Simplicity and Mayonnaise: Week 4, Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday:

Lunch: Chicken noodle soup and a separate bowl full of garbanzo beans and potatoes, watermelon

Beach in the afternoon.

Homework in the computer lab.

Early supper: Red peppers (pimientos), tortilla de patata, watermelon

Every night during supper we watch a game show called Pasapalabra. I think we've finally figured out how all the rounds work and we even got a couple trivia questions right.

Run: 2 miles

Wednesday:

A church in Valladolid (Santa María) at night

I always eat everything Mercedes puts on the table whether I like it or not. Today was the most difficult. We had “ensalada rusa,” or Russian salad, which we had been previously warned about in a conversation class; it's a popular dish here. It's a large bowl full of mayonnaise with peppers, pickles, olives, eggs, peas, and potatoes mixed in. I wouldn't mind it so much if we just had a spoonful, but this was an entire meal of mayonnaise. I'm sure we each ate a small jar's worth, no joke. Mercedes always gives herself less food than us. She also told us today that she's fattening us up (it's a good thing to her) and that she brags to her friends about how much food she gives us :) We should run more...

When I was taking my nap this afternoon, I thought I heard thunder, but I couldn't decide if it was trucks or not. When we walked to school for our Wednesday movie, there was definitely thunder and it was sprinkling too! This is the first time we've had precipitation since we got here. We might get some rain this weekend too.

We watched “Tesis” (Thesis), a thriller from the 90s in which a graduate student doing a thesis paper on violent films stumbles upon a real murder mystery involving the people at her university. It was very interesting.

After the movie I Skyped with my brother and sister-in-law (hi guys!) and then we went home for supper. Supper involved, uh oh, more mayonnaise. I suppose she was trying to run out of her supply. We had hard boiled eggs on toothpicks that had been dipped in mayonnaise. I tried to wipe most of it off on my plate. We also had olives, which I passed to Bailey when Mercedes wasn't in the room :) Also: salad and watermelon

Museum and Batman, Week 3 & 4: Sunday and Monday

Sunday:

This was the first day that Bailey and I got to sleep in and didn't have to wake up for anything. We slept until about 11:00. We had something different for breakfast today: leche frita, or fried milk. It tasted all right but had a weird texture. We then went to the Museum of Valladolid. It's free on Sundays and it was really interesting. It had a bunch of artifacts that had been excavated in this area of Spain, like pots, tools, and weapons from as early as the 5^th century B.C. The most interesting, to me, were the Roman artifacts like mosaics, sculptures, and coins. There were two floors and we only saw one before we had to go home for lunch, but we might go back next Sunday.

Lunch: Mussels and empanadillas. Also, I was peeling my peach (which I normally don't do in the U.S., but it actually seems like a good idea here because they seem to have an extra layer of fuzz) when it slipped out of my hand, rolled across the table, and onto the floor. Mercedes acted like nothing out of the ordinary happened, picked it up, wiped it off with my napkin, and handed it back to me :)

This was the first day we've stayed inside all day until supper. I finished reading the Hunger Games series and did some homework.

Supper: Tortillas de atún (tuna), tortillas de patata, pollo, salad, and another peach

We went to the school plaza right after supper and Skyped our families. I talked to my parents, grandparents, sister, and nephew all at once :) Next was basketball at the beach for a half hour then back home to bed.

Monday:

Four of the students from Texas are no longer in our class because they were only with us for three weeks. However, we now have a new student with us. She's from France, and her name is Clemence. I think she's making us look bad because she's only sixteen and speaks French, English, and Spanish (and maybe more, I don't know) but it's really great to have someone from a different culture join us.

Lunch: Chicken and rice, a peach

Today Bailey, Alex, Zou, and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises because the theaters are cheaper on Mondays. Here they pronounce Batman “Baht-mahn” and Spiderman “Spee-dair-mahn.” It was strange seeing the actors mouthing English words but hearing Spanish, but for the most part we understood what was going on. It was pretty good, and I'm excited to see it in English when I get back to the U.S. because it'll be like seeing it for the first time.  There's probably a lot I didn't catch. Since the movie was almost three hours long it took up our whole afternoon.

Supper: Pork chops, french fries, salad, watermelon

Sushi and Peñafiel, Week 3: Friday and Saturday

Friday:

Our conversation “test” went fine this morning. Our topic was food and drink, and there were a few moments with awkward silence when we were trying to rapidly think of something to say, but I think it was all right overall. I went to a bank with Bailey where she had exchanged dollars into euros before, but this time they told her they couldn't do it. Fortunately, she asked the professors where to go and found another bank that did it.

Lunch: Ensalada con huevos, tomates, atún, y patatas, y mejillones y melocotones al lado: a salad with eggs, tomatoes, tuna, and potatoes in it, and mussels and a peach on the side

After a super short siesta we laid on the beach for awhile. There's a herd of ducks that travel around the beach quacking and honking. They're not afraid of people at all and will gather around people's towels if they don't shoo them away.

Castle in Peñafiel, the hill we climbed

Later, we went to the school to book a hostel for Barcelona, and also tried to figure out what would would be the best way to get to Madrid for our flight home. Since our first flight on our last day leaves at 7 in the morning, there's no train from Valladolid that morning that would get us to Madrid early enough to check in at 5. We originally thought we'd have to take a train to Madrid the day before and spend a night there ($), but then I thought to look into a bus. So, on our last day we're taking a bus that will take us straight to the Madrid airport from 12:30-3:00 AM before taking three flights home. We'll probably be grumpy and exhausted, but we'll definitely save money that way.

We met Zou for supper. We were really hoping to get either pizza or Chinese food, but although we had a general idea of where the places were, we couldn't find them, so instead we stopped at a Japanese place called Nippón that Sergio had recommended. It was right next to the cathedral and we sat outside. We shared a couple different dishes, and I tried sushi for the first time ever. I've always been afraid to eat it because it looks weird, but I liked it a lot. Also, I think it's really cool I've eaten sushi next to a Spanish cathedral :)

Tomorrow: Peñafiel!

Saturday:

Bailey and I went for a run when we got up: 1.75 miles

We met Jon, Zou, and Alex at the bus station at 10:15 to catch the 11:00 bus to Peñafiel, a little town about an hour away from Valladolid. Another student, José, joined us as well.

Wine tasting in Peñafiel

In Peñafiel, we knew we wanted to go to the castle, and we could see it above the city so we made our way toward it. Once we got to the bottom of the hill that the castle was on, we hiked up the steep side instead of following the long switchback road. It was a little difficult considering most of us didn't anticipate a hike and weren't wearing appropriate shoes, but it definitely shortened the walk.

We took a guided tour of the castle, and then attended a wine tasting, which was free provided we already bought a tour of the castle. The tasting was interesting, and the white wine tasted better than the reds, but I still think wine is gross in general.

My pizza at La Romana

After the tasting, we walked down the hill to a park just below the castle and ate our lunches there. Most of the students from our school went to Peñafiel today, just on different buses, so we also met up with Blanca, Nathaniel, Brandon, Dede, and Regina at different times. We explored a couple shops in town then took the bus back to Valladolid.

For supper, Bailey and I went to a pizza place Sergio suggested, La Romana. We had a lot of trouble finding it. He said it was in front of the cathedral on a corner, and it really was, but we must have walked past it four times because it was a small place and its name wasn't on the building above the door. I even used my maps app on my iPod and asked a man in a kiosk before we finally found it. It was very good pizza though. They put it all together in front of us and cooked it in a brick oven. My pizza had shrimp, tomato sauce, garlic, and oregano on it. It was definitely worth the delay.

After eating we just sat on a bench outside the cathedral, surfed the internet, and people watched before going home to bed.