Five Mundane Things

1. On Friday I got a fantastic haircut. I tipped my stylist with a cheap bottle of red wine and she was ecstatic.

2. I have a student who can’t distinguish the different pronunciations of ‘kitchen’ and ‘chicken’. She also clucks when she gets frustrated.

3. We went to a car show this past Saturday. There are tons of little smartcar type things that don’t require a European driver’s license. (Santa?) The music played at the show was the same as the music Gob uses for his magic shows in the TV show Arrested Development. It is worth noting that this character always travels by segway (unfortunately not too be seen in this particular car show).






4. Yesterday we roasted chestnuts (castañas) over an open fire.

5. We spent a good deal of Saturday night at a bar trying to come up with palindromos: (words or phrases that have the same letters and meaning backwards and forwards).

 

English examples:
Eye
Racecar
Do geese see God?
Never odd or even.

I was very proud of my Spanish vocabulary that evening!

Spanish examples:
Somos o no somos
Luz azul
Amor a Roma.
Dábale arroz a la zorra el abad.

Thanks, Man!

I’m starting to get a little sad and nostalgic about being so far away from my wonderful family during the holidays. However, I was able to make my Favorite fall food the other day thanks to a certain M. Flapjack Ramsour who sent me the mix for Sprinkles pumpkin cupcakes!!! DELICIOUS!I have also been teaching Thanksgiving themed classes this week to a variety of reactions among my students. In one class I had them work in teams to invent an entirely new holiday and all of the details. These teams came up with ‘International Chocolate Day’ and ‘Dessert Celebration!” They are my favorites.

For the actual day of Thanksgiving I had to work (but I’m thankful that I have a job) and so we weren’t able to celebrate until late. Melinda (Rhode Island), Dan (Chicago) and I ate a lovely meal in a British-owned bar (the one my roommate Will works at- Casa Lopez Corea) that consisted of several appetizers, a WONDERFUL pumpkin soup, turkey with stuffing, gravy, veggies, etc, and of course several delightful desserts including Apple pie!

We were stuffed! (pictured: Mel and I enjoying the desserts with power-ranger spoons. Since we were some of the last to eat, they had run out of normal, clean cuttlery. We found it very festive!)

Other notable events this week include a birthday party for my friend Pablo (my favorite of Angel’s friends) on Tuesday night, another jazz concert last Friday night (wonderful! An Italian ‘big-band’) and a little day-trip on Sunday with Angel up into the Mountains towards Güéjar-Sierra so that I could play with my new [hot pink] camera!

A highlight of this adventure was stopping at a little-old lady’s roadside veggie stand and seeing some of the MOST ENORMOUS onions, gords, etc. that I have ever seen in my entire life. The seems-like-a-good-idea of the day was buying a lot of stuff from her and trying to safely get it home on the moto. (We were successful in the end and celebrated by making a delicious veggie paella with some of the purchases.

People-watching has also been in high quality this week. On Tuesday night on my way to meet everyone at a bar across town for Pablo’s birthday I walked past a small hotel called Don Juan Hotel. It looked a little skeezy. Outside there were three Italian men dressed in their Saturday night best and smoking cigars. They were speaking in the ideal stereotypical accent and cat-calling at every girl who walked by. Way to feed the stereotypes, fellas. I also saw a younger woman (cute, small, blonde) on Monday morning in the official jumpsuit uniform of the city’s street sweeping staff. She was pushing a giant trash can onto which she had Duct taped a huge boombox circa the 1990s! She was BLARING music and singing very loudly. I found that a little strange as well. God bless this city. They’ve just passed a law trying to clean the community up a bit that bans pretty much everything in the streets (eating, drinking, singing or playing an instrument, selling anything, gatherings of more than 4 people at a time, etc.) Hopefully it won’t scare all of the crazies away- they sure do keep it interesting.

SABES QUE
The world record for the heaviest onion is a 16lb 8½oz (468g) onion grown in West Midlands. The previous record was a 15lb 15½oz (454g) onion which held the record for ten years.

Lazy November

It has been a fairly normal couple of weeks. Working, dealing with the weather’s mood-swings, tapas, etc.

Halloween was a blast. Angel and I dressed up as Popeye and Olive Oyl (“Pop-ay-yay” y Oliva) except Angel wanted some gore so he was “Scary Popeye” . We went out with a bunch of friends so some bars and discotecas. There may have been some karaoke involved… Fun night.

We have also been going rock-climbing a little bit lately. We usually drive up (in the opposite direction from the Sierra Nevadas) to outside of a small town called Alfacar. It is exciting!

Angel and I have also reached the six month mark. While we didn’t do anything to specifically celebrate that day, we have done some more adventures lately.

One I particularly enjoyed was a Sunday when we drove up through the Alpujarras (the small villages scattered about in the Sierra Nevadas). We started in Lanjaron (the village has natural springs and provides a lot of the bottled water for the country) and tested the waters. Then we made our way up to the tippity top- Trevelis.

This is one of the highest pueblos in Spain, and FAMOUS for it’s jamon. (I toured one of the factories in February with Paul and Gillian). We walked around the town for a bit with Gusanna, bought some roadside raspberries (frambuessas- mmmmmm!!) and finally selected a small but cozy bar to eat a big feast of jamon and cheese and meats and fruits. Delicious!

After we ate we jumped back in the car and drove over to another pueblo- Capileira. By this point the sun was setting and the wind was UNBELIVABLE- we’re talking gale-force plus. And so we didn’t get the chance to walk around too much but settled in for a glass of wine and a tapa before heading back home. A very successful journey.

The following weekend we took a daytrip on the moto-de-campo.
We drove up through into the mountains through the heavily-forested areas and ended up on the ruta de vaca. (A really pretty little drive with lots of cows.) We also went to see a jazz concert that night as there is a festival in town and it was pretty good!

Because it has been so long since my last post, I will treat you to not one, but TWO tidbits of information.

SABES QUE

According to Angel (I’ve done no thorough research on this topic) Beetles in the dessert are able to survive by storing water/dew in little deposits in their forelegs. This suffices for the entire day’s supply of hydration.



SABES QUE
Tapa literally means ‘cover’ or lid’ and way back in the old days originated when people would place a slice of bread (or ham or cheese) on top of their jar/glass/mug to either keep out the flies, or prevent drunkenness (reports vary). Now they can be anything- many restaurants and bars are very creative with their recipes. My favorite is still the classic piece of toast with jamon Serrano or Iberico and a slice of Manchego cheese. Here are some other recipes:
http://www.arrakis.es/~jols/tapas/index2.html