The Bucket List

Today marks 5 months that I’ve been in Spain. 5 MONTHS! I can’t believe it. These last 5 months have gone by so quickly, and I can definitely say that I’ve done a lot. But there is, however, so much more that I would like to do before returning to the U.S.

My official date to return to the U.S. is June 30^th, but I might have to leave a couple of days earlier. With that being said, I have less than 5 months left in Spain. Knowing that half of my time here has already passed puts a lot of things in perspective for me. There are still so many things that I want to do while I am here, so I decided to make a Spanish Bucket List to figure out the things that I would still like to accomplish while I'm in Spain. These things aren’t in any particular order:



#6: Attend a Flamenco Show

 1. Keep a blog and write in it often. It took a long time to start it up but it’s finally done!

 2. Find at least one traditional Spanish dish to make and perfect it. Paella Maybe?

 3. Take a solo weekend trip.

 4. Have a long conversation with a Spanish abuelo.

 5. Swim in the Mediterranean.

 6. Attend a Flamenco Show, or Several. Done, once in Granada, but I’d like to attend more

 7. Go to a Fútbol (soccer) Game. (Or watch an entire Fútbol game from start to finish).

 8. Take a Dance class. Went to two classes with my roommate, but we didn’t like it. I’d like to find another.

 9. Read a great Spanish book. Currently I’m reading Arráncame la Vida, but it’s by a Mexican author.
10. Start learning another language. Done, I have been taking Valencian classes for over 4 months.

11. Devote a day to doing community service. Community service is very hard to encounter in Spain, especially where I live.

12. Find a favorite Spanish television program. Done, "Aida."

13. Go on a Spontaneous day trip.

14. Hike the 5-hour trail in Jávea. 

#22: Eat New Things

15. Prepare some homemade churros and chocolate.

16. Try out a new sport.
17. Speak with/Interview Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo, a famous Equatorial Guinean writer.

18. Cook an American dinner for my roommates.

19. Host a party at my piso. Already have a date set, Cinco de Mayo!

20. Take a cooking class.

21. Get a library card, and utilize it often.

22. Eat new things that you have never wanted to try. So far I’ve tried rabbit, fish, lamb, calamari, mussels and probably a lot of other things.
23. Attend a Bull Run/Bull Fight.

24. Take a class with Spanish locals. Done, I take an aerobics class twice a week with residents of Jávea.

25. Start running by the sea in the mornings. Will do as soon as it gets warmer outside.

26. Take part in a local village fiesta.

27. Go to a theatre performance.

28. Find a Church of Christ in Spain and attend a church service.

29. Find some bridal favors for my sister’s wedding activities.

#32: Party like a Spaniard (Madrid)

30. Attend a wine-tasting.

31. Walk around town interviewing Spaniards.
32. Party like a Spaniard (as in, until 6/7 in the morning). No, but came close when I was in Madrid (5 a.m.)!

33. Sit outside a Spanish café for hours, observing the surroundings. Done, but not solo.

34. Talk with some people from Equatorial Guinea about their experiences in Spain.

35. Travel within Spain: Madrid, Sevilla, Granada, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Córdoba, Bilbao, San Sebastián, Salamanca

36. Travel outside of Spain: France, Italy, U.K. (High on my priority list). Portugal, Germany , Greece, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Belgium, Morocco (Not a priority,  but I’d still like to visit these places)

Creating this list has definitely given me much to look forward to as I continue my journey in Spain. As you can see, a lot of these things I have yet to accomplish. If I don’t get through everything on the list, I won’t be upset, but it will be interesting to see what I am able to achieve.  

Occasionally, I will keep updating the list in future blog entries as I accomplish more things.

Creative Cooking Fridays Presents: Chicken Noodle Soup

Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

I have been feeling horrible these last couple of days. Not only am I still trying to get over an illness that I’ve had for the last 3 months since I’ve been living in Spain, but I also woke up on Thursday morning with a throbbing headache, body aches and a horrible sore throat (my third sore throat since living here). I am still trying to get to the bottom of my sickness. I thought that seeing a doctor would help, but it hasn’t. I thought that taking antibiotics, allergy medicine, and acid-reflux medicine would help, but it hasn’t; and I even thought that increasing the amount of fruits, vegetables and orange juice that I consume on a daily basis would also help, but that hasn’t helped either.  I am now left wondering if maybe living in Spain just isn’t good for my immune system.

Because I’ve been feeling so ill, I thought that the perfect thing to prepare tonight would be a homemade chicken noodle soup. I knew that it would be good for my immune system and good for my soul.

I’ve never made homemade chicken noodle soup before but I imagined that it wouldn’t be that difficult to prepare. I browsed a couple of recipes online and they all seemed pretty simple. Although it was really hard for me to get out of the piso this morning, I took some medicine, got dressed, and headed to the supermarket to get some things that I needed for the soup.  

The ingredients for chicken noodle soup are pretty basic, for the most part; all you need is chicken broth, vegetables and chicken. The soup wasn’t totally homemade because I bought chicken broth instead of making my own. Not only did I think that I would be disgusted making my own broth, but I also didn’t have a pot big enough to fit a whole chicken.

When I returned to my piso I rested for a little while, I wanted to make sure that I had enough energy to cook later. Then, once 9:00 hit, I got up, chose one of my Sex and the City DVD’s to watch and headed to the kitchen to start preparing the soup. Unfortunately, I had hot tea instead of my usual glass of wine, so cooking wasn’t as fun as it usually is.


Vegetables



First, I started cutting up the vegetables. I wanted the soup to be full of vegetables so I bought carrots, celery, potatoes and onions.  I also cooked the noodles while I was doing this. Then, I placed the vegetables inside of a saucepan to cook for just a little while. While the veggies were cooking, they released such a wonderful aroma into the air. I then added the chicken broth as well as some other things and let it cook. Meanwhile, I cleaned the chicken and placed it into the oven to bake. When the chicken was done, I diced it and placed it in the pot with the simmering soup, along with the noodles. Afterwards, I added fresh garlic, parsley and some seasoning. And lastly, I added my favorite ingredient: lemon juice.

When the soup was finished, I put some into a bowl and I made myself a cup of hot tea with lemon, as well as a glass of orange juice. I then sat down, under the warm table in my living room, to enjoy the meal.

The soup was perfect. It was exactly what I needed, not only to sooth my throat, but also to warm me up from the cold weather. There is only one thing about the soup that I would change: I accidently bought the finely thinned filet chicken from the supermarket so I wasn’t able to dice it as well.  But even with the filet chicken, the soup was absolutely wonderful. I also made enough to have for the rest of the weekend. I will definitely be making more soup in the next couple of months: it’s the perfect way to combat the cold weather.

P.S. I’d like to wish a very Happy Birthday to my father. I love you!

Happy Black History Month!

In honor of Black History Month, I would like to devote this blog post to the Spelman College class of 1892: Strong, curious and intelligent African American women who were determined to pursue their education, despite everything else that was going on around that time. Little did they know that they would form a strong network of African American women all making a choice to change the world.  Without their passion, determination and steadfastness, I may have only dreamed of being where I am today.



Spelman College Class of 1892



More Coffee Please!

Today has been one of the most exhausting days that I’ve had in a while. So exhausting, in fact, that once I returned to my piso, I couldn’t even remove my shoes or coat. Even though it was a long day, it was also actually a great day. So I guess that this is a good kind of exhaustion.

Although it was extremely hard to do, I forced myself to wake up 15 minutes early today. Usually, I get up right after 8:00am. Today, however, I really wanted to get up early so that I wouldn’t be forced to down my coffee in less than 3 minutes like I usually do. So, I got out of the bed at around 7:45 and started to get ready.

Normally, after I brush my teeth and put my contacts in, the first thing that I always do is make my coffee. I usually don’t drink the coffee until after I am dressed, however I find that having coffee on my brain as soon as I wake up in the morning really motivates me to get up and get ready quickly. It may sound sad but it’s the thing that I really look forward to seeing in the morning. Because I went to sleep late last night, I knew that it was probably going to be a two-cups-of-coffee kind of day.

Once I showered and got dressed, I had enough time to sit down, drink my coffee and eat a small breakfast. I then threw a banana in my purse for almuerzo and headed to school.

For the first school block I had the 3^rd grade class. They took their English exam today so I didn’t have to do much. I did, however had to answer a lot of questions. I sensed that all of the children were purposely trying to come to me with their questions because they thought that I would be more likely to give them the answers. Next, I had the 5^th grade. In this class we started a new unit and I had prepared a fun way to present it to them. The unit was about foods and we were able to do a lot of fun activities. They were actually very attentive today. I’m proud of them.

After almuerzo, I had both of the infantil classes. We usually go to the 4-year-old class for 30 minutes and the 5-year-old class for the other 30 minutes because they are too young to have English for a whole hour like the other kids.  I normally love going to these classes because, even though most of the children are very mischievous, they are still so cute that it’s hard to really get mad at them; and also because they get so excited about English. The 4-year-olds have been learning their colors, numbers, and certain foods, like chocolate, so we continued with those lessons. The 5-year-olds have been reviewing some of the same things, but they have also been learning a story about a boy who pretends to be sick.

The hour that we spent in the infantil classes was somewhat productive. We just had to deal with a few behavioral problems; one in particular that really got my attention. I told one of our class clowns in the 5-year-old class to return to his seat. We were in the middle of a lesson and he just got up to talk to his classmate. Do you know what he said to me? “Espera, estoy hablando” (wait, I’m talking). He didn’t even look up at me. I wasn’t as surprised, because, these days, children have the smartest mouths, but I couldn’t believe that he thought that he could talk to me like that. He was immediately sent out of the classroom and couldn’t participate in anything else. That seems to be the other English teacher’s way of punishing the children.

When I came home for my lunch break I made a bocadillo and I cooked spaghetti and meatballs for later. Normally, when I am home in the daytime I like to cook my dinner for later because when dinner time comes around, not only am I too lazy to cook, but my roommates also have to cook; And three people cooking separate things in the kitchen isn’t the idea situation. I spent almost my entire siesta cooking and washing dishes from the morning.

When I returned back to school, I had Plástica, with the first grade. Plástica is basically an arts and crafts class. Because I am not able to be with the first graders for their normal English class, we instead have Plástica in English.  I actually like this; it’s a nice break from a regular English class and I get a chance to help the kids with their crafty projects. Today in Plástica, the kids started making fake plants, in preparation for spring. They each got a cup that they were going to fill with dirt, and to make the flowers they used plastilina, or modeling clay, that they had to roll up into the form of a flower.

While I was inside helping the children make their flowers, the other teacher took 4 students at-a-time outside to get dirt for their cups. It must have been hard to find the dirt because she was literally outside for the entire class. Meanwhile, I was being bombarded with a bunch of 1^st graders asking me for more materials and getting frustrated because they claimed that they didn’t know how to roll their clay. It wasn’t a bad class, but I was literally on my feet and doing a ton of things the whole time I was in the class. When the infantil English teacher saw me in the first grade class, she said, “Whoa, you just had the infantil classes and now them? I feel so sorry for you.”  “Yes,” I said, “And I have 2^nd grade next.”

I must say, the first graders are really growing on me. At the beginning of the year I dreaded going to the first grade class. To me, they were the worst of all of the classes I teach, and I only see them once a week. There is something about first graders that sets them apart from all of the other grade levels. Unlike the infantil classes, they aren’t so young to the point that you intimidate them and unlike 2^nd-6^th grade, they aren’t so old to the point where they care about grades and punishments. First graders are fearless creatures, and they will act without worrying about the penalty that they will receive. But I must say, in these last couple of weeks, they have done almost a 360° turn. I don’t know if I am just starting to appreciate each of their different personalities more, or if they are just growing up, but I am really happy with the progress that they’ve made. Whenever they see me they get so excited. They are starting to become one of my favorite classes.

The last class of the day was second grade. I see the second graders three times a week, twice for English, and once for Plástica. This was also a Plástica in English class. They were also working on making plants so, instead of taking a couple of children outside one-by-one; we took a class trip outside together to collect dirt. This was much better.

After school I didn’t have anything else planned (I love Tuesday evenings) so I took a much needed two hour nap. Having 4,5,6 and 7-year olds back to back can be so exhausting! This was the first nap that I’d taken in a long time. And it was awesome!

Dia De La Pau

Today we celebrated yet another holiday in school, El Dia de la Pau, or in English, the “School Day for Peace and Non-Violence.”. For almost the entire school day, we did different activities to commemorate Peace Day. I swear these children are never working.

For the last week and a half, the English teacher and I have been teaching the older kids (5^th and 6^th grades) an English song called “Whatever” (featured in the Coca Cola commercials) to sing for Peace Day. Although it is a great song, I wouldn’t necessarily have picked it out for the kids to sing because it contains a lot of lyrics and, even though most of the song is repetitive, it’s still difficult for children, or anyone for that matter, to learn an entire song in a language that they barely know. From the beginning, I didn’t think that it was the best idea to teach them this song, but I stayed optimistic like everyone else.

In order to make sure that the kids were able to get enough practice, we basically stopped teaching the unit in the book and devoted about 4 English classes to learning the song. I thought that it was a horrible idea to have the children skip English lessons for almost an entire two weeks just to learn a song, especially since the English teacher is constantly talking about how “behind” the children are on their lessons. Another reason why I thought that this was a bad idea was because: allowing children to do nothing but sing (in other words, play around) for four classes in a row never results in anything productive.

When we told the children about the song that they were going to sing for Peace Day, they were so excited; and they actually cooperated with us when we went over the meaning and pronunciation of the lyrics. By the time the 3^rd and 4^th class rolled around; however, they started thinking that English class was a time to play around so they talked uncontrollably, played and joked endlessly and they couldn’t sit still. I became so frustrated with their behavior; they were acting worse than the infantil classes. They were learning the song, but they didn’t really get to the point where they could sing without glancing down at the lyrics.

To make matters worse, on Thursday afternoon, two school days before they were set to perform, the other teacher thought that it would be a good idea to add choreography to the song. So the kids can barely sing the song and now they are faced with the daunting task of learning choreography? According to the other teacher, they were going to rehearse the choreography on Friday (which was my day off), so I was hoping that they would have it together by Monday.

When today came around the children showed me the dance and choreography (which none of them could remember) and, well, it was quite interesting. When the other teacher asked me what I thought about it, I said that they were barely singing the words and that they definitely weren’t in sync. But I told her that it was good (to keep from sounding like a total pessimist). She told me that she thought that it was good and that I was probably being critical because I was American and I knew English. “No one will know what they are saying anyway,” she said. Um… ok. We finished practicing and I hoped for the best.

In the middle of the morning, all of the classes gathered around outside for the first activity of the day. Each class had a series of peace-related words or phrases placed on paper flower petals. One at a time, a couple of representatives from each class went up to read the petals and place them around the center of the flower on the wall.  This lasted for about 15 minutes.

Later during the day, right after the siesta time, the presentations were set to begin. First, the children in grades infantil-4^th presented a song together. It was cute. Then, it was the 5^th and 6^th graders’ time to perform the “Whatever” song. To say the least, the performance was very interesting, it wasn’t bad, but the children were just a little confused about the choreography and they weren’t singing very loud. I started to try to videotape them, but I then put the camera down to try to help them with the singing and choreography. At the end of the day, people still enjoyed the performance, not because they were good, but because they are just kids. I’m just glad that it’s over.

After the presentations, two white doves were released into the air by one of the teachers. Following the dove releases, everyone went back inside to prepare for the “marathon.” This was the most interesting part of the day. All of the children and teachers had arrived to school today wearing sweatpants and tennis shoes. It was said that we were all going to participate in a “marathon” to benefit the Save the Children foundation. Each child had to bring in a Euro to participate, and the parents, who were also allowed to participate, had to donate 2 Euros.

We each wore a marathon sticker that we put on the front of our jackets. It was so funny to see the little children, the three and four-year-olds also come out of the classroom to participate. When the whistle blew, everyone started to run. I was running along with the other English teacher, but we did stop and walk along with one of the students who recently had surgery.  

In case you are wondering what kind of marathon this was in which every single student, even the little tiny ones, participated in without even having a significant number of adults present, well it wasn’t really a marathon. It was more of like a 5 minute walk/run that took place in a closed-off section behind the school. When I saw the path that we all were going in, I couldn’t help but laugh. This is why everyone came to school wearing tennis shoes and dressed like they were going to run up a mountain? The “marathon” literally did take about 5 minutes to do, and when everyone finished the scene was so amusing. The children had crossed the finished line and immediately collapsed onto the ground huffing and puffing and begging for water. They were so dramatic, but so hilarious.

I really enjoyed the Dia de la Pau, I was very happy to see that the staff cared enough about celebrating peace to devote an entire school day to it (if that is why they did it). I am also very glad that we participated in a “marathon” for a great cause. It shows that the people here care about helping others, which is something that I’m passionate about. I’m sure that the children also enjoyed themselves.

Why I Probably Just Gained 5 Pounds...

Normally, I don’t get too culinary on the weekends, but since I had no plans and I wanted to relieve some stress, I did a lot of creative cooking. I love that I can count on cooking and baking as a way to relieve my stress or to just put me in a good mood. Lately I’ve been in a kind of funk: I’ve been so exhausted, cold, mentally absent from things and not to mention still sick! So I’m glad that I spent this weekend doing something that I really enjoy.

Before Putting it into the Oven

Today I decided to make Apple Crisp. I haven’t necessarily been craving it, but I thought that it sounded like a delicious thing to make.  I think that I like Apple Crisp better than Apple Pie because it doesn’t have a crust to it but it’s still crispy. Surprisingly though, although I have made an apple pie once, I’ve never made apple crisp.



Apples!



Fortunately, I already had most of the ingredients that I needed to make the dessert. The only thing that I had to buy from the store was a bag of apples (which I never buy because I have an allergic reaction to raw apples). I decided to make the Apple Crisp early this afternoon because I was worried that if I waited until the evening, with the way I’ve been lately, I was going to be way too tired.  So I started preparing the dish right after I ate breakfast.

The Apple Crisp was very easy and quick to prepare. The preparation time was about 20 minutes, with a 35-40 minute cooking time. While it was in the oven, I started to clean up the kitchen a bit. We have two cabinets in our kitchen that are rarely used and are really nasty. They haven’t been cleaned since I’ve been living in this piso. So I decided to clean them today and now they look perfect. When my roommates see them they aren’t going to believe it. Unfortunately, once I start cleaning one thing I see something else that needs to be cleaned (I get it from my mom), so I spent about 2 hours cleaning up the kitchen.



Yummy!

When the Apple Crisp was done it looked tasty, but I waited a little while to eat it. I ended up eating it for lunch (very healthy right?) along with some vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. It could have just been my imagination or the fact that I hadn’t had apple crisp in a very long time (probably years) but I was so happy with the results.  The apples were just the right amount of tender (not too soft and mushy) and the topping was wonderful and crispy.  I  may have some more for dessert!

I spent the rest of the day cleaning up, washing my hair, and preparing for the week. Surprisingly, I still had enough energy to cook dinner. I made some grilled chicken, green beans and skillet-fried diced potatoes.

So with the Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo that I made on Friday night (and the leftovers that I ate on Saturday), the Apple Crisp and vanilla ice cream that I had today, and the delicious diced potatoes that I had for dinner, I’m pretty sure that I gained at least 5 pounds this weekend. I think that I can even see it. I guess I’ll be having salads for the rest of the week!

Creative Cooking Fridays Presents: Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo

This week was pretty long and I’m so glad that it’s finally over. Since I wasn’t traveling this weekend (I like to hibernate when it’s cold outside), I decided to follow my usual “Friday night in Boringtown” routine by cooking something special. For a couple weeks now I’ve been craving some Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo but I thought that it would be difficult to make because I haven’t seen any Alfredo sauce anywhere. Then I thought to myself “why don’t I just make my own Alfredo sauce?” Duh!!! And so I browsed a couple of online recipes to see what were some of the key ingredients in making Alfredo sauce and headed to the grocery store this morning to get some items.

Once 9 o’clock hit, I put on my pajamas, played one of my Sex and the City DVDs, poured myself a glass of wine, and started cooking. I didn’t follow any Alfredo recipe exactly, because I wanted mine to be original and there were also some things that I just knew I wanted to put in my Alfredo sauce that weren’t in any others. For the sauce I used butter, cream, parmesan cheese, parsley and garlic. I also added some lemon juice to it because I love the way that it tastes with white sauces. The sauce turned out to be very tasty, but also kind of thick, this could be because I used a thicker cream that I bought from the British supermarket. I combined the sauce with the chicken and cooked the noodles al dente. I couldn’t find fettuccine noodles, but I did find something similar.  



Making the Sauce



After about an hour of prepping and cooking, the meal was finally ready. I sprinkled some extra lemon juice on top of my pasta, I drizzled a little bit of olive oil on top of some toasted bread,  I poured myself a glass of wine (I traded my usual glass of red wine for a glass of white wine) and sat down to enjoy my meal.

At first I was a little hesitant to try the pasta (as I am with anything that I make for the first time) but once I tasted it I fell in love.  The sauce was very rich and flavorful and the chicken complimented the sauce very well. The lemon made everything taste so fresh and zesty. And the white wine was also a wonderful compliment to it all.





In a way I can definitely say that my cooking has gotten better since I’ve been to Spain, not only because there are so many fresh and varied ingredients to cook with, but also because I don’t have the option to select the easy, less time-consuming way of cooking things. So I am always faced with the task of cooking everything from scratch, which I love. I definitely don’t think that I’ll ever go back to using store-bought sauces and other pre-prepared mixes.

I wonder what I’ll create next.