Just Your Typical Random Blog Entry...

Last week we entered into the Lenten season with Ash Wednesday. I started off the day nice and early with vía crucis (Stations of the Cross) at 6:30am outside the Cathedral. I was invited by Tania to go and it was a neat experience to process along surrounding streets with a huge crowd participating at such an early hour. Later in the day I went to Mass and was not surprised in the slightest to see the church extremely packed. Something about getting ashes on the forward is very appealing to people. After the Mass was over, people who had popped in at the end of Mass, asked the priest to give them ashes and soon there was a line of people who were just passing by at the right moment and wanted to get some ashes. It’s too bad there isn’t as much enthusiasm for receiving Jesus as there is for receiving ashes. It would be nice to see the churches that packed on a Sunday. On Thursday night at midnight, so actually Friday morning, I went to San Miguel's vía crucis, which involved a procession out of the church with a large statue of Christ and of Mary. It was like getting a taste of Semana Santa/Holy Week since those statues will be taken out again for that. 

San Miguel's Vía crucis 

Last Friday and Saturday were baking days. Tania and I are fundraising for the trip to Rome for Holy Week (did I mention I was going to Rome?!) and she suggested we sell something American to make it more appealing. So I suggested peanut butter cookies (a classic) and over the course of two days we made around three hundred cookies. All the ladies who test-tasted  them said they were buenísimo (great) and thanks to Tania knowing a lot of people we (mostly she) sold them all. We brought some to sell at the end of a retreat for older ladies and were able to make sixty-five euros. The next day Tania sold sixty euros worth at work and to friends and family and the rest the following day. I guess the novelty of a typical American treat really does sell around here.

Peanut Butter Cookies!

Besides the peanut butter cookies, I’ve done some baking recently and both things I attempted turned out rather well, much to my surprise and joy. I made bread pudding for Mardi Gras and it was as delicious as I remembered it to be. I shared it with my flatmate, Ismehen, and also with Tania, and both said they liked it despite some misgivings based on it’s name. This week I made blueberry bread and although I was a little too generous with the blueberries causing it to have some problems staying together, it tasted good anyway. 

 Bread Pudding

Blueberry Bread

The other day at school, one of the teachers I work with asked me to help him distinguish the difference between “sheet” and you guessed it, “shit”. For Spaniards the sound “i” makes is a long “e”, hence the struggle. He wanted to make sure he was saying the right word when he asked students to take out their sheets. Yes, my life in Spain can be quite entertaining sometimes. Or not so entertaining when it comes to incidents like yesterday at my nanny speaking job. Rosa, bless her soul, decided it would be fun to take a huge sip of water and then let it explode out all over me. Really, I'm just grateful that I got the brunt of it and not my laptop. Well that's all till next time amigos.

Eat, Pray and Love (is in the air)

Marcos, the niño who in previous weeks made known he has a crush on me has since asked me to go on a date with him and later showed me a drawing he’d made of him and I getting married. Okay so he’s more than a little infatuated at the moment. He doesn’t keep the fact that he’s in love with me a secret at all and all the kids think it’s a riot and giggles erupt whenever someone mentions the subject. He’s an absolutely precious kid and I don’t have the heart to break it to him that I’m just a wee bit too old for him. So whenever he mentions something I’m always like “aw” or “thank you” but I really don’t know what else to say except that I’m flattered. All the kids though in 2a are adorable and although Marcos is the most vocal about his feelings, some of the other little fellows have called me guapa/pretty and princesa. So the moral of this story is that if you are ever feeling bad about yourself or just down in the dumps for some reason, go visit a class full of little kids and they’ll be sure to turn that frown upside down. I know that I’m going to miss them something awful when I leave. I’ve already started having those dreams (the kind about something looming in the future) in which I’m back at home (not a bad thing in anyway) but I somehow forgot to say goodbye to everyone at school and that was upsetting. 

I feel like I should write a line or two about how much I enjoy overhearing random conversations in my walks about Murcia. First of all, I love the triumphant feeling of actually being able to understand the things I overhear. Secondly, the snippets of conversation I pick up tend to be quite interesting. Like the other day when a couple boys around five were joking about being Harry Potter and using sticks as wands. Or that time when I happened to be walking just in front of a grandmother with her granddaughter and overheard an explanation of death and it not being a bad thing when someone’s lived a long life. Never a dull moment.

My flatmate, Ismehen, started me on a new addiction. It’s called Harissa and is a spicy chili paste from North Africa. We were talking one night and I mentioned I liked spicy foods since she was telling me about the spicy cuisine of Tunisia. Then she pulled out a can of Harissa she’d brought from Tunisia and insisted I have it. I was reluctant to take it seeing as she’d brought it from home (and I know how special things from home are) but she was adamant and I found myself with a spicy paste and not sure how to best use it. Well after a later conversation with Ismehen, she told me it can be used with many things and even just as the sauce for a sandwich. So I tried it in place of my usual mustard and man is it delicious! I mean it’s so good that it may have just pushed mustard out of first place in my heart when it comes to spreads for sandwiches. I then became alarmed that I’d fallen in love with something that I’d never be able to find in any store, especially once back in the US, so I checked on good old Amazon and found that for about ten dollars I can buy two tubes of Harissa. Yay! Good to know for down the road. I also discovered online that Ismehen wasn’t kidding when she told me it can be used with many things. It can be mixed with potatoes or used to spice up soups, it can be used to make salsa or put on fried eggs, it can be used as a marinade for meats and it can be added to pizza sauce or used as a sandwich spread. And these were just a few of the possibilities. For all I know it’s available at Wal-Mart and maybe most people are aware of it already. But I was clueless until just recently and thought maybe others who also haven’t heard of Harissa would appreciate this information. Trust me it’s awesome!

Two weekends ago I had a visitor from Nebraska. Rachel Hasenkamp, fellow BC grad, previous coworker of my dad, and now a language assistant like myself, came to visit from Madrid. We met up Friday night for a late supper (typical Spanish style) and went to a restaurant recommended to me by Tania. It was called Las Mulas and was known for it’s array of traditional dishes of Murcia. We got zarangollo to share and it consisted of zucchini, egg and onion. Sort of like zucchini casserole that I’m so fond of. That was very good, but the place was pretty pricey so we each got one other tapa and called it good. Then we went to a cafe a little after eleven and got hot chocolate and a napolitana to split. A napolitana is a sweet roll with a chocolate center, and ever so delicious. We had the intent of getting churros, but the kitchen had closed, so they were limited in what we could choose from. So we enjoyed our treat while crazy nineties music videos played on the TVs. Nothing like enjoying chocolate and listening to Haddaway’s “What is Love”. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Saturday I found myself once more in Cartagena, but this time with an idea of where to go to see things, rather than wandering blind like last time. We went to the Roman Theatre Museum which consisted of a few rooms of exhibits leading up to the highlight, the actual ruins of the roman theatre. The ruins have been well preserved and we were able to walk around in them and get a nice view of the city. Then we walked to the port and considered taking a boat ride, but decided against it when we realized it wasn’t going to stop at the cool fort we had been hoping to visit. So we went to the Naval Museum and saw a bunch of ship-related things, as expected. Cartagena is an important Spanish naval base and the first practical submarine was built by Isaac Peral from Cartagena. After the museum we wandered around the port some more then headed back into the city to climb up to Conception Castle. The castle itself wasn’t that impressive, but the views were nice. Once back down in the city, we found a place for lunch were we could get paella (Spanish rice dish). I had never tried paella (something positively scandalous for how long I’ve been in Spain) but my excuse was that it typically has seafood in it and I tend to stay far away from seafood. However, there was Paella Valenciana, which I ordered and had chicken, peppers and onions mixed with the rice. It was pretty good, but rather bland, in typical Spanish fashion. I would have loved to have had some hot sauce on hand or even better, some Harissa to flavor it up a bit. We caught the 3:30 bus back to Murcia and then I snuck in a nap back at the flat before meeting up with Rachel again to go to the Saturday night meditation at the Opus Dei club. The planned event for after the meditation was an astronomy talk given by Sarah, from France, but Spanish and who studied astronomy for five years in Florida. I learned some new Spanish vocabulary, like agujeros negros (black holes) and estrella fugaz (shooting star). It was an interesting talk, but science was never my best subject and overlooking the fact that it was in Spanish, a lot of it went over my head. 

 Roman Theatre

Ruins of the Theatre

 Naval Museum

 View of the port from the castle

 view of the plaza de toros and university

Such a colorful city

Proof that I ate paella

With some of the ladies from Opus Dei (Tania's photo)

Murcia! (Rachel's photo)

On Sunday I met back up with Rachel and we went to Mass at the Cathedral then had an unusual breakfast of pastel de carne at a nearby little pastry shop. Now if you remember my previous explanation of pastel de carne, you would understand why this was an unusual breakfast. It was sort of like having meat pie for breakfast. It has a crusty pie exterior and is filled with beef, sausage and hard-boiled egg. But it was Rachel’s last opportunity to try it since it is only found in Murcia. So I had a nice cafe con leche (coffee with milk) and pastel de carne. I think my stomach was a little upset from the combination, but who cares. After bidding goodbye to Rachel I repeated my nap from the day before, then walked across the river to Tania’s home to go with her and her younger brother, Juan, to their beach home. There I met their parents,who are very nice, and we ate lunch together. Then Tania and I rode bikes along the boardwalk next to the beach and relaxed for awhile on a bench with the soothing sound of the water as accompaniment. The beach that we were at was part of Mar Menor (smaller sea) and is a small sea that is almost completely separated from the Mediterranean by a really tiny strip of land. Behind our view of the beach, were las salinas (which are salt mines) and I was surprised to see six flamingos hanging out over there. Apparently they like the salt.

Mar Menor

Mar Menor (Tania's photo)

Two main events of this past week included a Skype interview for a master’s program in Nebraska and filing my taxes. Good times. Then this past weekend I went on a retreat. I haven’t been on a retreat in years so it was overdue. It wasn’t quite as relaxing as you’d expect a retreat to be because I was taking in a lot of Spanish, but at the same time it was good to be extra focused so as not to miss anything. It was still a peaceful time though and a perfect way to prepare for the beginning of Lent. Saturday being Valentine’s Day, I got to spend it with the Author of Love, God, not too shabby if I do say so myself. The grounds at the retreat house were lovely with an orange grove, many palm trees and a view of the sea. The food was incredible and I probably ate too much because it was served in courses and you know how that goes. For the main meal, there were appetizers, then potatoes or pasta, next a meat dish with a side of vegetables, and finally dessert. I guess that was to allow us to have our fill of good food before the fasting that comes with Lent. And that should about do it for everything that’s happened in my life since my last entry. I hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day with the people you love (be it family, friends or a special someone) and lots of chocolate, because let’s be honest you can’t have a complete life without a good portion of both love and chocolate.

 Orange grove at the retreat house

It was a beautiful and relaxing place

Three Days, Two Camels and One Popular Disney Song

This past Friday was an absolutely beautiful day. It was 25°C or 77°F with a vibrant blue sky and lots of sun. Now before anyone becomes too envious, I’ll just say that that is not normal in January, even for Mediterranean climate Southern Spain. It was thanks to the warm Sahara Desert winds from Africa. So since it was a one day kind of thing, I took advantage of it and spent quite a few hours outside. I walked to an area along Murcia’s rather lame excuse for a river, and then went to the Reina Sofia Hospital, not because I was ill but because that’s where Tania works. I got to see the area where she works and meet a few of her coworkers before we headed back out into the sunshine to go to her family’s home for lunch. Her family was out so I didn’t get to meet them, but we had a delicious lunch of tortilla de patata (my fave) and vegetable puré/soup. While eating we watched the first half of a movie called There Be Dragons and it’s about St. Josemaría Escriva. Then I walked back across the river to the Plaza Circular (center of Murcia) to meet Pilar for our usual Friday conversation exchange. Being a nice day we went for frozen yogurt and then spent the next three plus hours walking around outside. Yeah, I’d say I definitely made the most of the good weather. 

Glorieta España, Murcia (near the river)

I’d made plans with Tania to go hang out at the beach on Saturday. We were going to read, siesta and have lunch (sounded wonderful) but the weather had other plans. It went from a glorious day Friday to a slightly rainy, crazy windy and cold day on Saturday. Hanging out on the beach had become less appealing under the circumstances, so thankfully Tania came up with a plan B. We went to Orihuela, a town on the way to Alicante, and visited it’s mercado medieval or medieval market. It turns out it is one of largest medieval markets in all of Spain so maybe the weather worked in our favor after all. I’d been to a medieval market once before and that was in Córdoba back in 2012 when I was studying in Sevilla. Basically they are a lot of fun. I think we should have one in Nebraska. Essentially the market consists of tons of stands where the vendors are dressed in medieval costumes and sell handmade items. They are similar to the Christmas markets, but some differences are the costumes, food (roasted pig and sausages among other things), and the medieval music. It was Tania, myself and Ana (another girl from Opus Dei) and we wandered around (or were blown around due to the strong winds) looking at the various wares, enjoying the smells and taking pictures with the camels and the whole roasted pig. After enjoying an aperitivo (snack) of patatas bravas (potatoes in a relatively spicy sauce) we headed to Cristina’s flat. Cristina is another Opus Dei member who happens to live in Orihuela. We ate lunch at her place (we brought our own sandwiches) and Cristina had a whole bunch of little appetizer sorts of foods. They forced me to eat a mussel and it wasn’t pleasant. They looked so unappetizing to begin with that I had a really hard time making myself actually put one in my mouth. Ew. Then I made all of them try a piece of my peanut butter sandwich. Tania and Cristina tried it willingly, but Ana was extremely reluctant to taste such a “strange” kind of food. She eventually did try it and admitted it wasn’t bad. I mean really there’s not much to dislike about bread and peanut butter. I wish I liked the combination with jelly so they could have had the full American experience, but for that they’re on their own.

 Me touching the camel!

Ana and I with the camels

Tania and I with this attractive background

On the way back to Murcia, we listened to the girls’ favorite Spanish songs and they were adamant that I work on learning the words to all of them. So I now have them included in my spotify list. I’m always excited to find new music, especially in Spanish. Then Ana started singing “Y Si Hacemos Un Muñeco”, the Spanish version of Frozen’s “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” which I responded to by singing the English version (what I knew of it anyway). Then they all got excited and wanted to learn some of the lyrics in English so I taught them all the first few lines to the song. Good times.

Later in the evening, once back in Murcia, we had the usual Saturday night talk and then in honor of Sandra’s birthday we ordered Domino’s Pizza and watched a scary movie. Now the majority of us admitted to not being scary movie fans, but it was Sandra’s birthday and she likes them, so we didn’t have a choice really. The movie we watched was Spanish and called Los Ojos de Julia or Julia’s Eyes. It was about a woman (Julia) whose twin sister is blind and dies right at the beginning of the film and a disturbing way. Then Julia (who is also going blind from the same disease as her sister) tries to look into her sister’s death and what follows is a very disturbing and somewhat gory story. Let’s just say that I thought there was something hiding in every shadow once back in my flat for the night. 

Sunday, the Catholic Church in Spain celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord or Candlemas as I guess it’s also called. Candlemas, because it involves a procession with blessed candles. So what happened in San Miguel’s Parish (the church I go to) is that parents with their babies born within this last year processed in with candles to show they were offering their children to God. There were seventeen babies and I’m sure that many parents chose not to come because just since the time I’ve been in Spain, there were a ton of Baptisms. Still, seventeen is quite a lot of babies and they were all in the front of the church so it was rather distracting. It is a neat ritual though, and I think it would be cool if we did something similar in the US.