Announcement

That's it. It's not even December yet. (Okay, it's only three hours short of December, but still.) It's not even winter yet. SO WHY AM I SO COLD??

It is currently just after 9 pm here in Madrid and it's 39 degrees Fahrenheit outside according to Weather.com (although apparently it "feels like 32" due to - I'm guessing - the wind chill). That's under 4 degrees Celsius for my non-American, non-Fahrenheit-using readers. I mean, that's cold, but it's not cold.

So I ask myself, if I can't bear to go outside when it's only in the 30's, how am I going to survive the winter when it actually hits? Winters in Madrid aren't too bad...once you hit the "warmest" part of the day. But temperatures often get into the teens or single digits (Fahrenheit) at night.

You may not recognize me in my frozen state.

But even that shouldn't be a concern for me. My main concern is that if I can't handle the cold here when it's not even that cold, how the #*%& am I going to survive another Bostonian winter when I finally move back to the good ol' US of A?

So I'm making an announcement now to give everyone fair warning: instead of moving back to the US, I'm moving somewhere tropical. I don't know where. I don't really care where. Just somewhere where the temperature doesn't drop below, say, 75? (I'm the type of person that likes the heat. I fully enjoy the 95 degree summer days of Madrid). (Well, and preferably I would like to end up in a relatively stable country...this may limit my options greatly. Also perhaps somewhere with low humidity...which might bring me down to zero options.)

If you need me, I'll be here.

So that's it: I'm moving somewhere tropical. No worries, though, I'll let you all come visit me in my tropical paradise.

Inventiveness

You may have noticed that I post a lot about food. Take a lot of photos of food. All in all just plain old eat a lot of food. Well, it just so happens that it's not your mind deceiving you; half of the time I'm pretty sure I'm thinking about food.

In my defense, food and foreign cuisines are much more interesting when you live in or travel to other countries. In my opinion, food is of much more cultural importance in lots of other countries than it is in the US. Take ham in Spain, sausage in Germany, pasta in Italy, pastries in France...you get the idea. And, I'll be honest. I just plain old like to eat. Luckily, at least thus far in my life, I have been blessed with relatively decent metabolism.

It may not look like much, but this sausage in Freiburg was amazing.

I'm much better at baking desserty things, but I've had to get creative and inventive when it comes to real food living here, whether it's making something American or attempting something Spanish. Don't get me wrong, plenty of things that I would make and eat all of the time in the US are super easy to make here, but some things are just crap. Take pizza here in Spain - I'm pretty sure a decent pizza simply doesn't exist. Anywhere. This literally bewilders me, because making a decent pizza shouldn't be all that difficult. And for chrissake, we're closer to freaking Italy here than in the States! So I've developed pretty decent pizza-making skills (dough and all - that's right).

Homemade pizza.

Anyway, last night I was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner event (which was a lot of fun and the food was amazing), and it got me thinking about T-Day leftovers. What the bleep you do with a leftover 20-pound turkey. For example. Since I had no leftover turkey, I improvised. In other words, I bought a (very small) whole chicken. The goal: classic chicken noodle soup. Spain knows how to make great bean soups and stews. But I think chicken noodle is an American classic, and I miss being able to pick up a can of it in the grocery store (not that crap Campbells stuff, by the way, something like Progresso) and then heat it up and am ready to go in a matter of minutes.

So long story short, I spent the day boiling away: first chicken (that thing barely fit into the largest pot we have), then chicken carcass with vegetable scraps, and finally vegetables, chicken, noodles, and homemade broth. You probably don't save on money (especially considering the gas or electricity you consume simmering things all day) if you live in the US and have the canned alternative. But once in a while, and if you have the bird carcass anyway, it's 100% worth it. Not to toot my own horn here or anything, but this is hands down the best chicken noodle soup I have ever had. And the best part is that I have a crapload of it leftover (so actually, I'll probably be really sick of it by Wednesday and then I'll be saying that I hate it).

Well, I'm going to stop glorifying my soup and obsessing about food...for the time being. Until next time!

#37 See all of Madrid from the Tetas de Vallecas park

I should preface this post by telling you two things:

     1. This park is actually called Parque Cerro del Tío Pío.
     2. I have attempted twice to get to this park during the day (i.e. before the sun set). I have failed twice.

Okay, so explanation of point one. This tiny park is located in Vallecas, a neighborhood in the southeast of Madrid. It's a nice little park formed of several little hills. Thanks to the shape of the hills, someone - and I'd venture to guess someone of the male gender - nicknamed the park "las Tetas de Vallecas." The response that I received to my comment on how I thought the nickname is a bit funny, since the hills are not of equal size: "Well, the human body isn't always symmetrical!"

Point two. The tetas - err, hills - give you great views of Madrid, both during the day and while the sun sets. Naturally, because I'm lazy, I've tried to go a little bit before sunset to kill two birds with one stone. And, naturally, I've underestimated the time it takes to get there from my apartment. The second attempt was more successful, in that there was still a bit of light and I was able to take some mediocre photos. Maybe one day I'll manage to get there during the day?

Huelga General 14N

Today is the third general strike in Spain since I started living here. Three general strikes in a matter of only a little over two years. And that doesn't include all of the other protests, public transportation strikes, airline strikes, air traffic controller strikes, multi-month camp-outs in Madrid and Barcelona's main squares, etc.

One of the various ads for today's strike.

Seeing as I'm obviously not a Spanish citizen and my future isn't dependent on this country's economic or societal well-being, I don't really feel right in expressing my feelings in detail on the topic of the general strike. Don't get me wrong - I have a very strong opinion on the issue, but I only feel justified in saying this: based on the past strikes and the current one, the 24-hour general strike doesn't seem to be a very efficient way of going about finding or working towards a solution for Spain's current problems. (Spain, by the way, is not the only country responding to the current crises by means of strike - Greece, Portugal, and Italy have also been going on strike, although I couldn't tell you to what extent.) In my personal opinion, attempting to halt the economy for 24 hours really doesn't seem like an effective or responsible way to respond to what the Spanish government has been doing lately (or, perhaps better said, what it's failed to do lately). I get the irony - but it's irresponsibly counterproductive.

It's definitely an interesting time to be in Spain. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty certain that things are going to plummet further before they start to look up.

Stupid Time Difference

The time difference between western Europe and the east coast of the US (i.e. home) can sometimes be a pain in the butt. The six hour difference means that typically when people are leaving work around 5 pm, it's already 11 for me here. By the time they get home, its midnight for me at the earliest, and while I don't exactly tend to go to bed early, that is my time for unwinding and preparing for the next day of screaming little monsters. In other words, if I want to chat with a friend, it's a little too late. If I need to call Mommy (who, lucky for me, is a teacher and leaves work a bit earlier...usually), it's still sort of late.

But you know, you get used to the time difference. Not a huge issue, or even inconvenience really.

Until tonight. November 6th. Well, by now it's November 7th here in Spain and I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHO'S WON THE FLIPPIN' ELECTION!!

I can't stay up all night, but I'm too nervous to sleep. Conundrum.