Sunday, March 7, 2010
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Scrumptious
Ariana and I didn't really want our desserts on one of the trips, so we squished them all up and made them into art:
3 Pics: family and terrace
The parents and Julia:
The table that Alejandro has his hand resting on has a heater underneath, and when it's cold we gather around and stick our legs under the table with the red blanket over them.
HOOLIA!
She was dressed up for school. She loves the Tarta de fresca character, Strawberry Shortcake. I also introduced the "I've got your nose!" trick to her, and now she loves taking our noses. Whenever she's emphatic about something, she yells, "¡Qué si/no!" and stomps one foot. Liz and I always respond with the opposite, "¡Qué no, qué no, qué no, qué no, qué no!" and she belly laughs and screams even louder, "¡Qué si, qué si, qué si, qué si, qué si!" and it goes on like that for a little while.
Jill turns 21 and we all gain 20 pounds
First of all, unrelated, how annoying is the word iron? Say that the way you normally do, then sound it out. Dislike.
Also unrelated, a few days ago there was a great word of the day and I thought I would share: eructation. I'm definite adding that one to my vocabulary.
Now the weight gain:
Yesterday was Jill's birthday. Katie made reservations at a Moroccan restaurant for Thursday night and planned a nice brunch for Friday. The Moroccan food was amazing. We all looked pretty great, dressed up with birthday hats. 
Almost everyone got couscous with chicken, but I decided to mix it up a little and tried this pastel(I know that's not right, but I can't think of the English word right now) with almonds, raisins, and chicken. It was wrapped in dough then cooked and had powdered sugar and cinnamon sprinkled on top. Basically, it was like dessert with chicken. 
Then I helped everyone finish their couscous. After that, Nicky had brought a cake, so we devoured that sucker.
Sidenote: When I went to my friend's hometown for a weekend, the way he introduced me to all of his friends was: "This is the girl who can eat as much as me." I'm still not sure how I feel about that.
That same trip, when we were in the car, the radio was playing, and I heard something about ribs. "Ohhh," I sighed, "I could really go for a rack of ribs right now."
Derk looked at me and said, "Rach, do you even know what they're talking about right now?" I shook my head no. "A football player broke a couple of his ribs. They're not talking about food."
Friday morning, Liz's alarm went off at around 8:30. "Rach, we have to be at Katie's by 9:15 for brunch," she told me.
Angrily, I rolled over to face her and said, "Nine fifteen? Nine fifteen?!"
"Yea, it's brunch. So that's in like 45 minutes."
"9:15 is not brunch! 9:15 is breakfast. This is ridiculous," I rolled out of bed and stuck my feet in my Uggs, "I have to go make pancakes."
I made plain pancakes and milk-chocolate Nestle bar pancakes (couldn't find choc chips anywhere). I also brought syrup, whipped cream, and strawberries. Upon arrival at Katie's house, still sleepy, in a now stained white Hanes t-shirt, wearing glasses and a headband (I do that sometimes when I haven't had time to shower and my hair is greasy...but not always, so if I'm wearing a headband, don't automatically think I'm unshowered at that moment), and sweating after carrying my pancakes over the river and through many streets, I walked in to find a feast. Three massive bowls were filled with fruit salad; there were muffins, omelets, and best of all, not one but TWO tortilla españolas. It was a good morning. Thanks for being born, Jill.
To end with a quote related to the joys of eating: "Ohmygosh, look at my thighs! I can't stop looking at them. They're thunderous!" -Jill, after brunch.
Monday, March 1, 2010
El día de San Valentín
Since there are primarily females on this trip, none of us really have valentine's here. Thus, we did a secret santa valentine's day. I got Nicky. She's been craving pancakes, so I whipped her up a batch with chocolate chips. We all met up at this really American TexMex bar/restaurant to exchange gifts. We weren't even there for two minutes, and Nicky says, "Guys! I want to give my gift now, because it's sort of a time thing. She looks at me, and hands me a bag with, bum ba ba bum! Tortilla española! My food obsession here. It was so ironic that we got each other in the swap and that we both got each other food products.
Another funny story, she had gotten a package from her boyfriend earlier that week for valentine's day, and while she was waiting for them to retrieve it from the storage room, before she even got it, she started happy crying. Then she got the package, and puts it down and just looks at it for about five minutes, going "Oh my gosh guys, oh my gosh! I can't believe it!" Finally she opens it, and takes out the first item: double stuffed oreos. She holds them up to her cheek, cuddling them tears running down her face, and goes, "You guuys! He got me double stuffed oreos! I can't believe it! Oh my gosh! Double. Stuffed. Oreos!" She does this for each item in the box, and there are many. Caitlin, Liz, and I just watch, laughing hysterically and taking pictures of her with our phones.
Córdoba y Carnaval de Cádiz
When we were in Córdoba, Maddy was trying to tell me something about elementary school, and she said, "You know how before snack time you always had to wash your hands first?" and of course I just look at her and say, "Watch hamsters?? No, we never had to do that."
Everyone crossing the bridge.
It's the same river that runs through Sevilla, but it looks much dirtier here.
Liz in the mesquite/cathedral. It doesn't face Mecca and no one's really sure why but there are theories. They tore apart the middle to make it a cathedral so now it's a mixed building.
Carnaval:
Is said to be the third largest Carnival celebration in the world.
Lasts for two weeks.
Everyone dresses up.
There are stages throughout Cadiz with performers.
Our school offered a bus that left Sevilla at 8:30pm one weekend night, and returned at 3am.
Of course we all went.
There were a lot of cows and sponge bobs
Throwing up the peace signs. Liz and I weren't really anything...we just had masks.
Stories and such
Trip fun facts and stories
1. The only robbery we've had so far was when Maddy was in Barcelona. She had her wristlet in her hand, strap over her wrist, thinking she was being safe by not wearing a big purse. Some guy comes up, karate chops her hand, and grabs the wristlet. Ridiculo.
She actually got everything back except her money and birth control (don't know why the male robber needed that?). A woman found everything on the ground in another street and called the emergency number of our school which was printed on a card in the wristlet. Unfortunately, at that point, Maddy had already cancelled her credit cards.
2. Apparently Catalan has nothing to do with Spanish. It comes directly from Latin and is as old as Spanish or French. In fact, Portuguese is more similar to Spanish than Catalan is... Catalan shares more similarity with French. Example:
Catalan: vull menjar vuit pomes
French: je veux manger huit pommes
The Catalonians actually dislike it when you speak Spanish to them.
3. You can't buy brown sugar or vanilla here. Liz was so distraught about not being able to bake desserts she had her mum send 'em over. Also, I can't find a cereal that resembles Chex or Crispex, so this may be the first time I go a full term without a batch of puppy chow/muddy buddies.
4. I've never had a class as fun as the grammar one I'm in right now. Example: for my presentation next week, my topic is botellóning. Our professor said of course it would be acceptable, it's a part of Spanish culture!
Other example: the last class we had, we spent the entire time watching the Spanish versions of Shakira videos and Beyonce's Si fuera un chico (If you haven't seen that, you should definitely check it out, its got a great twist at the end. (not a serious comment)).
5. Everyone here is named Carmen. Our housekeeper is named Carmen, two of our professors are named Carmen (that's 2/3 of them, and the other 1/3 is a dude), several host mothers from the group are named Carmen (Katie prefers to refer to her host mother as CarmDog), one of our trip guide's name was Carmen, etc etc. So where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? I'm going to guess here.
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