Thanksgiving (Spain Style and better-style!)

This would be when the table was collapsing!

My roomies eating their first Thanksgiving meal

The Spanish charades team singing the national anthem.

ROOMIES!!!

The Spanish say "pAtAtAs" in their pictures and this is how it turns out!

Friday was the culmination of my great Thanksgiving idea: cooking for my Spanish roomies. Lucky for me, my friend Katie offered to help and she's a pretty fancy chef at the American Club! So, we had all that we needed...more or less. I bought all the stuff at the store here, a little hard to find some of it. But, we got it all by Friday. We started cooking in the world's smallest kitchen around 6pm and finished by about 10pm. Only one ball of fire with the gas stove and we were good to go! We had turkey, stuffing, cranberries, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn, red wine, bread, TACO DIP (aka Mary Pat's dip), and even pumpkin pie and ice cream....pretty close, hey?!?! When we put everything on the table my roomies were in awe! They kept saying "it's like we're on Friends!" We decided to take a picture before dinner and it might be the best picture EVER. We were all hungry, wanting to eat, but decided to put the self timer picture option on quick to document the dinner. Andrea (my roommate) set it up and then ran to be in the picture. Sometimes she can have a little too much energy so when she came flying in for the picture she ran right into me and then caught herself on the table. Did I mention it is a cheap folding table? The picture we captured was as the table was folding in half with all the stuff still on it!!!!!! PERFECT TIMING. Click.

Not to worry, we caught the table and had a great meal. They were complaining about the post-meal cramps and bloating....I did't say anything about my American-ness rubbing off on them when two hours later they brought out the leftovers. They even ate it again for lunch! We ate, loved the food, and then played charades for a few hours. In the end, the Spaniards (and actress majors) declared themselves the winners and got up to sing the Spanish anthem in front of "Team America". A lot of laughs, culture jokes, and a great Thanksgiving...I've got to be thankful I live here with them! :)

Thanksgiving (American Version)

You MUST be joking...apple pie does NOT contain flan, Spain! haha



At dinner :)

We're both so "guay" that Taryn and I bought the same coat!

So, since Thanksgiving in an American holiday it's not too big of a deal here in Spain. Since it's my second one in a row away from home it's not too bad, either. Last year we were killing the birds in the morning to eat at night....today I was in a gourmet Spanish Restaurant. That's something to be thankful for right there! Our American program payed for our meals and we even got apple pie...WAIT....it was actually flan with apples on top!!! No joke...all I could do was laugh.

I decided to cook a "real" Thanksgiving meal for my Spanish roommates so tomorrow my friend Katie (who is a cook at the American Club) is coming over to help me :) That will be my REAL Thanksgiving meal. Truth is, I pretty much have thanksgiving everyday since I've been blessed with so much again this year!!! Seriously, how awesome is it that in just the past year I've been to 7 different countries, lived in 3 of them, and attended 2 amazing universities!?!?!? A roof over my head, electricity/water for most of the year, food on the table, and a whole lot of love......couldn't ask for more and I'm thankful for every moment of it!!!!!

Other than that, school is getting a little intense now with midterms coming up. I did however make time to go out with my roomie, Andrea, and her friend who was visiting. Her friend is from Brazil, is of Korean decent, and they met in London so last night we were speaking Portu-Engli-anish...my head felt like exploding trying to figure out what language we were in! I think I need a Thanksiving nap...or a siesta! It's now past midnight here so Turkey Day is over here but I hope you're all enjoying your meals right now, taking off your belts. And if you just ate a meal with friends and family, took a nap in your house, watched the Packer game on a television, and then turned on your computer to log on to the internet, you've got plenty to be thankful for this year!!!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! (PS they started playing Christmas music in Spain today...just like at home...bring the season on)

Dear Mom,

So after reading my blog my mom keeps asking if I actually go to school or not. I put this song on here just for her and would like to remind her that I still have a pitcure of her toothless at a wedding....so go ahead and keep on asking, lady! Just kidding...love ya, madre...and YES I do go to school :)

All I want is a cup of beer!!!

Oh the mistakes continue. Look, I promise to all I actually am learning Spanish but my lastest mistake takes the cake! I went out to a play with my roomies last night to practice my Spanish and actually understood the play! I was pumped and on a Spanish "high" feeling all confident and exctied at how good I am becoming. "Bang"...that plane got shot down FAST. We went to a bar afterwards with their whole theater class....I actually know a lot of the people since they have either been here or I have been to their house, right? One of the guys asked me what I wanted to drink so I told him the tap beer or "cana"...well I mixed up my vowels and said "cono" instead. Not a big deal, they'll know what I mean, right? Turns out thte one thing in the world I should NEVER say is cono...I guess vowels do make a big difference. My roomie spun around saying "what did you just say?!?!" and then died of laughter. I guess I asked the slang term for genitalia....I rock. My roomies have joked all day asking if I want something to drink....haha. At least now I am able to speak well enough to tell them how much I think their language stinks and that no one should make words like that so close together....I guess we're mall good sports. My one roomie invited me to Christmas with her family...in Africa (Morocco). I would have said yes but already made plans. On the 20th I am flying to Scotland to spend a "first" Christmas with Megan (volunteer with me in Malawi) and her fiance, and then will take the ferry over to Ireland to spend Christmas in Cookstown with our friend Maggie (also a volunteer) and her family. I am soooo excited to see them both AND to have two Christmas' with some of the greatest people I know! They are so sweet to have me stay with them and I am so blessed to have such great friends here. December will be a crazy month visiting France, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, and Barcelona...oh, did I mention that on the 27th my friends Andrew and Mel are flying from the states to come visit me while they have Christmas vacation??? Can you imagine how pumped I am????? Better do my sleeping now :)

Fix You

I just got back again from the airport for what feels like the 100th time this year. For all I know, it was the hundredth time; to be honest; my head has been in a fog for most of it. I was saying an indefinite goodbye to my friend Megan for the second time in ten months; the first was along a dirt road in a place that now seems so far away and only we will know, understand. We met in Malawi.... and for us there is nothing else to add after that.

We came home last year and talked your ears off about our "trip"....or so you would call it. But how could any of you have known that we weren't on a trip...we were at the center of our lives. I sat at the airport today crying for the first time not for Africa, but for me, processing the sweet melancholy of all that has happened to us in the past year. We came home and tried to tell Africa's story, not our own, and this weekend we started to piece ourselves back together, which decidedly may be as far as we ever come to being "fixed".

All in all, it was a great weekend filled with as much Spanish culture as we could get in....Europe's largest flea market, flamenco dances, park visits, sangria, etc. but I think for both of us the visit was so much more than the tangible things. I already can't wait to go visit Megan and her fiance, Ryan, in Scotland later this year!

Cheer up...and so I did.

My dad has always said "Cheer up, things could get worse....so I cheered up, and sure enough, things got worse!"

The past few days have been a few of those "days" all strung together. Before I begin, don't feel bad for me. I'm of the mentality that you have to find humor in everything so I'm only sharing my misfortunes in hopes you all get a good laugh out of it, like I have. From the top:

While I don't write about it much (booooring), I actually am in school here and it just got HARD! My phonetics teacher, who the majority of the class has dubbed as crazy, has decided to "deviate" from the syllabus provided and has added a new paper....15 pages, a summary of the 300 page grammar book we have to read, all due next week. Thanks for the 7 day heads up...the fact the book isn't in the library doesn't help much either. In my novel class, I am the only foreign student out of 100 and I have the honor of giving my "semester final presentation" FIRST! Can’t wait…I still get the words “embarrassed” and “pregnant” mixed up so I’m sure at some point I’ll end up telling my fellow students about how “pregnant” I am.


Next, I had this mysterious rash on my knee after running a few days ago. I changed my pants and though nothing of it....the next day it was my WHOLE leg! Then it spread to both!!!! I was freaked, washed everything I own, and tried to think of what it could be. Turns out the hard candy I bought at the Lidl Supermarket is ACTUALLY a daily multi-vitamin and the rash was probably due to the fact I was basically eating the equivalent of half a bottle of Flintstones every day and was OD'd on zinc or vitamin E or something random like that. What an idiot.

Since I was lacking in vitamins (I haven't taken any since the rash), I was craving protein and decided to cook some chicken. Problem was our lighter was out of fluid to light the as stove....after trying a few times to light it with sparks, it finally lit....up my arm and my sweatshirt. Nothing like the smell of burned arm hair in the kitchen! No damage done but I decided to get a new lighter.

Sooo…I bought the lighter today (along with my imported bottle of $35 contact solution) and was thrilled to find that all they sold were lighters with marijuana leaves on them. So there I am with my rash, my 25 hours of homework, my burned arm hair, and drug paraphernalia walking down the street when I get home to find a bird somehow got into my room, pooped on my desk, and then got out. NO JOKE! You think I was lying hey?!?! Gets better…now, as I'm writing this blog, I have realized that the piece of gum that was on my plate for lunch has fallen off, landed under my computer and the heat has melted it between the keyboard and desk.

I am supposed to go to basketball practice and Capoeira class tonight but I am too afraid to leave the house! I think I’ll take a nap and laugh myself to sleep….:)

Cousins Weekend.....going Dutch!!

Where to begin? My “cousins” trip to Amsterdam was absolutely amazing! Katie is a superstar of a cousin, starting with picking me up at 12am from the airport…no biggie for me until I realized how FREAKING hard it is when you have kids (or even stay with them for four days!) Curtis and Johnny are sooooo well behaved and such great kids, but come 8 or 9pm each night I wanted to call my own mom and thank her…because if she had to chase after me like that all day, it sooo wasn’t worth it. Katie is seriously a super-mom AND manages to do it all in a foreign country. I even caught her doing the “soccer mom hand” on ME in the car when she hit the breaks! But not to worry, Katie is still one of those “cool” moms. I mean it. First of all, there is Amsterdam: when we took a wrong turn and wound up in the MIDDLE of the city, there were words coming out of her mouth I didn’t know existed. I can also say Katie is the only one of my cousins who would ever buy me a chocolate covered waffle to eat while we looked at sex shops together! And who kept telling me to look at the naked women in the windows in the red light district because it was “legal, their choice, and you’re only here once!”? Haha, in all seriousness, Amsterdam was a crazy city and it was much more fun to say I “saw” it with Katie rather than “experienced” it.

A quick summary to catch you up: Thursday, after opening my birthday gifts (can you believe that!?! That's cousin Katie for ya) we went to Delft and went out for a great lunch (where I got a pancake the size of my head AND broke the Delft faucet in the bathroom….sweet.) Then we bummed around town shopping and hit up the churches. Thursday night, after only spending a few hours with the boys I have never been so tired in my life and was asleep by about 8pm. Friday we went to the “Queen’s Park” on bikes and then Erik treated me to the best dinner I’ve had in Europe! We walked around Den Haag and saw where the Queen practices. It was such a fun night and the food was amazing. Saturday Katie and I went to Amsterdam, took a canal tour, saw the red light district, the coffee shops, and the Anne Frank House. It was SUCH a different city from Madrid and I loved it. It gets such a bad rap but is actually a BEAUTIFUL city!!! Then it was off the Pancake House with the boys and their friends before trick-or-treating. Yup, I’m twenty-one and went trick-or-treating…in Holland! And today it was up at the butt-crack of dawn to take me to the airport for my 7am flight. If any of the Leavers ever need a kidney or liver I guess I better be the first in line after all they did for me this weekend, hey?!?! Well, I am pooped OUT so I’m going down for my Sunday Siesta….but thanks to the Leavers….it was an amazing weekend I won’t ever forget!