Thanksgiving 2011

A few weeks ago, my work friends eagerly asked me when Thanksgiving would fall this year, due largely in part to the success of last year's celebration. So once again, the fourth Thursday in November came, and we got together again to enjoy a large, delicious, all-American meal.

This year we held the dinner at my friend Lidia's house in Alcalá de Henares, a small town outside Madrid and just next door to the town where we all work. When the turkey was cooking away in the oven we took some time to enjoy a pre-dinner snack and drinks. Lidia is from a small pueblo outside Granada, and ever the granadina, she opened her fridge and offered us three different types of Cerveza Alhambra, to be opened with an Alhambra-marked bottle opener, and to be served in Mezquita glasses. María referred to this as "Lidiasgiving." Lucky for me, Alhambra is my favorite of the widely-available Spanish beers, second only to Moritz, a beer from Barcelona and only available in Catalán-influenced areas. Bummer.

Anyway. A few Alhambras and potato chips later, dinner was ready. Again, I was in charge of the kitchen, and for dinner we ended up with a 3kg (6.6lb) turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and vegetables for eight people. There were, of course, lots of leftovers. The turkey this year came out much better than last year, and I think it was because of the difference in size. The giant turkey last year was overwhelming and I overcooked it a bit...not so this year. Also, I managed to make gravy that wasn't a slimy mess! Hurrah!

My most impressive feat, however, was making a pumpkin pie. I went to Taste of America, an import shop in Madrid, and bought a pie tin, evaporated milk, and a can of packed pumpkin. Wednesday night, I very carefully followed the recipe and came out with this beauty:

Not bad for my first attempt! Everyone seemed to really like it. Unfortunately, even making my own pie couldn't convince me that pumpkin was worth eating, and I still hate it. Oh well. As we began dinner, my friend Mirella asked if I was going to say anything before we ate, so I raised my glass and proposed a toast. I told them, "even though I'm sad to be so far from home and away from family on Thanksgiving, estoy en casa y estoy con familia."

Basque-ing

Puente - Spanish for "bridge," a puente is the word used to describe a regular weekend made longer by connecting it to a bank holiday on, for example, a Tuesday. In this case, my weekend was connected to Tuesday, the first of November, or All Saints Day, giving me and my friend Jessie four days to head up north and discover San Sebastián and Bilbao.

Stop #1 was San Sebastián, or in the local language, Donostia. This small beach town was super charming and full of history. When we climbed to the top of Monte Urgull, between the Bahía de La Concha and playa Zurriola (closest to our hostel) we got to visit a small exhibition within a giant statue dedicated to el Sagrado Corazón de Jesús full of history about País Vasco and Donostia.

Our hostel experience here was...odd. We arrived to find the owners of the hostel (a married couple) welcoming us with mini croissants and a chocolate bar, and the guy, Jaime, dressed in a stage turban, winter coat, sweatpants, black socks, and white jelly shoes. He referred to himself as the Sultan of Karpukala (apparently he'd recently been in some sort of play or something) and eventually posed for a photo in the middle of the tiny room with us. The "hostel" was nothing more than a room in the couple's house where they'd installed three-story bunkbeds. We chose this place because it was the cheapest hostel with availability, and though it was really strange, we were lucky to be sharing the room with a group of really nice people who made the stay that much better.

While in Donostia, we basically walked all over the entire town, stopping only for the occasional coffee or ice cream. We took a lot of photos on Monte Urgull and in the old town on our first day out, but unfortunately it was really overcast until our tourism day came to an end. On our last day in Donostia it was warm and sunny, so we just sat on some giant wavebreaker rocks in Zurriola, soaking up the sun before we had to catch a bus to our next stop.

Bilbao (Bilbo) is probably most well known for the Guggenheim museum. One of the travel books I read said that one could refer to history in Bilbao as BG and AG - Before & After Guggenheim. Apparently the construction of the museum really changed everything there, transforming it from an industrial district to a modern and diverse riverside city.

On our last morning in Bilbao, we took the funicular de Artxanda and got to see some incredible views of the city, the river, and the surrounding landscape. The old town in Bilbao was cute, and the Guggenheim was impressive, but this was my favorite part of the trip. Seeing a city in a valley surrounded by cloud-covered mountains reminded me so much of Boone. Of course, in Boone they don't speak Euskera... I only learned hello and goodbye (kaixo/agur) and thank you (eskerrik). Even though the signs were all in Euskera, they were also in Castellano, and everyone in Donostia and Bilbo speaks Castellano as well, so I didn't have any trouble getting around... just didn't get to learn any cool new words or phrases. Bummer.

In writing about Euskadi (Basque Country), pintxos must be mentioned. Pintxos are similar to tapas in that they are a small delicious snack to accompany your drinks, but pintxos differ from tapas in that they include a pincho - Spanish for spike - that is usually a toothpick holding the toppings together on a slice of bread, while tapas could be almost anything. You could look at it this way: pintxos can always be considered tapas, but tapas can't always be pintxos. Squares and rectangles.

We ate lots and lots of pintxos at every possible opportunity. I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Delicious!

Click here to see the rest of my photos from a weekend in the Basque Country.

The mountains are calling...

...and I must go. City life is great, but sometimes I miss the beautiful mountain air I enjoyed while living in Boone, NC. On Saturday, my friend Jessie and I took a quick bus ride north of Madrid to a town called Manzanares El Real. While there is a castle there, we instead chose to take a short walk down the road and hike through part of La Pedriza, a mountainous collection of giant stones that make a very steep hike with really beautiful views.

You might not be able to tell unless you know what you're looking for, but those familiar with Madrid's landscape will be able to see the Cuatro Torres on the horizon. (Those not familiar with Madrid's landscape may notice two goats in the shadow of a nearby boulder.) Even though Manzanares El Real is only about 35km (~21mi) from the city, it felt like we'd traveled much further away. This was the first real hike I'd done since I was at ASU, so even two days later my legs are a little sore. I guess I'll just have to get back in hiking shape while the weather is still nice!

Days like this renew my love for la capital. Though I live within the confines of the city-shaping M30 motorway, I can easily take a Saturday and find myself having a picnic on top of a mountain after less than an hour of travel. Menos mal that I'm not much of a beach person.

Year two

Well, here I am once again! I've been back in Madrid for nearly two weeks and have done nothing but look for a place to live and rediscover all of the things that I love about this place. After about a week of searching, I found a new piso near my bus station, cutting about twenty minutes out of my previously hour-long commute. Toma! Here's what my room looks like. It's pretty small, but I have a big comfy bed and an actual closet with a door with a bit of storage space above it, and it doesn't really feel that small until I lie down and look at how small the ceiling actually is. The rest of the apartment is very cozy, and I don't mean cozy in real estate agent terms, but rather that I find it very comfortable. The living room has a giant window across the entire exterior wall, so the afternoons are very warm and sunny. The couches are soft and comfy, and the TV has more than five watchable channels. I've been able to watch Will & Grace a few times so far. No complaints from me. I have an oven this year, too! I haven't yet attempted using it, mostly because I am generally afraid of ovens and this one uses gas so I have to light it by hand which scares me even more. But anyway, my roommates are really nice, too. I'm living with a Spanish girl and a Colombian girl who have both mentioned they'd like to aprovechar living with an American and practice a bit of English. I know that my Spanish suffered by not using it all summer, so hopefully these two will get me back to, if not better than where I was in June.

My favorite roommate, however, is only two years old:

My roommate adopted this cat, seen above napping in my lap, two years ago when she was just a baby. She'd been injured in some way that caused damage to one of her eyes, so a veterinarian had to remove the eye to prevent further injury or infection. Now she is just like any other cat I've seen, and very playful! Plus, her name is Mira... Spanish for "look." How's that for a sense of humor? It's been very comforting having a pet in the house. She's really friendly and likes to follow everybody around. Today she jumped on my bed and snoozed while I read through some papers I received at school today.

Speaking of school... today was my first day back on the job. My schedule was among all of said papers, and it turns out I will have Mondays off this year. I'll also be working exclusively with second grade, therefore I'll be working with the same students and teachers as last year! It seems a bit strange that they won't have Jennifer and me changing each month like before, but I suppose I can't complain. I really enjoy working with these kids and I'll be spending a lot less time trying to figure out which students need that extra push to understand English, which I think will help me in the end. Even though I've only spent one day back, I'm already kind of sad to think that this is the last year!

While it was nice to see my students again, it was especially nice to see the other teachers. I got to be pretty good friends with a few of them so it was exciting to catch up and hear about everybody's holidays. If first days are any sign of things to come, this should be a fun year.

Hopscotch, after

Another Hopscotch has come and gone. Like last year, I had a lot of fun, saw a lot of bands--about twenty, if I'm remembering correctly--and spent a lot of money on delicious downtown food & drink. Unlike last year, I was unfamiliar with about 95% of the bands playing this year. I love live music under pretty much every circumstance, but it's a different experience when you can sing along to songs you know. I can't choose the first or second Hopscotch as my favorite, so I guess I'll just have to look forward to the third. Thanks, Hopscotch and Raleigh, for throwing another great summer send-off party!