Christmas Vacation Warm up

In Spain the holiday vacation starts and ends about a week later than in the US because here they celebrate the arrival of the three kings on January 6th as well as Christmas. So all of the students and teachers were in class through the 23rd of December. It was weird to me that my first day of break started on Christmas Eve.

But before Christmas break started the holiday season was kicked off by comidas, meals, with coworkers and friends. Spain's holiday celebration is kind of out of control, from December 16th to January 7th people party and eat beyond the limits of health. Americans as a whole are pretty unhealthy, but during this period of the year I am sure that Spaniards are unhealthier than Americans. So starting on the 16th everyone starts going to meals which include eating way too much food and then going out afterward. People usually attend two to three comidas during the week before Christmas.

My school had a comida on the Friday before break started. All the other teachers (about 40) and I went to a nice restaurant to eat and we did a secret Santa present exchange. It was really fun to be able to spend time with all of the teachers outside of school - everyone was cutting loose and having a great time. Without the students around we behaved similarly to them - laughing, yelling and creating chaos. The assistant director of the school asked me to hand out all of the gifts during the gift exchange, so I snuck a Santa suit in my backpack and put it on in the bathroom and surprised the teachers by entering the room yelling Merry Christmas and laughing like Santa. It was a ton of fun! Every time that someone opened a present everyone chanted either "Que bonito, Que bonito" or "Eso quiero yo, Eso quiero yo", which mean "How beautiful" and "I want that". It was really fun. After the dinner about 17 of us went to a dance club, where there were many other parties of workers celebrating after their own comidas. It was great to go out with my colleagues, everyone had great time singing and dancing together and most of all being able to hang out without hundreds of wild elementary students around. .

Two days later I had another comida with my housemates and all of our friends. We went to a house outside of Malaga and cooked a mountain of paella. I have always wanted to see paella cooked in a large pan because it is a very typical Spanish dish. Before we ate the paella we spent about two hours snacking on olives, cheese, salad, bread, morcilla (blood sausage), chorizo (more sausage) and chips. Then we ate a ton of paella. I was stuffed. The comidas are always filling because of the snacking before the actual meal. I eat enough to basically count as a meal before the actual meal is served. Then the main plate is so delicious that I don't want to stop eating so I keep going. By the end of the comida I am unable to do anything but sprawl around the house.

The next week during the classes I talked to all of the students about how Christmas is celebrated in the US. On the last day of class before break I dressed up as Santa for the students and went around to all of the classes to pass out candy. It was really fun. The younger students thought that I was the true Santa Clause and were completely mesmorized by me. It was pretty hilarious. After school was over I took a bus to Granada to celebrate Christmas with my friend Paco and his family.

Thanksgiving

OK, I have not been very good about updating the blog since holidays started, and a lot has gone on since then so be prepared for a long read. I think I will break it up into three parts, being Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. To fill the gaps between these holidays just picture lots of food and drink and that pretty much pulls it all together.

I have to say that missing Thanksgiving may have been the worst part of not being home for the holiday season because at this point in my life it edges out Christmas. But my housemates and I put on one hell of a thanksgiving production that, after five hours of cooking (the most in my life), had a room of Spaniards very impressed with American food and culture.

I have not mentioned yet that I have a new roommate, Courtney,  who is from Renton, WA (Seattle area) and has been living with us since mid October. For the last two years she participated in the program that I am in and is now working in Malaga as an English teacher. Courtney and I really made the entire dinner minus sweet potatos that were provided by Cara, another language assistant like me who is from New York. Courtney and I selected dishes we wanted and the night before thanksgiving Eugenio, Courtney and I shopped like crazy to find all the right ingredients. Improvisation is always necesary for cooking here because the supermarkets usually don´t have all of the ingredientes to make American food. For example making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a process because people don´t eat peanut butter here and you have to go on a quest to find peanut butter and when you do find it you have to pay about triple the price. So it can be a pain in the ass to make a dish that is not common to Spain i.e. Mexican food, which kills me. Eugenio´s mom was a saint as usual (she always makes food for us) and provided us with the turkey. After all the cooking I really appreciate the effort that goes into thanksgiving, and I also really appreciate potlucks. Courtney and I made everything from scratch and the menu included turkey with carrots and potatoes, mashed potatoes, gravey, stuffing, yams,  cheesy broccoli with fried onions (I tried my best to create something similar to Rod and Cathy´s cheesy broccoli), salad, beer, wine, apple pie and cheese cake.

It was an awesome spread and the best part was the appreciation from all of our friends. We were a total of 13 people. None of the Spaniards had ever eaten turkey prepared whole, and they had never had gravey like the kind we made and the certainly had never seen anything like stuffing, cheesy broccoli or sweet potatoes. They loved it! I started the dinner with an exemplary toast about giving thanks for family, friends, health, food, good company ect. Everyone laughed and smiled and all the Spaniards were convinced that I had recited the toast before the dinner (Of course I didn´t! It was a pretty standard thanksgiving toast but they have never heard one). Haha. Throughout the meal everyone at the table made their own toast. It was pretty hilarious listening to everyone because they are all big bromistas, jokesters, and were cracking me up with their toasts. I grabbed one of the legs of the turkey and ate it by hand boisterously and drank out of a litro bottle of beer, epitomizing the Thanksgiving sentiment. It felt really good to be able to share a bit of American culture and food the with the Spaniards because Spaniards are very proud of their culture and  food and ask frequently about American food and culture for comparison, but it is difficult to explain because the US as a culture is a mixture of cultures. I felt very proud to share something so American with them and that they enjoyed it so much. The US as a whole may not have traditional foods and customs that have been engrained in culture since ancient history like Spain, but we have a very strong culture and it was nice to be able demonstrate it so well.

By the end of the evening everyone was stuffed from food and very happy. We all joked that the three Americans were the start of an American conquest back to Europe through Spain and that our thanksgiving celebration was a repitition of history, the Spaniards being the natives and the Americans the pilgrims.