but prefer not to. But I will at least eat SOME of it, which is a huge effort:

Extra black means extra bloody! Mmm!

And remember that cuttlefish that you imagined on your plate earlier in this post? Well I ate cuttlefish eggs today for lunch. They tasted like and had the texture of cod. And they looked like...well, like this:

Looking at this picture kind of makes me want to vomit.

So I am definitely making an effort. Hey, today I had burnt gristle and cuttlefish eggs! And I ate quail eggs the other day, and I eat foie gras when it's on some tapas (foie gras is another thing they eat a lot of, and it is overstuffed duck liver). And pate, but it's not a favorite (pate, for you people who still haven't thrown up by the various things mentioned in this post, is a paste made of meat and fat. Like...peanut butter, but instead of peanuts, it's meat!).
And today I ate rabbit, but I don't consider that something ridiculously gross because it's meat. And it didn't have a lot of gristle.

Meat-gristle=happy and not hungry Melissa.

And yes, there are things I like that Spaniards eat. Tortilla (egg omelet with potatoes) is wonderful, as well as fried eggplant with caramel sauce. And patatas bravas, or chopped potatoes with a red sauce and garlic sauce. And some beef stew my host dad made a couple weeks ago. And paella. And rabbit. And chorizo. Etc.


But I am not the only one who doesn't eat everything. Everyone here, even the Spaniards, have dislikes. They are only human. There were family members at lunch today who didn't want calamari. Others who didn't want rabbit. But if I don't want something, it is misread as "ugh this foreigner hates ALL FOOD!" which is the part I hate, and feel most self-conscious about.

And what also surprises me is the "weird" things the kids will eat. Yes, weird is a loaded word and is subjective. Clearly I am imposing my own food standards on them. But in the states, a typical kids meal is a hot dog, or mac and cheese, or buttered noodles, or pizza. Maria (age 6) was eating octopus tentacles at lunch today. And all of the kids fight tooth and nail for a plate of freshly cut jamon (literally. It can get pretty ugly). It surprises me because stateside, the kids will eat noodles and would never DARE to eat something that looks like an octopus. Another thing I find odd is when I made pancakes, and Maria tried one and couldn't finish it because "it was gross" and she "didn't want anymore." It's a pancake! It barely has flavor! It's a basic starch. If you eat bread, how could you not like pancakes?! Although, maybe they think the same with me: "She eats tuna and hake, but why won't she eat any more of these cuttlefish eggs!?"


The reason I dislike seafood is the texture. It grosses me out to eat a slimy mussel or a chewy piece of cuttlefish. Or shrimp. Blech. This is similar to why I don't like alcohol: it tastes nasty. But when I mention that, it's no big deal. But mention a dislike for fish and suddenly it gets ugly.

Ok, so I ended up talking more about my entire diet here. But I had to get the point across.

And perhaps going into this post, you thought you were very open-minded about food. But there had to be at least one thing mentioned that grossed you out. Or maybe something else that grosses you out, that wasn't mentioned here. Now just imagine that you were served that gross thing every other day. And that you felt insecure because you don't want to impose, but at the same time your stomach couldn't possibly stand eating cow eyeballs for the 8th day straight. Maybe now you know how I feel.

Get ready for the Reyes!

Tomorrow is Reyes Magos, or Three Kings Day. We have the day off of work, and it's a day of presents!

Like I've said before, this is the big day for the kids, and officially the final big holiday of the season. You can tell because rebajas (sales) starts the next day, and it is insanity in the stores around town.

This is kind of like our Santa Claus tradition with leaving presents under the tree. The reyes are the guys who the kids tell what they want for presents, who they visit in the mall, and who in the end come during the night to drop off gifts.

Tonight the kids were as anxious as an American child on Christmas Eve...both wanting to go to sleep and not being able to do so due to the anticipation of the nighttime visitors.

Lucia burst into my room before bedtime to tell me that I needed to put a shoe (yes a shoe) under the tree so the reyes will leave me something. I left one of my brand new suede boatshoes, because I think they leave candy and I didn't want to eat food out of a dirty gym shoe. At least, I hope they leave candy. Actually...I think I hear the "reyes" putting candy under the tree right now...

And Cristina used the whole reyes thing to her advantage, getting the kids to pick up their toys downstairs by the tree. "You better pick up your toy trucks so that the reyes won't trip on them! If they do, they might not bother to come next year because this is the house in which they broke their ankles!"

Tonight we ate dinner with Monica and her kids while Jose Enrique went to the Valencia soccer game with friends for his birthday (and also just because they like going to the soccer games). Monica forgot to give Cristina a shoe each from Maria and Dani to put under the tree so that the presents will come for them (so maybe there isn't candy to fill the shoes, and this is just an indicator like "This house belongs to this many pairs of feet. Bring that many people's worth of gifts, please.") Because of this, Lucas put two of his shoes under the tree, and Lucia did as well. And Cristina said (in the presence of Lucas and Lucia) "We have to put two of their shoes under the tree for Dani and Maria. When we were upstairs we told (prayed? shouted?) the reyes to remember that the gym shoe is for Maria, and the brown tiny shoe is for Dani." I'm not really sure if they prey to these kings or what, since they are biblical figures after all. Not deities. But Lucia already mentioned once how Cristina needed to tell the kings she wanted an iPad when Pixon wasn't around so she'd get it despite him saying it was too expensive.

And Lucia and Lucas had already put the bowl of water outside for the camels (that is what the kings ride on, not reindeer, of course). "Outside is better," said Cristina, "since we don't want those big camels trotting all through the house." "I see," I replied.

And the kids left a plate of cookies and some cups of milk for the kings as well. They can get pretty hungry.

The kids were too excited to go to bed, and of course shared with Cristina that they wanted to stay up late to see the kings. Cristina told them they had to go to sleep, and stay in bed, since she was putting the alarm and if they snuck downstairs, the alarm would go off and the cops would come (PS, did I mention that we had an alarm? We do, and it's only downstairs. So the kids can go to their hall bathroom but if they go down a floor to the kitchen or the basement where I am, it will go off. And yes, the security people call immediately. But the cops don't come. That's just a scare tactic.)

Me being me, I wonder how much of this is really that believable. As a child, I was very critical of the whole magical holiday thing. I analyzed the handwriting from Santa letters so much so that my dad went to the neighbor's house to have them write it instead. Although Lucia is a mere 5 years old, she's very smart. Like Cristina said when she made the Santa videos, Lucia probably would figure out that hers and Lucas' would be very similar in wording. Because of that, Cristina showed Lucas his video a day after, when Lucia wasn't around, so Lucia wouldn't be like "Hey, this looks like mine...could it be pre-recorded?"
So I have found four things that clearly Lucia hasn't caught on to, but I find pretty strange.
1. The alarm system. If she can't come downstairs due to the alarm system, how can three giant kings come inside to leave presents? Do they have their own alarm remote? I guess, though, if they supposedly drive flying camels, they could probably figure something out.
2. If we can communicate to the kings by just sitting in our room and talking aloud much like people pray to God, why do the kids write letters to the kings? Why do they need to visit them, in person, at the mall, to tell them what they want for a gift? Couldn't they save the hassle and just sit in their room and talk to their wall to do it?
3. If the night before Reyes Magos there is a parade in which all three kings show up to give out gifts and candy, but the parade exists in many places at once, who is it that we see in our local parade? Clearly they can't have out-of-body experiences, those kings. Although, again, with the flying camels theory. But I think that the kids would be attuned to the fact that the kings in their local parade look WAY different than the kings in the parades shown on TV, from Madrid or other places in Spain. Or maybe not.
4. In American movies and culture, we often talk about how Santa goes around the world leaving presents in every child's home. Obviously, looking back at that, that was not the case. There are religions that don't celebrate Christmas and therefore households that won't get a Santa visit, but also the people who do celebrate Christmas don't always believe in Santa. I haven't traveled everywhere in the world, but it'd be silly to assume that everywhere in the world that celebrates Christmas celebrates it the same way, with a visit from Santa being the most exciting part. Lucas and Lucia both have heard me say how I don't celebrate Reyes Magos in the USA, and if they haven't, they've clearly seen my confusion with how the holiday is celebrated. Like when I question putting a shoe under a plastic fir tree overnight to yield candy (think about that one for a minute). Even still, Lucia says "The three kings will be visiting all the children in the world tonight..." Clearly that's not the case. Not the case in the USA, at least. I think it's only in Spain. Maybe France too, but I am not sure. So these magical kings will be visiting all the children who live in a country that's the size of Texas? I guess that's a little more plausible than the myth of Santa going around the world. Maybe that leaves this magical tradition a little more sane than ours.

Happy New Year!

I arrived earlier today, because I wanted to be able to celebrate New Year's with my host family. It was a great decision.

First the kids ate, then played/caused trouble while we ate dinner.

After eating a massive meal of tapas (way too much for the 9 of us adults) AND a huge hake/ham/pastry crust thing the size of my thigh AND chocolate cakes and apple tarts and flan AND lemon/sugar/champagne cocktails AND chocolate truffles, we watched the kids get prepped (an hour before countdown) with their party kits, which included streamers, blow horns, masks, hats and leis.  

(as with all pictures on this blog, click to enlarge.)

Dani, Lucas, and Bruno

Maria, Lucia, and Paula

It's a Spanish tradition to eat 12 grapes on the clock chimes after the clock strikes 12. So popular, that they sell pre-packaged cans of peeled, seeded grapes specifically for this purpose. And they sell grape-flavored gummy candies for kids, in packs of 12.

My little can of grapes, ready to be opened.

The kids get amped up for the countdown by dancing to "Waka Waka"

The kids get really into it.

And after the clock strikes 12, and we all ate our grapes on the chimes, the couples kissed and then everyone did the two-cheek-kiss to everyone else saying "Happy new year!"

Cristina and me wearing our party kits

The kids staring in awe out the window at various fireworks shows in the distance after midnight.

Then we danced/listened to a soundtrack of ABBA, Shakira, Pitbull, and Prince until at least 3am. 

EDIT: Maria was wearing new watch, and when they went to bed around 3am, Maria whispered to Lucia "LOOK! It's almost 3!" as if they were keeping a secret from their parents that the grownups forgot to put the kids to bed on time and the kids were getting away with it. It was super cute. Also, when they said good night, they said "Buenas noches dias!" (Good night morning) since it was a bit of both at the same time.

OMG Spiderman.

I recently learned a new Spanish word, jolín, which I mentioned in a previous post.

After the New Year celebration, the kiddies went downstairs to watch Spiderman on mute. Yes, mute, because the adults are listening to music upstairs. And about 20 minutes into the movie, I see Maria, the kids' cousin, rolling around on the ground uncomfortably, pulling at her tights as she says "Jolín! Spiderman es tan aburrido!"

She thought Spiderman was a little too boring. And I'll admit, watching it on mute while Pitbull plays in the upstairs speakers must be kinda boring.

Yet nearly two hours later, as the movie still progresses, their friend's kid, Dani (not their cousin Dani), is completely fascinated by this silent version, as he sits with his head perched on his hands on the couch.