For those I haven't bragged to yet, here's a little more about Marbella:
My mom works for Marriott part time, which helps pay for our horse, but also has the awesome benefit of great discounts on Marriott hotels. This weekend, and last weekend, we went to Marbella, which is on the south coast of Spain and has a beach resort that we got to stay at for about a quarter of the normal price.
Madrid is on a plateau and even though it's warmer than the midwest, it's still only about 40-55 degrees this time of year. Marbella, however, is about 70 now and on the beach with palm trees and sun. It's very close to Gilbraltar and Morocco. We were thinking about going to Morocco, but we decided to have another lazy day on the beach instead.
All of the pictures under "pictures from Marbella" are of us at the resort, except for the one with the country side, which is a picture of the olive trees taken from the bus on the way down South.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The Food Post
If it seems like all we do is talk about food, it’s probably because it’s become our number one pastime. I’m going to devote an entire post to food so that it looks intentional. We cook almost every day – it’s inexpensive and fun. I’ve learned to make a whole lot of new dishes. Most have been good, and a few were terrible. Kaiyan requested more food posts, so we're justified in writing about it again!
Brownies again
Our dangerous brownie shortage inspired us to take action and try to make them from scratch. I (Anne) found a recipe online using baking chocolate, but tragically, our oven was too hot as usual and the outside quickly burned. Fortunately, my genius presented itself. I cut the brownies into a bunch of pieces according to how cooked they were, threw away the burned outside, and baked the soggy middle again. We assembled the pathetic pieces on a plate and covered everything with sauce made from the leftover chocolate bar. Before serving, we threw it in the oven for a few minutes and served it to our friends in pieces with chocolate ice cream. We told them it was ‘chocolate lava cake’. It was fantastic! No one guessed that they were really eating burned brownies.
Cookies
To celebrate Carnaval, Sarah and I decided to cook another thing we can’t find anywhere in Spain: chocolate chip cookies. We were really proud of ourselves for finding all of the ingredients, a few of which – baking soda and vanilla -- we could only get in specialty stores. Brown sugar was also a problem. Sarah cut up a chocolate bar to substitute for chocolate chips, and we were really excited. Then, they came out of the oven. I can’t begin to describe how horrible they tasted. The brown sugar here is completely different, and it’s not just an aesthetic difference like we had hoped. The vanilla is more of a syrup than anything. We were crestfallen.
But we’re optimistic again. Sugar cookies don’t call for brown sugar. Would anyone be willing to post a good recipe for soft sugar cookies?
Oh my darlin’
Clementines! Tropical fruits are abundant here, and clementines have risen in status to become my second favorite fruit (after strawberries). They’re like oranges, but adorable (about half the size) and a little sweeter. Every time I peel one and eat the mini wedges, I feel like I’m in kindergarten again and it’s time for snacks.
Wait, potato chips?
I never liked potato chips much, but they’re really good here because they’re made with olive oil. They're also about 500 calories a serving, but it's hard to figure out how big a serving is anyway, since I don't know what "25 grams" means. I figure the whole bag is most likely single serving size.
Brownies again
Our dangerous brownie shortage inspired us to take action and try to make them from scratch. I (Anne) found a recipe online using baking chocolate, but tragically, our oven was too hot as usual and the outside quickly burned. Fortunately, my genius presented itself. I cut the brownies into a bunch of pieces according to how cooked they were, threw away the burned outside, and baked the soggy middle again. We assembled the pathetic pieces on a plate and covered everything with sauce made from the leftover chocolate bar. Before serving, we threw it in the oven for a few minutes and served it to our friends in pieces with chocolate ice cream. We told them it was ‘chocolate lava cake’. It was fantastic! No one guessed that they were really eating burned brownies.
Cookies
To celebrate Carnaval, Sarah and I decided to cook another thing we can’t find anywhere in Spain: chocolate chip cookies. We were really proud of ourselves for finding all of the ingredients, a few of which – baking soda and vanilla -- we could only get in specialty stores. Brown sugar was also a problem. Sarah cut up a chocolate bar to substitute for chocolate chips, and we were really excited. Then, they came out of the oven. I can’t begin to describe how horrible they tasted. The brown sugar here is completely different, and it’s not just an aesthetic difference like we had hoped. The vanilla is more of a syrup than anything. We were crestfallen.
But we’re optimistic again. Sugar cookies don’t call for brown sugar. Would anyone be willing to post a good recipe for soft sugar cookies?
Oh my darlin’
Clementines! Tropical fruits are abundant here, and clementines have risen in status to become my second favorite fruit (after strawberries). They’re like oranges, but adorable (about half the size) and a little sweeter. Every time I peel one and eat the mini wedges, I feel like I’m in kindergarten again and it’s time for snacks.
Wait, potato chips?
I never liked potato chips much, but they’re really good here because they’re made with olive oil. They're also about 500 calories a serving, but it's hard to figure out how big a serving is anyway, since I don't know what "25 grams" means. I figure the whole bag is most likely single serving size.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
Ice Cream
Ice cream
Ice cream here is pretty expensive and of limited selection, but boy is it good. There's a lovely top dressing on it, so it's like eating a huge ice cream sundae.
Wow, Madrid is in the mountains
I looked out my bedroom window today, and saw snowy mountains on the horizon! I guess it's either been cloudy or else I've been sleeping through the daylight. Either way, there are mountains here, but it's still warmer than the midwest.
Coming soon: Madrid Fashion! Learn what's cutting edge, and what should have been left in the 80s.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Phantom Internets
Our most reliable stolen internet disappeared this weekend, and we were sadly wondering if our days of access from home were over. Gloriously, though, our wireless phantom has reappeared and we are online again! Sorry for the few days without any updates. Here's a short update about Thursday, I'll add more soon.
Thursday
On Thursday night we decided to go out to a bar where an international student group meets each week. We met up with the other girls from our group as planned. Unfortunately, the person in charge of leading us to the bar only had the bar name and street name to get us there. We wandered around for about an hour (in high heels and an outfit far too cold for the night) before most of the other girls gave up and decided to just go to a different bar. Anne and I took the address from them and persisted. We eventually found the place, although it took another half hour. It should have been about three blocks from where we started out, but we had been going in completely the wrong direction. We met up with the student group, but by then it was ten minutes before the bar closed. Not all is lost, though. Everyone was really nice and we're planning to go salsa dancing with them next Tuesday.
Funny culture shock moment -
When we met the other students, we were completely caught off guard when they went to kiss us on the cheeks when we were introduced. We've heard that people do that here, but hadn't really experienced it. We were all able to laugh at us silly americans and our strangely formal tradition of shaking hands, though.
Thursday
On Thursday night we decided to go out to a bar where an international student group meets each week. We met up with the other girls from our group as planned. Unfortunately, the person in charge of leading us to the bar only had the bar name and street name to get us there. We wandered around for about an hour (in high heels and an outfit far too cold for the night) before most of the other girls gave up and decided to just go to a different bar. Anne and I took the address from them and persisted. We eventually found the place, although it took another half hour. It should have been about three blocks from where we started out, but we had been going in completely the wrong direction. We met up with the student group, but by then it was ten minutes before the bar closed. Not all is lost, though. Everyone was really nice and we're planning to go salsa dancing with them next Tuesday.
Funny culture shock moment -
When we met the other students, we were completely caught off guard when they went to kiss us on the cheeks when we were introduced. We've heard that people do that here, but hadn't really experienced it. We were all able to laugh at us silly americans and our strangely formal tradition of shaking hands, though.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Library Nazis and more pictures
Library NazisSome things are universal. Like bitchy librarians. In order to use the computers at the highly-secured computer lab, we have to show our identification cards to the powertrippy woman behind the counter. We're only allowed one hour a day on the internet. For some reason, she thinks that Sarah's stupid, so she is really rude and bitchy to her. The problem is that, like at the movie theater, you have to speak through a little microphone that doesn't work very well. Even though this woman has to repeat the numbers four times for Spanish students, she flips out whenever Sarah asks her to repeat and starts talking really loud. It reminded me of how Mexicans get treated this way a lot in the US.
Our campus. Exotic trees, weird statues of Cervantes, Spanish fashion, fight against SIDA (AIDS)
The Canadian restaurant.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
I am pleased to inform you
It's true. The baguettes at the Bread Oven are better than the widely available ones here (even if they are six times the price). And speaking of bread: today we finally figured out the Spanish word for chocolate croissants (an important part of a balanced Spanish diet) - napolitanas. I'd been getting pretty weird looks when I asked for "croissants con chocolate".
The $15 phone call
Sarah and I bought a prepaid phone yesterday without much difficulty, but had a really hard time reading the manual outlining the charges. Our apartment has no phone line at all, which is not, we hear, rare. Even local calls are expensive and charged by the minute. The rates on the cell phone varied widely - from a euro a minute during the day to nine or ten cents at night. I was excited to read that international calls from 8-12pm were only .18 a minute (about the same as our phone card), so I placed a call right away. After about ten minutes, it told me that my phone was out of money. It turns out that you have to designate your home country, and the USA isn't an option. Bummer. At least we only had 12 eur on the phone!
Terrorism in Spain
Terrorism is an even hotter topic here in Spain. I wrote before about the newpspapers' clear disgust for the war in Iraq. The recent ETA bombing and the protests that follow make the issue pretty relevant. A few days before we arrived in Madrid, there was a bombing at the airport that marked the end of the ceasefire treaty between the government of Spain and the basque seperatists. Coincidentally, the building that was bombed was at the terminal where we landed, and as we waited for our shuttle, we could see the clean-up operation. The bomb killed two people, leading me to believe that it was a fairly small incident. The wreckage was much greater. Our driver told us that there had been warning beforehand and that the area was evacuated. Two young men who were asleep in their car were the victims. The ruined area was huge, with mangled cars and concrete blocks everywhere. But everything was moving forward. The broken glass panels were replaced with boards. I was pretty impressed.
This weekend, we also saw the cameras set up for a huge anti-ETA march in downtown Madrid. I didn't catch much more than that, though.
Siesta
I think I've been a Spaniard all along, but just didn't realize it. The concept of a siesta is perfectly natural for us. I've heard before that a lot of shops close up for the siesta, but I didn't quite believe that it was still a big deal in modern Spain. But alas - during the afternon, almost every store closes to observe this extraordinary event. It's really weird to see every store closed up 0 even pharmacies. Sleeping is really awesome, and Sarah and I are catching on pretty quickly. The whole schedule is different here - after waking up fairly early and having a very light breakfast, we go to class, have a meal for lunch (which is normally the biggest meal of the day in Spain), and then go to sleep. The stores re-open around five, but we normally sleep until six or seven. Most people don't eat dinner until very late, and the night life doesn't really begin until 1 or 2am. We really dig the extra nap, though.
The $15 phone call
Sarah and I bought a prepaid phone yesterday without much difficulty, but had a really hard time reading the manual outlining the charges. Our apartment has no phone line at all, which is not, we hear, rare. Even local calls are expensive and charged by the minute. The rates on the cell phone varied widely - from a euro a minute during the day to nine or ten cents at night. I was excited to read that international calls from 8-12pm were only .18 a minute (about the same as our phone card), so I placed a call right away. After about ten minutes, it told me that my phone was out of money. It turns out that you have to designate your home country, and the USA isn't an option. Bummer. At least we only had 12 eur on the phone!
Terrorism in Spain
Terrorism is an even hotter topic here in Spain. I wrote before about the newpspapers' clear disgust for the war in Iraq. The recent ETA bombing and the protests that follow make the issue pretty relevant. A few days before we arrived in Madrid, there was a bombing at the airport that marked the end of the ceasefire treaty between the government of Spain and the basque seperatists. Coincidentally, the building that was bombed was at the terminal where we landed, and as we waited for our shuttle, we could see the clean-up operation. The bomb killed two people, leading me to believe that it was a fairly small incident. The wreckage was much greater. Our driver told us that there had been warning beforehand and that the area was evacuated. Two young men who were asleep in their car were the victims. The ruined area was huge, with mangled cars and concrete blocks everywhere. But everything was moving forward. The broken glass panels were replaced with boards. I was pretty impressed.
This weekend, we also saw the cameras set up for a huge anti-ETA march in downtown Madrid. I didn't catch much more than that, though.
Siesta
I think I've been a Spaniard all along, but just didn't realize it. The concept of a siesta is perfectly natural for us. I've heard before that a lot of shops close up for the siesta, but I didn't quite believe that it was still a big deal in modern Spain. But alas - during the afternon, almost every store closes to observe this extraordinary event. It's really weird to see every store closed up 0 even pharmacies. Sleeping is really awesome, and Sarah and I are catching on pretty quickly. The whole schedule is different here - after waking up fairly early and having a very light breakfast, we go to class, have a meal for lunch (which is normally the biggest meal of the day in Spain), and then go to sleep. The stores re-open around five, but we normally sleep until six or seven. Most people don't eat dinner until very late, and the night life doesn't really begin until 1 or 2am. We really dig the extra nap, though.
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