Beautiful Day
Oh how I have been waiting to write this post. So I have decided to organize it starting with lunch yesterday and inserting events between meals.
Lunch yesterday: After a long day at school including a half hour bus ride each way, I was so hungry. Maria is nice enough to save me lunch and simply warm it when I get back. So first I had a small salad that was so simple but soooo tasty! It was just lettuce, these amazingly sweet tomatoes, olive oil and salt. Simple right? Delicious. Then for the main course lentils with chorizo. For those of you that know my eating habits, you know I hate sausage, except chorizo (and maple syrup festival sausage, but that is beside the point). After a big filling meal of course I needed a siesta which of course lasted longer than anticipated. I then decided to go for a run by the water and it was great. A measly three miles, but I figured I should ease back in after the marathon and not running for a little over a week.
Dinner last night: little toasted french bread with an assortment of toppings. Sounds simple, but is a very typical meal in Spain for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My favorite topping by far was the fresh tomato sauce that Maria made. She makes it by grating tomatoes (no skins) and combining them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I know, I know, at this point you are wondering how this food can be so good when it is so incredibly simple; one word: fresh. I am pretty sure she goes to the grocery store almost every day, and all the fruits and vegetables are so fresh! In addition to this lovely tomato sauce, there was herbed cream cheese, Spanish ham, and pate (which I am not partial to). The Spanish ham is delicious. It is sliced incredibly thin, and is much less salty than the thick pink ham of the US. It almost looks like bacon. After la cena I finished watching Pinoccio and went to bed.
Breakfast today: To my great joy, there was leftovers from last night so I had some of the same baguette with the cream cheese and tomatoes with a side of chocolate milk. Nothing too special, but a great start to the day (which was at 7 today because I changed my class and not have class at 8am instead of noon). A nice quite bus ride got me to school quicker than normal which gave me time to find my new class, and to my great pleasure Allison and I are now in the same class. It went well, the professor is great and we have a lot of fun. There are people from Japan, China, Haiti, Russia, and others from the US in our class. I hung around campus for a bit to see some friends and then headed home. On the bus I met a few other kids from my class and other groups. One girl and I had a great spiritual conversation, and it was really cool, I felt like we really connected. I am getting more and more little encouragements like this from God every day. To my great pleasure, when I arrived home Maria helped me find some harry potter books :)
Lunch today: After sticking my nose in a book for a bit Maria, Manolo and I sat down to by far my favorite lunch yet. We had the traditional Spanish tortilla (think fritatta) and gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup that has celery, onions, salt, pepper, and vinegar in it. It was phenomenal. I have never been fond of cold soups, but this is different. It is perfect for summer time. Surprisingly today I did not take a siesta, but I decided to head for the beach. I went and read for a bit before heading to the CEA office where we met to head up the mountain to the castle.
The castle was a blast. The long walk up the many stairs is well worth the view. There is a long history, which I do not remember the details of, but it was so beautiful being at such a high point where I was able to see the entire city. The ocean to the south and the mountains to the north made for breath taking views all the way around. I headed home after a leisurely stroll back down to sea level and headed home for a shower. After doing my homework it was time for la cena!
Dinner tonight: Although I was a bit taken aback at first, I quickly realized that when a fish still has it's head, it is probably extremely fresh. So we had baked fish (I don't know what kind) with leftover tortilla from lunch as well as scrambled eggs with mushrooms. The fish was phenomenal. I am finding the best foods seem to be the ones with the most natural flavor. I am pretty sure there was just olive oil, salt, and pepper on the fish, but the freshness of it was unmistakable. Esto es la dulce vida.
Alright it is getting late so I should go to bed, besides this post is unnecessarily long. I have apparently started a food blog! Not really, but I do love food blogs. (check out foodgauker)
Standing in awe of simple beauty,
Sigourney
P.S. I will be continually updating the slideshow on the right, and if you want to see the pictures bigger you can click the bottom right and go to the picasa site. Enjoy :)
Lunch yesterday: After a long day at school including a half hour bus ride each way, I was so hungry. Maria is nice enough to save me lunch and simply warm it when I get back. So first I had a small salad that was so simple but soooo tasty! It was just lettuce, these amazingly sweet tomatoes, olive oil and salt. Simple right? Delicious. Then for the main course lentils with chorizo. For those of you that know my eating habits, you know I hate sausage, except chorizo (and maple syrup festival sausage, but that is beside the point). After a big filling meal of course I needed a siesta which of course lasted longer than anticipated. I then decided to go for a run by the water and it was great. A measly three miles, but I figured I should ease back in after the marathon and not running for a little over a week.
Dinner last night: little toasted french bread with an assortment of toppings. Sounds simple, but is a very typical meal in Spain for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My favorite topping by far was the fresh tomato sauce that Maria made. She makes it by grating tomatoes (no skins) and combining them with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I know, I know, at this point you are wondering how this food can be so good when it is so incredibly simple; one word: fresh. I am pretty sure she goes to the grocery store almost every day, and all the fruits and vegetables are so fresh! In addition to this lovely tomato sauce, there was herbed cream cheese, Spanish ham, and pate (which I am not partial to). The Spanish ham is delicious. It is sliced incredibly thin, and is much less salty than the thick pink ham of the US. It almost looks like bacon. After la cena I finished watching Pinoccio and went to bed.
Breakfast today: To my great joy, there was leftovers from last night so I had some of the same baguette with the cream cheese and tomatoes with a side of chocolate milk. Nothing too special, but a great start to the day (which was at 7 today because I changed my class and not have class at 8am instead of noon). A nice quite bus ride got me to school quicker than normal which gave me time to find my new class, and to my great pleasure Allison and I are now in the same class. It went well, the professor is great and we have a lot of fun. There are people from Japan, China, Haiti, Russia, and others from the US in our class. I hung around campus for a bit to see some friends and then headed home. On the bus I met a few other kids from my class and other groups. One girl and I had a great spiritual conversation, and it was really cool, I felt like we really connected. I am getting more and more little encouragements like this from God every day. To my great pleasure, when I arrived home Maria helped me find some harry potter books :)
Lunch today: After sticking my nose in a book for a bit Maria, Manolo and I sat down to by far my favorite lunch yet. We had the traditional Spanish tortilla (think fritatta) and gazpacho, which is a cold tomato soup that has celery, onions, salt, pepper, and vinegar in it. It was phenomenal. I have never been fond of cold soups, but this is different. It is perfect for summer time. Surprisingly today I did not take a siesta, but I decided to head for the beach. I went and read for a bit before heading to the CEA office where we met to head up the mountain to the castle.
The castle was a blast. The long walk up the many stairs is well worth the view. There is a long history, which I do not remember the details of, but it was so beautiful being at such a high point where I was able to see the entire city. The ocean to the south and the mountains to the north made for breath taking views all the way around. I headed home after a leisurely stroll back down to sea level and headed home for a shower. After doing my homework it was time for la cena!
Dinner tonight: Although I was a bit taken aback at first, I quickly realized that when a fish still has it's head, it is probably extremely fresh. So we had baked fish (I don't know what kind) with leftover tortilla from lunch as well as scrambled eggs with mushrooms. The fish was phenomenal. I am finding the best foods seem to be the ones with the most natural flavor. I am pretty sure there was just olive oil, salt, and pepper on the fish, but the freshness of it was unmistakable. Esto es la dulce vida.
Alright it is getting late so I should go to bed, besides this post is unnecessarily long. I have apparently started a food blog! Not really, but I do love food blogs. (check out foodgauker)
Standing in awe of simple beauty,
Sigourney
P.S. I will be continually updating the slideshow on the right, and if you want to see the pictures bigger you can click the bottom right and go to the picasa site. Enjoy :)
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