Happy Turkey Day!

As you all know, last Thursday was Thanksgiving. This was my first year that I wasn't at home for Thanksgiving. Though I missed my family, we managed to have a really nice celebration here. All of the Americans organized a feast for us and some Spanish friends. It was complete with a 14 lb. turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, baked brie and pumpkin souffle. For dessert we had pumpkin and applie pie, apple and blueberry crumble, apples with a caramel dip, and of course yummy bars.

What is a yummy bar you ask? Well, if you have ever been to a gathering of my family for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other holiday, you will sure have eaten them before. If not, you are definitely missing out. Yummy bars are a chocolaty combination of cake, brownies and caramel and lots of butter. I knew that they were delicious, but I had no idea just how popular they would be in Spain. First I will say that it wasn't easy to find all of the ingredients here. There was only one brand of cake mix in Carrefour (similar to Walmart), and I could only find caramels in El Corte Ingles, and both were wildly expensive! Everyone at the dinner was blown away and begged me to give them the recipe. The Spanish guests told me that nothing like yummy bars exists in Spain, which is probably why they seemed so delicious!

In fact, none of the food at the dinner is easily found here. While us Americans/Canadians/English were so excited to have our traditional food, the Spaniards looked intimidated and nervous to try our strange recipes. By the end though, they were all happy to say that they had experienced their first Thanksgiving dinner. All in all, Thanksgiving was a success.

A Quick Trip to Sevilla

So, it's been a long time since I last wrote, sorry for the delay! My time here is flying by. I am so busy with school, private lessons, tennis and flamenco during the week that before I know it it's Friday, and then the weekends fly by as well.

View of Plaza de Toros from the Giralda

Two weeks ago a bunch of us English Assistants spent the weekend in Sevilla. It's such a beautiful city, and it was nice to get out of Badajoz for a little while. Over the course of the weekend we saw the tourist sites and ate some delicious tapas. We went to the cathedral and climbed the Giralda, the bell tour of the cathedral. It was a beautiful day and there was a great view of the city in all directions.




        
We also visited the Real Alcazar. I had been there before with the Bucknell en Espana program when I studied abroad, but I had forgotten how amazing the Moorish architecture is. It's almost impossible to believe that people were able to create such intricate and detailed designs hundreds of years ago. There are extensive gardens full of fountains, flowers and ponds. Can you imagine living in a place like that?




We also found some delicious food in Sevilla. We ate at an amazing tapas bar that one of my friends knew of from previous trips there. It's not very often that you have to wait for a table in Spain (at least not that I have experienced) and this restaurant had a 40 minute wait list. Everyone put their name on a list, then waited in the street with drinks until there was space. The food was certainly worth the wait!

Then, one night our hostel served Moroccan food, which was also delicious. As much as I love Spanish food, it was nice to have some international flavors for a change. There are much more opportunities to find international food in Sevilla than in Badajoz, but still most places serve tradition Spanish tapas. The one thing that I am finding hard to get used to is that all of the restaurants in Badajoz have almost the same menu, with some variation of ham, cheese, croquettas, tortilla and bocadillos. There isn't much variety from place to place, except for the handful of international restaurants.  I recently tried the sushi in Badajoz, which I was a little nervous about, but turned out to be quite good. There is also a couple Italian/pizza, Chinese and Portugese restaurants around to be tried. Good thing I've got seven six more months to figure out all of the food options!

Happy Halloween!

1st ESO

Friday we had our Halloween Party at school. We have been talking about Halloween all week in classes and finally it was time to celebrate and have some fun! All of the students in the Bilingual section went to the audiovisual room, and we started the party by watching two Halloween episodes of the Simpsons. The Simpsons is a very popular show here, and is on TV every day, dubbed in Spanish of course. We watched the episodes in English, so the students had a hard time understanding what was being said. That's probably for the best because there were quite a few inappropriate topics!

Then it was time for the costume contest, the pumpkin cake contest and the jack-o-lantern contest. Only a couple of the younger students dressed up, because the Spanish don't actually celebrate Halloween. I asked a lot of students why they didn't dress up and they said because it wasn't really worth it to make or buy a costume just for school.

More students participated in the jack-o-lantern contest, and there were some really interesting submissions, and even some made from gourds and melons!


And then there was the pumpkin cake contest. I decided to make a pumpkin pie to give everyone a real taste of an American treat. It sounded like a great idea until I realized that it is impossible to find canned pumpkin here. I managed to find pumpkin that was already cleaned out in the grocery store, but had to boil, peel and mash it myself. It was quite the project!

The final product...

I was able to use the kitchen at school because I don't have my own at home, and the woman who runs the kitchen thought I was crazy for making such a strange food! It was a bit ambitious, seeing that the kitchen lacked a measuring cup and I was using ingredients that were slightly different than the ones I would find in an American grocery store. After 2 hours of baking I ended up with a pretty decent pie. The crust was questionable, but the rest was yummy!

5 Minutes in Portugal

Badajoz is located just 4 km from Portugal, and last weekend we decided to walk to the border. As you can see in the picture, there wasn't much to show the distinction between Spain and Portugal.  There was only an E for España and a P for Portugal. No fences, no tolls, just a some paint on a bridge.