Butifarras

Butifarras are a kind of catalan sausage. Sunday for dinner, amongst a platter of butifarras and meat was a piece of blood sausage. Romi had gone to the mountains earlier in the day and purchased some different meats. She decided I needed to try the blood sausage too, it has blood of a pig, go figure. When I put my knife into it, it just kind smooshed all over the place. The consistency was like wet and soft. Then I tasted it and I really liked it, it's kind of sweet and savory but I couldn't handle the texture, it felt so mushy. It was literally like you are eating coagulated blood, wet though. I ate half of it and then just gave up and finished watching Pasapalabra. Oh well, off to Germany I go this week to experience more sausage and also eat sauerkraut! I love sauerkraut I'm very excited, I want to try and bring some home because this german I met told me you have to put in the fridge for a couple of days to let it sit and develop flavor. Auf Wiedersehen!

Pais Vasco

I took a trip with my program to Pais Vasco, or the Basque Country. We visited Bilbao and also San Sebastian. San Sebastian was probably the most beautiful place I've ever been. Its right on the coast with tons of beaches and mountains and there are really old buildings and tons of seafood. Tapas in Pais Vasco are different because they are served on little slices of bread, they are called pintxos. It is gastronomically speaking probably the best place in spain according to all of our guides. They have many 5 star restaurants and some of the worlds best chefs. The are incredibly expensive but I managed to have some mind blowing food, like a fried ball of brie! It was melting all over my hand, but it was so good. The bars just have tons of pintxos lined up and you just start eating and then you pay for what you've eaten after. There is also a greenish wine that they serve poured from really high into a glass, it spills a lot but apparently that's just how they do it. Many things are different including the language. They speak euskara, or basque, which has no roots in any other language in the world. It has many many x's, t's, k's and seriously no us of the letter m.


Here is a photo from inside the Santiago Calatrava, from valencia, walking bridge in Bilbao, He also designed the airport. Both the bridge and airport have this incredibly light feeling. The walkway of the bridge is actually made of clear glass blocks.


Here is the Guggenheim! in Bilbao, the museum was really fun, seriously just like all fun. I saw tons of Richard serra pieces, the best piece i've ever seen by Jenny Holzer, the gigantic Takashi Murakami exhibit and they were screening a Ryan Trechartin video <--that's for you zach nash! It was really amazing, and in front is the gigantic Jeff Koons dog covered in growing flowers. The staff wear really cool dress uniforms designed for the Guggenheim, at least i'm guessing that because it had Guggenheim embroidered on them.


Here are some sculptures from Eduardo Chillida that we saw in San Sebastian, Chillida is also from San Sebastian and his scluptures are everywhere. There are some tubes as well on this stone structure against the cliff that make sounds when the wind is strong enough.

Los Pancakes

Last Saturday Romi and I made pancakes together! I found a recipe for pancakes in spanish so that I could make sure she would understand it. Romi made the batter while I took a little nap and then I helped her figure out how to cook them on the pan. She thought they were really sweet and she liked them. She said that's probably why so many americans are fat. Especially with all of the syrup on them. It was a funny experience for both of us. The photo is also for my grandparents because they wanted to see a photo of Romi.



In other food news i ate violet flavored ice cream and also chocolate goat cheese flavored ice cream. They were incredible! My friends showed me this cafe where they make all of their own ice cream flavors like black olive, raspberry vinaigrette, mojito and lavendar. There must have been more than thirty different flavors there. The owner is belgian and loves giving out samples. If you ask for one he will suggest another flavor to try combining it with like mango-curry or gingerbread-peanut butter.

Mi Habiticion etc

I've forgotten to post in a while! Here is a photo of my room, this is after Romi cleaned it though. She cleans my room and changes my sheets. Its feels so good to come home to a really clean room I love it. Also about my room, it is light purple and there is a little mold developing. In Spain, because of the humidity you need to constantly air out your room. I didn't really know this until some odd spot developed on my wall, then Romi told me to just open my window every day until they go away. Little by little they are disappearing.



and please don't judge me for the waterbottle. You can't drink the water here because it will rot your stomach. Or at least that's what I was told and I seemed to get a little sick everytime I tried drinking for long periods of time. I refill with water coolers when possible.

I am beginning to get all my plans and tickets purchased for my month of may traveling adventure. Here are the places I am going!

London
Brighton, England
Istanbul, Turkey
Amsterdam
Budapest, Hungary
Romania

For spring break I am going to Berlin with some friends and also to Weimar, Germany to see my amazing friend Kate who is studying at the Bauhaus! This will actually be my first time outside of Spain, and the amsterdam airport which i was in for an hour on my way here!

En Tarragona

Last Saturday we took a little day trip on the trip to Tarragona. It's about an hour and a half outside Barcelona. Tarragona is a very old Roman city with tons of Ruins, we walked up to their look out tower and on the walls and even over an aqueduct which was actually slightly terrifying as there were strong winds and you are walking where the water was supposed to run so there aren't really railings and its really really high. In some parts the ledge is crumbly or gone as well, really actually kind of dangerous. Oh and also, what do we find but dog poop on an ancient Roman aqueduct, Really? the dog just couldn't wait and now I have to dodge dog poop at over 100 feet?





Here's a little xurreria stand as we were leaving Tarragona, it was so clean and freaky, they sell churros they are kind of just like you know them. They have these in Barcelona too but this one seemed more cool, more like in a david lynch movie or something.



This is obviously not very Barcelona but we went to a sushi restaurant with a conveyor belt, it only cost nine euro for all you can eat sushi, beverage and ice cream! Que chullo!



Yeah somehow I ate this, it tasted like clay and garlic. Not great but not bad, my friend told me what it is but I don't remember.



You really wouldn't believe the pain I endured getting into the MACBA (the contemporary art museum of Barcelona)Library, but I did and look what I found inside, can you spot it! I really don't know why they chose to have the Walker magazine and also, not pictured, the tetsumi kudo catalog when they don't have any other magazines from any other museums in the world. How cool though no?! I had a little moment when I saw this.

Dulces y Chocolates

Here are some of my favorite new candies! Spain is full of candy stores with all sorts of beautiful, colorful candies and chocolates. I have found some amazing chocolate stores with chocolate that has wasabi, ginseng and guarana and all sorts of odd things. The chocolate can be expensive though.

This is sour strawberry spaghetti. It looks so silly and childish but its very delicious. It has held my number one candy spot for the last two days.



This is a new Milka bar I splurged on today. It has a biscuit, cracker in the middle with a layer of really creamy white chocolate. Milka is very creamy like dairy milk. I like the crunchiness and saltiness of the biscuit inside. I am going to try and save it to enjoy the whole week.

Also, I have a lot of free time today, which explains all my posts, because we had one on one interviews with our spanish teacher today instead of having class. My teacher told me that I speak well in class and he likes that he doesn't have to call on me. He asked me why I speak well but do poorly on tests. My real excuse is that I didn't realize we were taking real tests, I thought they were just assignments, honestly. So I told him I just get distracted. Sometimes in Spanish telling the truth is hard because I don't know the vocabulary for it. He also told me about books I can buy in this big store called FNAC that will help to improve my Spanish comprehension. More on my adventures in reading later.

Lunes!

Monday! I am going to elaborate a little about a kind of regular day for me during the week...

8:00 - I woke up and at some chocolate cereal that Romi bought for me. I usually don't eat really sweet cereal, but I like this kind, very chocolatey. I also ate an orange and had orange juice. I think Romi makes herself fresh squeezed orange juice some days, but not for me, she buys me orange juice, but not often. Romi makes me breakfast sandwiches, they are regular sandwiches though, but i take them for lunch a lot. Its a money saving technique.

8:30 - I walked to school. It only takes me about 20 minutes to walk to school. It probably wouldn't take me as long if it weren't uphill. I prefer it to the metro though because I find it kind of abrasive in the morning. Plus I get to walk with all the parents holding hands with their kids walking them to school, its very cute. I also found a squat that these kids are living in. I will have to take a photo because its this amazingly beautiful old house that is just kind of boarded up and there's graffiti that says things like punx rule and stuff. Very interesting. Its across from the pizza hut, go figure.

9:00 - spanish class with Francesc. I like my spanish class, it's about 12 kids and we just kind of chat about our weekends and our lives in spanish. The teacher is really nice and it is a very low pressure environment. We get small exercises to complete, nothing too big. On monday we read mystery stories and talked about them as well as our weekends.

11:00 - Spanish Art and Cultural Heritage Class with David Sanmiguel. David is the new teacher, he's much better than our last teacher who left suddenly for a month. She's from Australia and we think maybe her house burned down in the fires. Anyways David is cool and last week decided we should have a test, that i took today. The class freaked out a little but it was no big deal really, so he kind of scolded us during the class because we had a paper and no one had printed it yet. Printing facilities here aren't really up to par. I am getting lost here sorry.

12:45 - Lunch! I decided I would not eat romis ham and pate sandwich that she make. My stomach was still woozy from the flu or strep or whatever I had the last week. I saw a doctor but she only spoke spanish and didn't tell me what I had. She said I had plaque in my throat, gross i know, you should have seen it. So i went to a little cafe with my friends and ate tuna croquettes which look like mini corndogs except they have tuna mixed inside, yummmy and my other favorite, patatas bravas. They were spicy too, it's hard to find spicy food here. The spanish don't really like spicy foods.

13:45 - Yep military time. More spanish class, can't really remember what we did. Maybe we talked about our family or what celebrity our partner looks like etc etc.

15:45 - Spain in Europe. Easily the most difficult class I have ever taken. It's all about the development of urban cities and the economics of it and all this stuff. The teacher is spanish and she speaks in really fast english that is kind of you know like a little off it takes a while to figure it out sometimes. I have never studied anything like this so I am learning kind of a lot and some of it is pretty obvious but it is stressful.

17:30 - I scramble to finish a long paper that was due for spain in europe that I didn't realize was do/didn't want to do because i was sick over the weekend.

19:30 - I begin my walk home trying to avoid all of the dog poop that has accumulated in the sidewalks from the day. Don't get me wrong I love the little dogs here, they are so cute and many don't even use leashes, apparently the pickpockets don't go for dogs. I just don't like their little 'cacas' they leave everywhere.

20:00? - Arrive home and watch pasapalabra on the television with romi while eating some white bean soup with some vegetables and a tortilla de patatas. The spanish tortillas give me a little heartburn I think. Can onions do that, I really don't know what it is. Romi was using her cell phone during the program today and then after she was done she asked me if I was eating my breakfast sandwiches. I said yes I eat them while I walk to school, obviously a lie. She said oh okay, when are you going to get fat, engordar was the verb of the evening. I told her I can't get fat and that i eat a lot. Keep in mind I am a recovering sick person! She told me that if I don't start eating more I will always be a stick, which she has told me before. I told her again I just can't engordar okay! Then she asked if my whole family was thin, I said no and then I showed her some photos of my family and she said they looked strong, that I looked like my mother and my sister is guapa! I also showed her a picture of Buddy, the dog. Then she told me all about this little dog she had for a while and proceeded to dig through her photo album for twenty minutes looking for a photo of him and not finding one. She said its name was Rocco but she had to get rid of him because he was destroying the apartment. She never found the photo and then we finished watching pasapalabra, which was kind of a boring episode but they mentioned Prince! and the clue was that he was from Minneapolis! Romi likes prince, we've already talked about him, she called him the little black man.

21:30 - I was tired at this point and just went to my room and went to bed. But then I couldn't sleep so I just laid there for a while. Then i fell asleep

I hope that wasn't too boring for you to read, thats a pretty typical day for monday anyways. Thanks for putting up with typos too because I didn't proof read that at all. Adeu!