"C" Means Hot

This past week, Sarah and Lisa, a couple of my friends from home came to Palma for Spring Break.  I picked them up at the airport on Saturday evening where we encountered our first travel hiccup-Lisa’s luggage was still in Barcelona.  I felt so bad, as I’ve been through that before, and it’s such a hassle-especially after you’ve been traveling for about 24 hours.  Luckily, her bag arrived the next day and the airport was kind enough to drop it off at my apartment! 

Throughout the week, I introduced them to a bunch of tapas, sangria, and, of course, sobrasada and ensaïmada, all of which they seemed to like.  I was really proud of them for being so open-minded about new foods, they were down to try anything!  Way to go Sarah and Lisa!  I had the week off work, I had made up my hours before they arrived, so I got to spend the entire week taking them around Palma.  We visited the Cathedral, Bellver Castle, a few of my favorite restaurants, and of course the Ruta for tapas. 

From Monday-Wednesday we rented a car and drove around the island a bit.  There are quite a few towns that I haven’t been to yet, so we wanted to explore a little outside of Palma.  Our first stop was Valldemosa, a quaint little village that is basically my epitome of what Spain should look like.  It’s mostly stone buildings, small, cobblestone, narrow streets, and serves some of the best coco de patata that I’ve ever tried.  The dessert is a bun-shaped cake (but not as dense) that is made of potatoes.  You get a cup of chocolate, which is kind of like hot chocolate pudding, and you dip the cake into the chocolate.  It is to die for.  I will definitely be going back to Valldemosa, even if it’s just for the treats.

We also drove a little bit through the mountains up to Cala Gat, another small village.  I usually don’t get car sick, but the roads in the mountains are very narrow and winding, Spain can’t make anything easy.  We stopped along the road to take pictures of the ocean a little cove we found.  The water was so blue, even though it was overcast that day.  After Cala Gat, we decided to call it a day and head back to Palma for the usual evening tapas.

I am so thankful that they came to Spain.  It was a long trip, especially since they both had to jump right back in to work and school when they returned to the United States.  It was really good to see people from home though. 

There were many funny stories from this week, but I’ll share the one from which this post title comes.  In Spain, faucets are labeled “C” and “F”, standing for “caliente” (hot), and “frío” (cold).  Well, Sarah tried to take a shower one afternoon, after our water sporadically shut off, only to tell me, “Good news: you have water.  Bad news: it only comes on freezing cold”.  Well, fabulous, because I was next up for a shower.  I decided to just hop in, make it a quick one, and be out.  I turn on the shower, get in, and burn myself.  Thinking the cold didn’t work, I JUST turned on the hot and was scorched.  Hmm… After the shower, I went back into my room, told Lisa she could have a warm shower and told Sarah (again) that “C” isn’t for cold here.  She reiterated that she knew that before, but her shower was freezing.  For the rest of the trip, anywhere we saw a faucet, we reminded Sarah that, in Spain, “C” means hot.

March Madness

Hi all!  So far, March has been a whirlwind month.  Beckie, Amanda, and I all went to Berlin, Germany for part of our March break.  Though we left sunny weather in Palma for chilly Berlin, our trip was amazing, complete with a ‘start-of-journey’ shot at the Palma airport. 

The hostal we stayed at was right in the center of the city and within walking distance to a lot of famous sites.  We took a walking tour of the city, which lasted about 4 hours but was totally worth it; our guide really knew her Berlin facts and took us to a bunch of places we definitely wouldn’t have found on our own.  Among others, we got to see the Reichstag (Parliament building), the Holocaust Memorial, and what remains of the Berlin Wall.

Next stop for us was German food, one of my favorites now.  I was really proud of all of us because we each tried something new, even Beckie, who is a picky eater.  I had bratwurst and sauerkraut as one of my first meals, but tried wienerschnizel again too.  Yes, I ate all of what is in the photo below.  All of the food is so delicious, albeit probably not healthy at all.  Especially when followed by fried apple rings and apple strudels.  Yum.  It’s not an understatement to say that my pants were snug after this trip.  

One of the more sobering parts of our trip was our concentration camp visit.  We toured Sachsenhaussen, which was the camp built specifically for Berlin; which they built in the middle of a residential area.  The houses around the camp were usually for SS guards and their families, or for others that were of elevated Nazi rank.  Our guide told us this was usually done because on the rare chance that a prisoner successfully escaped, the first house he/she would go for help would be that of an enemy. 

The next day, we walked along the East Side Gallery, which is actually part of the Berlin Wall that has been painted with murals.  It was really cool to see as there were so many artists, from the east and west that participated in this art.  One painting that I thought was cool was that of the German flag and the Israeli flag superimposed on each other.  There was also one of what looked like it could be an American flag-of course Amanda and I had to get a picture with that!

After we got back from Berlin, my school had Carnival.  It’s kind of like Halloween in the States, everyone dresses up in costume and they have parades.  I joined Maria Angeles’ class of first graders that were dressed as Tintorers (dyers).  The school theme this year was ‘antique jobs’, so, there were dyers, miners, people that collected ice, wine makers, cobblers, etc.  The kids and I had a lot of fun walking around our block in the parade, and they all looked so cute with their tie-dye shirts and clown wigs.  Also, I might mention that finding tie-dye materials in this country is about as easy as scaling Mount Everest.  Literally, I went to 5 stores looking for colored dye and my only choices were brown, black, or navy blue.  Thank god we went to Berlin, where I found red and brought it back to Spain.  Needless to say, crafts here are kind of hard to do.  I wish they had a Target…Below is Maria Angeles' class (first grade), and me with Xisca.  Her third grade class were dressed as llatra, which are people who weave products from a palm tree like plant here in Mallorca.  The last photo is of a second grade class who were candle makers.

Sant Antoní and San Sebastian

This next segment is about the Saint’s days that we had in Palma and Mallorca.  Sant Antoní (celebrated January 16^th) is the patron saint of small pueblos and animals in Mallorca and is mostly celebrated outside of Palma, which is a bigger city.  According to Xisca’s story (hopefully I understood all of it), St. Anthony went into a desert to pray and encountered the Devil.  They fought, and now people and children dress up as Demonis (devils in Catalan) and dance around and chase people with fire.  This happened at our school when two male teachers dressed up, complete with masks and ran into classrooms/through windows/kicked open doors trying to scare the children.  It worked as a few kids in each class (grades 1-3) were literally trembling and bawling.  Their costumes were quite scary actually, especially with the masks they had made.

San Sebastian is a little different, but during the same week (January 20^th).  We got a day off work in Palma for this holiday, which made me happy as I got a 4-day weekend.  Wednesday at school we had an assembly where the kids could bring their pets for the priest to bless.  I think this is actually part of Sant Antoni, but our school kind of combined both holidays.  The blessings were followed by Jordi, the music teacher, playing the Zambomba and a group of dancers showing us a typical Mallorcan dance. 

On Wednesday night we all went out to Plaza Mayor where there was a big bonfire and huge statues of people dressed in typical Mallorcan clothes.  As Amanda pointed out to me, the fire seemed pretty dangerous as there are apartments all around Plaza Mayor and the smoke/flames were escalating quickly. 

Whew!  I think I’ve caught you up with my travels, and life in general, as of now.  Amanda, Beckie and I are going to Berlin at the end of this month and I have friends hopping the pond for a week in March.  Spring will be a busy time in this apartment!  

Getting Caught Up

This post actually starts about a month ago on New Year’s Eve.  Taylor and I were lucky enough to stay at her friend’s apartment, which was close to a Metro station and, therefore, close to the center of the city.  The first day we were there, December 30^th, we walked around the city.  We have both visited Barcelona before so it was nice this time to leisurely stroll instead of running around trying to see all the sites in such a short time.  We enjoyed La Rambla, an awesome Hindu restaurant called Maoz, La Boquería (a HUGE outdoor market selling everything you can imagine), and, of course, Starbucks.  One thing I had never visited was Parc Güell (pronounced Park Gway), designed by Antoni Gaudí.  We made the trek all the way to the top, where we encountered our first (of many) hurdles to jump:  Taylor’s camera wouldn’t work.  The rest of the day we scouted around for another camera that wasn’t insanely overpriced in the tourist district of Barcelona. 

On New Year’s Eve there is a tradition in Spain to eat 12 grapes, one at every stroke of the clock at midnight; and, of course, drink champagne.  Well, Taylor and I were prepared-we’d bought both products that day and were happily making the trek down to La Rambla in dresses and high heels (mistake number one).  Let me preface this by saying La Rambla, and I’ve heard Barcelona in general, is known for pick-pocketing; especially when it’s as packed as it was on New Year’s.  There were literally people everywhere.  Personal space was NOT an issue.  After the clock struck we decided just to sit in a bar for a quick drink and then head back to the apartment; a very early evening.  It took us about 15 minutes to get to the bar since there were so many people on the street.  We literally got pushed by the mob that was Barcelona on NYE; if one of us would’ve fallen, we would’ve been trampled to death-no joke.  We finally make it to this bar and are about ready to order a drink when I realize my right pocket of my coat is empty.  It used to contain my Blackberry and my camera.  Perfect.  Needless to say, we did not stay for a drink, we just went home and I was in shock about my stolen items.  Taylor tried to calm me down by saying I could get another camera tomorrow, someplace would be open, it’s Saturday. 

Well, the next day everything was closed because it was a holiday (January 1^st) so I was sans camera for the rest of Barcelona.  By the time we arrived in Rome, after sleeping in the Barcelona airport and being up for most of the night, I was ready just to head back home to Palma. 

We were on our way to St. Peter’s Square where I FINALLY found a shop that sold cameras!  My trip was looking up.  The first place we toured was St. Peter’s Basilica, which was gorgeous-so many paintings and beautiful marble, it was unbelievable. 

After our Basilica tour we stopped at a small restaurant to grab some authentic Italian food (we both ordered pizza) and split a bottle of wine.  We were so tired and hadn’t eaten forever, so the wine really had an effect on both of us, even though it was a small bottle.  From the restaurant we went back to our hostel for a quick nap (it was 5:00 pm) but then just went to bed at 9:00 with the promise that we’d wake up early the next morning and do more touring. 

Over the next few days, we walked around Rome for most of the day from morning ‘til night and ate our way through the city.  I tried a few different pastas, tiramisu, cannoli, and pizza.  Everything was delicious-the Italians really know how to cook.  

We had an excellent time in Rome but were definitely ready to be home and sleeping in our own beds in Palma.  Not to mention the weather in Italy was a lot chillier than in Mallorca.  

¡Bon Nadal!

The holidays have been an interesting time in Palma.  This is my first year being away from home and my family and friends for the major events.  Though I miss the comforts of home-cooked meals, family Christmas games, and, dare I say, snow, Amanda and I enjoyed our Christmas here in Mallorca. 

On Thursday, the 24^th, my school put on an excellent Christmas program.  We went to the church, which is conveniently attached to the school, where some children were dressed as the Nativity Scene and others sang.  Each grade (1^st-6^th) either sang a song or played a song on their recorders. (Everyone remember those?  First instrument for most of us?)  The entire program was in Catalan, but I was able to get a couple things out of it.  Xisca (pronounced Cheeska), gave me details on some of the more important parts in Castellano, which was really helpful.

After the program, Xisca and our 3^rd graders went back to the classroom to have chocolate and potato cake.  The chocolate is a thick liquid, kind of like hot pudding but a little less viscous.  The potato cake has powdered sugar on top and you dip the cake in your chocolate and then drink the chocolate after.  I thought it was delicious but Xisca said the chocolate was burnt.  Could’ve fooled me. 

Once the students finished their treat, we played games.  I chose to join a group of Old Maid players.  Our deck was made of pairs, such as the snorkler and the fish, the hunter and the lion, etc.  Instead of the Old Maid, the card that you didn’t want was the Lobo (wolf).  I played a couple of rounds and then moved on to a Monopoly group. 

After wishing everyone a Bon Nadal (Merry Christmas in Catalan), I rode the bus home and was ready to start my Christmas break!

Instead of trying to track down a turkey or spiral ham, we went with a tradition that Amanda’s family eats on Christmas Eve: lobster.  Since neither of us had ever cooked whole lobsters before, I knew this was going to be interesting before we even set foot in Mercadona, the local grocery store, to get ingredients for dinner.  We approached the seafood section which is a little unlike that of stores in Iowa; instead of the fish fillets on ice, in glass tubes; the whole fish is just right out there for you to see (and smell).  When our turn came, the woman behind the counter gave us two feisty, live lobsters and we were on our way.

Amanda and I relied on YouTube and Google to teach us how to prepare our dinner.  It worked!  After about 45 minutes of prepping/cooking, Anna (an American friend), Amanda, and I sat down to dinner.  This was interesting because we didn’t have any tools to crack the lobsters.  Instead we used a pestle we found in a random drawer, some knives, and a pair of children’s safety scissors.  Looking back now, I’m lucky I escaped with only two battle wounds (those claws are SHARP!)

                                                                            Fear

                                                  Each lobster was probably about 2 lbs.

                Lobster, baked potatoes w/ "sour cream" (unsweetened greek yogurt), and salad.

After dinner, Anna and I walked to 11:00 Mass at the Palma Cathedral.  Our walk was beautiful; most of the streets here are lit with strands of lights in shapes or different Christmas sayings in Catalan.  Bon Nadal (Merry Christmas), Molts d’anys (many years), and Bones Festes (good feasts, I think) are a few common ones I’ve seen.  Plaza Mayor, our Main Plaza, had lights streaming down from its center.  It was really cool to see, and made me appreciate the differences between Palma and Des Moines.  I live in a beautiful city on and island in the ocean, what more could I want?

                                   Some lights from one of the main shopping streets in Palma.

                                  This was only a little bit of the crowd at Mass.  It was packed!

                                         More of the crowd and the front of the Cathedral.  

I wrote this post as a packing break; I’m stuffing a duffle bag for a trip to Barcelona to celebrate New Year’s Eve (Nochevieja-literally, “old night”) and four days in Rome, Italy with Taylor.  I’ve never toured Rome so I am very excited to see the sights, and of course, eat pizza, pasta, and gelato.  Best get back to work.  I hope everyone had a great Christmas and will enjoy the start of 2011!  What's your New Year's resolution?

Prepping for the Holidays

No new big news from Palma, but I thought I'd give an update anyway.  Work is going well, everyone is still enjoying their jobs for the most part.  We have Monday through Wednesday off this week due to Spanish holidays; one is for the constitution and the other is for something else, I can't remember what the celebration is.  At any rate, I don't have to work until Thursday so I'm a happy camper.

Morrigan, my friend that flew here with me from Newark, was supposed to come spend a few days in Palma but instead got to spend about a day and a half in the Reus airport (about 2 hours away from Barcelona) and then a couple days in Barcelona due to the nation-wide strikes that were starting on Thursday night (the night her flight was supposed to land in Palma).  Needless to say, many vacations were shortened, if not ruined, on this long weekend.  The government passed an alert on Friday night or Saturday morning that mandated the air traffic controllers to begin work again or they could be jailed.  Many people were stranded, not only in Spain, but since the air space was closed as well, no international flights could land.  The airplane that Morrigan was supposed to be on was coming from Portugal, and apparently it turned around mid-air and went back.

We are thinking about getting a Christmas tree this week sometime, though it will be small and fake, it will still remind us of the holidays.  I'm being spoiled right now as I have the balcony door open and it's a high of 70 degrees today.  On December 7th.  A far cry from last year when we had a snow day at Iowa on December 8th.  However, just because it's gorgeous out doesn't mean I can't get into the Christmas state of mind by making paper snowflakes and other goodies, which will probably be happening this weekend sometime.  I can't believe it's already December and I've been here almost three months!

As far as my holiday travel plans go this year, I will unfortunately be missing out on the Sioux City trek with family.  Instead, an American friend, Taylor, and I will be spending Christmas here at home (with Amanda), New Years in Barcelona, and January 2nd-6th in Italy.  I've been to Barcelona before, though not over a major holiday, and am quite excited to return; it's such a beautiful city.  As for our Italy trip, we're going to fly into Rome and tour there for a couple days and then hopefully take the train to a few other cities; we're kind of just playing it by ear.  It will definitely be different from my normal holiday travels but I think it will be a lot of fun.

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, I know I have a lot to be thankful for.  Will write more later, but for now, I'm going to enjoy the sun and 'buen tiempo' (nice weather) on our balcony.

Frankfurt and More

November has been a pretty good month so far.  My roommate, Amanda, and I traveled to Frankfurt, Germany last weekend.  We flew into Frankfurt-Hahn airport, which is actually about 2 hours away from the actual city of Frankfurt.  I guess that’s what we get for booking really cheap flights.  Still worth it, as we arrived at our final destination after taking the scenic route.  Frankfurt’s countryside reminded me a lot of Iowa: green, lush fields, some crops, some cows, a few wind turbines, it was FREEZING.  I felt right at home.  When we got to Frankfurt we had to find our hostel, which ended up being in the Red Light district of the city.  What an experience.  We saw a few "questionable" deals going on outside our hostel and Amanda commented on seeing needles in the street.  Surprisingly, I still felt relatively safe and we were in a group for the most part.  

Our hostel was one of the better ones I’ve stayed in.  The staff was really friendly and all spoke great English, thank God, because Amanda and I don’t have a clue about German.  We met a German guy and a guy from Quebec who is now working in Paris while we were there and hung out with them for most of the weekend.  It really helped to have someone that spoke German with us, asking for directions and such and it was nice to have the company.  They were both traveling alone so we invited them to join us on some excursions.  Below is the Döm district; it had a lot of shops and eateries.  The epitome of what "German" was in my mind.

It’s interesting the people you meet in a hostel.  We were just there for the weekend, but are staying in touch and discussed traveling together again sometime if it works out.  I can’t say that I would necessarily do something like this in the United States, but in Europe, a lot of people travel this way, and it’s pretty fun.  I'm also warming up to the idea of backpacking this summer, so if anyone is interested in joining me, it's a work in progress.

The first night we were there, we went out with a couple guys to a bar and ended up meeting some English people.  One of them was from Liverpool (which, until that night, I thought was in Ireland-oops) and got really animated about the football (soccer) team and how much he hates Manchester United (a rival of Liverpool).  One of the Liverpool players went to Man U and now everyone hates him and is trying to take his face/name off everything he ever won for Liverpool.  I told him it was kind of like Favre switching from Greenbay to the Vikings and he said no, this was about a million times worse because American football is “a fairy sport” and “real men play rugby”.  Okay, thanks for the clarification…

The next day, I told our German friend to give us some ideas of authentic German food we could eat.  My only request while we were in Germany was that I get a giant beer and some saurkraut and a sausage.  I had wienerschitzel (pork filet breaded and deep fried on a bun) for lunch while Amanda and I walked around the town and took photos.  She had a bratwurst, which was amazing.  I generally don’t like sausage or a lot of pork, but, I figured, 'when in Rome...' and this weekend was an exception.  Everything we ate was really good.  We went to dinner at a quaint Bavarian themed restaurant where I got my large beer (1 liter), a pretzel appetizer with herb cream cheese, some type of sausages and saurkraut (delicious) and apple strudel to top it off.  Best meal ever. 

We also walked up (took the elevator) to the top of the Main Tower (pronounced Mine) where you could see Frankfurt from the balcony.  It was quite a view, the Main River passes through the city as well and is a scenic view from above.  I’ve decided I have to go back to Germany and see some other cities, it was so pretty and we had such a great time. 

School has been good; we’re getting into the holiday season so that’s fun.  I explained what I do for the holidays, meals, family gatherings, etc and told the kids about candy canes.  They don’t have them here I don’t think.  Instead they have something called turrón, which is an almond type hard candy/cookie.  I haven’t had one yet (something else the students didn’t believe), but I’m going to have to try one.  They’re all over the stores.

It’s getting a little colder here, the afternoons are still pretty nice, but the mornings and evenings are freezing (almost literally).  I’m trying to hold out on buying a winter coat, I stupidly left mine at home, but I might have to cave and buy one soon.  Maybe I can at least wait til January for the month long sales.  Those are so great, I’m looking forward to them already. 

I hope everyone is doing well and getting ready for the Thanksgiving holidays!  Thanks, mom, for sending me stuff for pumpkin pie, it’s impossible to find here.