La comida

So as the month passed, my opinion of the food here kind of changed. At first I was in the honeymoon phase and I loved everything. Now that I'm only a week from coming home, I'm in the phase where next to the people, I miss the food the most!
My host mom made some incredible dishes and I liked almost all of them but after a while I just want cheese that melts, bacon that comes in strips and some ranch dressing. Oh and some sort of spicy food. Spain does not do spice and even their jalapenos are sweet instead of hot. However, I'm sure once I make it home, there will be food I will miss from here.

Spanish Tortilla
Tortilla's here are not made from flour or corn and you don't fill them with Mexican food. They are made with potatoes and eggs and they are so good. It's kind of like an omelet except there is more potato than egg and you eat it for dinner. My host mom made it our second night here and I have been in love ever since. I kept asking my host mom for it so she started making it for my bocadillos on the days she packed me a picnic for lunch and then last night, she taught me how to make it. It's easy enough that I think I will actually cook it occasionally. As soon as I get over my fear of using a plate to flip it over.

Paella
Paella is a world famous rice dish that originated from Valencia. Since this is where I am studying abroad, I knew months ago that I had to try it. Luckily, my host mom makes this every other Sunday! Other students had to go to a restaurant to try it and spend tons of euros on it but not me! There are two ways to make it, with chicken and rabbit or with seafood. And don't think that means only shrimp or fish because there was everything in it from clams, shrimp, mussels and something with tentacles. It was incredible! It's traditionally made outdoors over an open flame (my host mom cheated by making it out on her terrance over a gas flame but it's close. :P) and it's made in a huuuuuuggeeee iron skillet.

Bocadillos
Man, the Spaniards love them some sandwiches. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of bocadillo shops all around Valencia. My favorite was one that had a hundred different choices of sandwiches and every Wednesday, they dropped everything on their menus down to one euro! Including beer and sangria. Every week Michelle and I would go and try different sandwiches and salads. YUM! I loved the bocadillos but the salads grossed me out. We shared a ceasar salad one time and it tasted flowery. Almost like perfume. The next time I ordered a salmon salad and it arrived with this huge chunk of raw fish. I like sushi but this big piece was just too much. Plus, it just didn't taste good with the rest of the salad.
Every day that I couldn't make it home for lunch, my host mom would pack me a picnic to bring with me and it always consisted of a huge bocadillo. She would take a loaf of french bread, cut it in half and make one sandwich for me and one for my roommate. That is a biiiiiiiig sandwich. I can't say that I really liked her fillings though. One time she filled it with half cooked breakfast sausage and large squares of butter. Yuck. Another time it was this raw looking ham stuff. It's cured so it won't kill me to eat it but it wasn't really a big hit with me. I didn't tell her when I didn't like a sandwich but once I told her enough times how much I loved the tortilla bocadillos she just started making me that every time I asked for one. YAY!!!

This a picture of a cured ham one. Mine was a little different but I still didn't think it was the greatest. 

Sangria
Sangria was originally made by Spaniards as a cheap party punch for informal get togethers and as a way to get rid of half spoiled fruit. But the tourists loved it so much that restaurants and bars started making it and now it's everywhere! Sangria is the one thing my host mom does not make well. Bleck! I don't really love sangria anyways but since all of my friends here love to buy pitchers of it, I've been drinking a lot of it.

One thing nice about Spain is that the beer is cheaper than the soda and the wine is cheaper than the water. You can not order tap water here. If you ask they give you this disgusted look and say they don't have it. Because of course they manage to run a restaurant without running water. Come on people. I'm a tourist but I'm not stupid.

In Barcelona, Michelle and I broke down and went to a Mcdonalds ( I know, I know What was I thinking???) However, we had stayed up until 8 am and it sounded wonderful!) I was amazed to find that beer was included in a combo meal. Spain is a wonderful but completely insane place.

Michelle and I chowing down on that american crap food. Delicious! 

Underneath the coke sign is a beer brand! Hard to see but it's there! 

One thing that did drive be absolutely crazy was the different beliefs on food hygiene. The milk that sat out for hours didn't faze me, the fact that our host mom cooked our dinner in the morning and then let it sit on the counter for hours didn't bug me. But the time I saw my host mom cutting raw chicken on the counter and then wiping it up with the dry hand towel before carefully hanging it back up convinced me that if I died in Spain it would be from food poisoning. That's the rag she dries dishes with!!!!! The other night, my host mom made it a point to make all of my favorite things in one meal. She was so excited and it was adorable but I had to force myself to eat. She made this breaded pork stuffed with cheese (absolutely amazing btw) but the one my roommate got was still completely raw. She was making them in batches and forgot which ones she had just put in. Then my first bite of my spanish tortilla had a long hair in it. She was embarrassed and apologized but it completely ruined my appetite. I didn't even know that was possible! Don't get me wrong. I am still alive and they just look at things differently here, but there are just some things that should be universal no matter where you are in the world.

Watching the news in Spain.

So I have been attempting to watch the news with my host mom. It hasn't been too successful because I still can't understand a single thing the newscaster says. I want to jump through the T.V and tell them to speak slower but it doesn't work that way. :( Anyway, on two separate occasions, the difference between the news in the United States and the news in Spain has been made apparently clear. The first time, we were watching a story about a man gored to death by a bull and to my shock they showed the entire thing. There was no warning about how the following scene may be upsetting or anything. Just BAM! The man's insides were on his outside and then he died. Then, this afternoon, I was watching the news again (because I didn't learn my lesson the first time) and they showed thirty people running into a store and shopping. Naked. And by the way, they don't blur ANYTHING. It was just thirty people's junk, and some shopping carts.

My Classes

I really lucked out in the classes I am taking. My advisor told me that I would get credit for either level so I decided to take the intermediate classes for two reasons. One, easier classes give me more time to explore Valencia and two, I really wanted to take the culture class that is only offered in the intermediate level. Once I got here I found out that I ended up with the best schedule because of it. I have classes Monday through Thursday from 9am to 2pm. Whereas the advanced classes have a whacked schedule. Today, my roommate started class at 9am but she won't get done until 6pm. She has the same number of classes and credits as me but they divvy them up in a crazy way so she ends up with awkward breaks in between her classes. And they aren't even long enough to go anywhere. 

Grammar Class:

My grammar professor is a nut. He's hilarious, but definitely a little different. Our first day he went on a mini rant about how smoking is good for your health but the government doesn't want us to know this because they want to have a heavy tax on tobacco products. If people knew that it was actually good for your lungs, they wouldn't accept such a high tax. Then, when he went on a smoke break and found out that one of the students smoke, he congratulated her. He also hates the beach so he likes to show us disgusting videos and photos of what the sun does to your skin. We tried to turn the tables on him and YouTubed a video about smoking but he just said that it was nonsense. On the first day, he broke down the different area of the city and wrote on the board where the best bars are in each area. Anytime we ask him what he did the day before, he answers with I drank beer so I'm guessing he knows the best spots. 

The class isn't very difficult yet. The first week I felt like I learned absolutely nothing but it's starting to pick up. I think that he knows that no one really wants to come to class, it's just the price we pay in order to come here, because we are always playing games. Pictionary with spanish words, dominoes with conjugations and dating show style questions and answers. I don't learn anything about spanish grammar from these games but they are a good way to pass the time. He has finally started breaking the classes into periods of grammar exercises with games that relate afterwords so we'll see how it goes. 

Culture Class:

This class is a little more difficult. Mostly because she expects us to get through the same amount of information she teaches in four months during the year. We had to buy a book for this class that consists of nothing more than 300 power point slides on everything from prehistoric art (cave art) to roman music. This wouldn't be a problem if I could actually read the print but it's shrunk so far down that it's almost impossible. However, she doesn't really like sticking us in a class room so we have a field trip every week. The very first day of classes we all file in, expecting to listen to a lecture of Spanish history and instead we all left class and hopped on the metro to go to a museum. Now true, it was a museum of the history of Valencia but given the choice between five hours in a class room or five hours in a museum, I'll take the museum! It's been a long time since I've been in a school that had field trips but I'm remembering why I loved them so much. Last Friday, we took a train to a city outside of Valencia and hiked a mountain to see Roman Ruins! She teaches in Spanish (obviously) but since she knows English she is always translating what she just said. I think I would like it better if she just stuck with Spanish because I usually understand what she says and hearing everything twice just makes me tired. 

One interesting thing about my classes is that I have started to write my notes in spanish. Okay, more like spanglish but hey, that's still impressive to me. I was looking at my notes from last week and they all looked like this . . . Otro paises son mejores que España porque hay too many old people aqui. The sad thing is, this doesn't even look weird to me anymore. What's worse is when I can't even write a word in Spanish or English. I tried to write the word dictionary the other day and it came out a weird crossbreed of both.

English - Dictionary

Spanish - Diccionario 

Britttany - Diccionary

Easy to fix in a word like dictionary but when half of my words end up jumbled, I'm concerned. 

Apparently, during the last week, both my english and my spanish has been getting worse. Four or five days after I got here, I received the most exciting complement of my life. I was eating lunch with my host parents and they were telling me how they had noticed how much my spanish was improving each day. Then when they found out that I was only in the intermediate classes they were astounded and told me that they had assumed I was in the advanced classes because I could talk so well. I felt like a rock star until my ability to speak completely left me. Since then, I only understand half of what they are saying and can only respond with a sí or no. I don't know what happened but I don't like it!!! 

My Spanish Family

Although, you would never know it by reading my blog, I have been in Valencia for two weeks today. Whaaaaat?? How did that happen?? Time is just flying by and I have managed to fill my time with way too many things to adequately describe on here. If I tried, I would end up with a book instead of a blog. So I'm just going to write small snapshots of the super important things and hope I remember the rest.

Meeting my Host Family:
So once we left Toledo and finally made it to Valencia, it was time to meet the people that we would be living with for the next five weeks. ISA found from past experiences that it is much easier to have the students stay on the bus and call them up one by one to meet their host parents. It kind of left us with the feeling of a pet shop puppy. Noses plastered to the windows, "Oh Pick me!! Pick me! Bring me home with yoooou!" Of course, my roommate Meagan and I were some of the last to be called. I finally stepped off the bus and a short, round, blond woman came up to me and kissed me on both cheeks. Wait? What? This is my spanish madre? I was expecting someone more . . . spanish looking. She looks just like a soccer mom. Which isn't surprising since that's pretty much what she is. After she kissed me hello, her husband did the same. Then a guy in his teens followed. I knew that my family had a 16 year old son so you could have knocked me over with a feather when the guy spoke and I heard an American accent. It was the host son from spring semester! After his program ended, he moved in with his bartender and had came to help us settle in. There is no way to describe how incredibly helpful this was. He translated for us, showed us how to use the five different knobs in the shower (Yes, I said Five!) and told us how extremely laid back our host mom is. He also gave us a list of bars and clubs to go to and started every story with either "This one time, I was at this bar and . . ." or "This one morning I was really hungover and . . ." I'm pretty sure he was drunk the entire five months he was here.

Madre:
After living with her for two weeks, I can honestly say that we got the best mom in the program. She doesn't follow any of the rules laid out by ISA and she does 8 times as much work than she has to. ISA had given us all a list of rules, laying out how much laundry we can have per week and explaining that the host parents won't let us drink or have alcohol in the house. What a laugh. She does laundry every day and I don't think a lunch or dinner has passed without her offering me wine, beer or sangria. She also insists on remaking my bed every morning because apparently after 26 years, I still can't do it right.  When I first got here, I talked to her the most but somehow she has gotten harder to understand. I think she keeps forgetting to slow down and so I just do a lot of smiling and nodding. She absolutely loves showing me her photo albums and showing off the pictures of her daughters wedding. Sometimes, we hear her watching the DVD of the wedding over and over again.

Padre:
If my host mom didn't meet my expectations of what a spanish woman looks like, the dad more than made up for it. He looks just like the stereotypical middle aged spanish man in Saturday morning cartoons! For the first three or four days, we just kind of tiptoed around each other, neither one of us knowing what to say or if the other person would understand. However, once I started coming out to the terrance to drink coffee while he smokes, we started talking up a storm. I actually have a reason to be grateful that my parents got me used to the smell of smoke. I get a ton more spanish practice everyday than my roommate because she usually just talks to our host mom. El Padre purposely talks really slow so my poor overloaded brain can keep up and when I look confused, he will either repeat it, act it out or find another way to explain what he is saying. I've had hour long conversations on everything from the American Healthcare system, what I want to do when I get out of school, the spanish government, to the problem of forest fires in Spain. The last resulted from a extremely complicated article that I had to read for my culture class. I am pretty good at reading in Spanish but this article had me beat! Even with a dictionary in hand, I couldn't understand more than a quarter of it. So I asked him for help. He sat with me and read every single line of this three page paper and explained every single word that I didn't understand. If I had to describe this man in one word, the word would be patient! It took him an hour and even after I told him that I thought I could struggle through the rest on my own, he just kept going. That day in class, my classmates were completely confused but I was answering questions left and right.

Hermano:
My host brother is 16 and he actually speaks a little english. He learned it from playing online video games so he's a little inconsistent on the vocabulary but he has almost no accent. We don't actually talk that much because I have this weird habit of being unable to speak spanish with anyone who knows a little english. I really need to get over that but I can't seem to forget that I sound like an idiot in spanish. Plus, he speaks really quietly so I can almost never understand what he is saying. So then he tries to switch to english but then he gets frustrated with not being able to explain what he is trying to say so we both end up giving up. Not to mention, he is 16 so he spends most of the day in his room, playing video games. No matter where you go, somethings stay the same!

Madrid and dancing the night away!

Sorry that I haven’t written much since I got to Spain, I have been super busy with meeting my host family, going to classes and exploring Valencia. The only thing I want to do when I get back is sleep. Which usually leaves me trying to do my homework in the morning before class. I should know better but that hasn’t stopped me yet. 

Madrid and Toledo weren’t super exciting for me. We went on the most boring walking tour ever invented in Madrid and then went to an Art museum. The walking tour might have been more interesting if I could understand the guide’s spanish better but I don’t think so. He mostly walked us around and then asked us what the different buildings had in common and what was different. (I understood this part) He had a serious thing for remarking “This building has columns, this building has this kind of windows!” and so on and so on. The Art museum was cool though. Same guide but I just basically ignored him and looked at all of Piscasso’s paintings. Weird shit but fun. :) 

The second night in Madrid, my roommate and I decided to hit a club and see if it lived up to it’s hype. It does. It cost 20 euros to get in but the place was crazy so it was worth it. It was seven stories high and each floor had a different drink and different music playing. We started out by climbing the stairs all the way to the seventh floor and then made our way down to the mojito floor. After dancing there for a while, we eventually made it back down to the bottom dance floor. I wish I had a picture of this floor. It was huge! In front of the dance floor there was a stage with professional dancers and then in the middle of the floor this fog machine came down from the ceiling and would randomly douse all of the dancers. I danced so much that I broke my shoes! :(