Things I Loved this Week

A quick list of things of I loved last week:

1. Saturday morning breakfast of tostadas (toast) with olive oil and soft cheese. I get excited to wake up on Saturdays for this reason.

2. Sunday afternoon paella with the grandparents.
It’s just what you do on Sundays in Spain: go to the grandparents’ house and eat paella. It’s always a HUGE meal. For example, we had: salad, olives, almonds, and chips to start the meal; the main dish of paella; an assortment of hams to eat with fresh bread; a first dessert of fruit salad; a second dessert of tiny marzipan candies and a tray of pastries; and finally the tiny cups of espresso that always follow the meal. Afterwards, we all head to our respective beds and couches and sleep off the meal with a nice siesta. Oh I love Spain.

3. The concert we went to on Sunday night at the Palau de les Arts (‘Palace of the Arts’ in Valencian). We saw the Valencian orchestra accompanying a baritone, bass, and a soprano in songs from various Spanish zarzuelas, which are kind of like operas. I absolutely loved it. They sang in Spanish, of course, but the wonderful thing about music is that you don’t need to understand it to enjoy it. When my host mom first announced she had free tickets from work, my host sister and host dad groaned. But at the end of the concert, even my host dad admitted that he had thoroughly enjoyed it.

4. No school on Tuesday! It was a national holiday here because Christopher Columbus (actually Cristoból Colón) was Spanish. Well, technically he was Italian, and just hired by the Spanish, but I made the mistake of mentioning that to someone (cue angry glares in Paige’s direction). I got several jokes about “You realize we discovered you, right?”

5. Pancakes. Since we didn’t have school on Tuesday, we made pancakes for merienda. My host parents had bought a packaged mix at the store and were waiting to try it out. They were very impressed with my pancake-flipping skills, and they didn’t turn out half bad (especially since we drizzled melted chocolate on them).

6. Flamenco lessons on Thursday. The other exchange student in Valencia, Stephanie, told me she was planning on finding some flamenco lessons, so of course I said I wanted to join her. In reality, flamenco is not very popular in Spain, but Stephanie’s host dad used to dance it, so he helped look for a dance studio. We went Thursday night (I took the bus and the metro by myself and did not get lost…be proud), and although it reaffirmed the fact that I have no coordination, it was really fun. I’m waiting to here from Stephanie, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to continue.

Hasta pronto,

Besitos a todos

XOXO

Paige