FELIZ NAVIDAD!!! Wow it's been foreverrr since I updated! Sorry! The last 2 weeks leading up to Christmas have been really really hectic so I hardly had time to think about blogging. But anyway, I'll jump right in and tell you all about my Christmas here in Spain!

So here in Spain the traditions are a bit different. The big day for celebrating Christmas is the night of the 24th instead of the day of the 25th. This night is called Nochebuena, which literally means "the good night." For Nochebuena, everyone gets together with their family and has a big dinner. After dinner, the people who are religious usually go to a midnight mass, which I would imagine is much like the candle-lighting services in the US. After that, from what my friends tell me, it's common to head out for a night on the town.

Since all my roommates are from other towns, they were all obviously with their families and I was alone in the piso. Lourdes and Jose offered for me to go to Málaga with them to spend Christmas with their family there, but I hadn't really gotten a chance to relax since school had just ended on the 23rd. Plus, I wanted to stay here in Almería because I had made plans to have an AMERICAN Christmas lunch with Kelli and David on the 25th.

So instead of heading to Málaga, I stayed in the piso, cooked myself dinner, watched TV, and Skyped with people back home. My old roommate Reese was officially the first to wish me Merry Christmas at midnight my time! I talked to my brother Ben, his girlfriend, Lavinia, and my mom for a bit as well. My mom had sent me a package for Christmas, so I opened it while I was on Skype with her. She sent me a badass new digital camera, pictured below...

Sweet new camera with front view LCD screen! Thanks Mom!

It's a Samsung TL205--12.2 megapixels, 3x optical zoom, and a front view LCD screen so you can see yourself if you're trying to take a picture of yourself. Pretty sweet! Good job Mom! Now I can take my camera with me everywhere without being worried about losing or breaking Neal's super nice camera that I was using before.

Equally exciting for me, were the other various goodies that she included in my package! I got taco seasoning, guacamole seasoning, gravy mix, chili seasoning, packets of Tang, a gingerbread man, and melt-in-your-mouth peppermint sticks! I seriously liked all that just as much as the camera! If anybody wants to make me a very happy camper, just send me anything food related or anything that I can use to cook that I can't find over here! I'm still in need of Kung Pao seasoning packets...hint hint to anyone who wants to be my favorite person for a few days :)

On the subject of cooking, on Christmas day, I decided to cook a little something to bring to Kelli and David's for lunch. I'm not sure how I stumbled upon the recipe I eventually chose, but I ended up going with Tex-Mex...Turkey Enchiladas with Cream Sauce! Since they're from California, I figured they too would appreciate Mexican food.

As usual, I had to modify the recipe some since sour cream doesn't exist over here, but they ended up turning out really well.

First,  I cooked and shredded the turkey I was going to use to stuff the enchiladas. Nothing fancy, just seasoned the thinly sliced breast fillets with a little salt and pepper and threw them on the little griddle-dealy that was we have

Shredded turkey

Then I sauteed diced onion, red pepper, green pepper, and garlic in olive oil and a little bit of butter.

The beginnings of my Christmas Enchiladas!
Note the apparent X-mas spirit: red & green peppers

Next, I added whipping cream and cream cheese to the mixture to make the filling and the sauce...

The filling/sauce...yummmmmy

After that was all done, I let it cool for a bit, shredded some cheddar cheese, and then mixed about half of the sauce with the shredded turkey and cheddar. After that, I heated the tortillas on the griddle, stuffed them with filling, placed them in the pan, topped them with the remaining sauce (there wasn't really enough to cover them--next time I'll know to make a little more!), and popped 'em in the oven. Since our oven blows, I had to put them back in the oven once I got to Kelli and David's to let them finish. When they were almost done, I added the rest of the cheese on top and let it melt before taking them out of the oven. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but they were delicious! And very easy to make! I'm definitely going to reuse this recipe.

Since there were only 3 of us instead of 4 (they were expecting David's teammate from Venezuela, Jesús, to come but he ended up bailing) at Kelli and David's we had a TON of food. Kelli made a pear and cranberry salad with romaine lettuce and a homemade sweet onion salad dressing, mashed potatoes, and some really good stuffed pork chop. Our feast is pictured below :)

The spread: stuffed pork chop, my enchiladas,
pear & cranberry salad with homemade dressing,
& mashed potatoes (not pictured: apple spice cake)

Kelli and David with our X-mas lunch! Delish!

After we finished lunch, Kelli brought out the apple spice cake (which was awesome!) and we decided to play some games. The first game, which they hadn't played in a long time because you have to have at least 3 players, was...get this Audra...

SETTLERS OF CATAN!

I had never played Settlers before, so they had to explain all the rules to me, but it was really fun! I'm not gonna waste anyone's time explaining how to play because it's somewhat complicated, but if you've never played it, you should check it out.

Next, we played one of Kelli and David's new Christmas presents. Kelli's mom sent them a new game for their Wii...Michael Jackson: The Experience!  Basically, you hold the remote and you have to dance around like the figures on the screen. You can be either MJ himself or you can be a backup dancer. In Kelli's words, which perfectly describe the game, "if you can get past how embarrassing it is, it's actually pretty fun."

Michael Jackson: The Experience
Complete with commemorative glove haha

Playing "Michael Jackson: The Experience"...hilarious

In case the picture isn't enough, here's a VIDEO of the two of them playing hahahhhaha! Sorry but you've gotta tilt your head to watch it. David was too tall for me to turn the camera the other way.

And yes, when they were done they did make me play. And of course, I was horrible at it hahaha. Kelli and I were backup dancers for Thriller. Let's just say her score may or may not have been 3 or 4 times as much as mine haha.

After that, Kelli drove me home and I just hung out at the apartment for a while and I decided to make a dessert that I hadn't had enough time to make before lunch...my famous OREO TRUFFLES! Dipping chocolate was too expensive, so i decided just to go with colored sprinkles instead! Yummmm

"Delectably delicious"

While I was making them, Tomás showed up! I was so surprised because he had told me he was coming back on the 26th at the earliest. However, he showed up that evening with 2 of his friends from Carboneras and they all had plans to go out that night. Since I hadn't gone out on Nochebuena, I decided to join them. We had dinner in the piso and then went over to one of their friend's houses for botellón. And after that, it was pretty much a normal night.

While I did obviously miss Christmas at home, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was able to Skype with my fam (even though the connection was terrible, it sufficed) and chat with friends via text messages so that was good.

I hope y'all all had wonderful Christmases with your family and friends! However, I've been blogging for too long and now it's time to go do something else. I will post again very very soon with the latest story of what has happened in the piso. It's hilarious and absolutely RIDICULOUS. Until next time!

And by the way, keep your eyes on your mailboxes for a little something from me :)

So the FUN FACT for the day is that Almería is officially one of the sunniest cities in all of Europe with around 320 days of sun each year. 

Contrary to the above statement, the last week or week and a half has been cloudy, cold, and even a few rainy days! When I woke up today, it was GORGEOUS outside and much to my surprise, warm! I got up at 11:30 today (since we're on holiday til Wednesday of this week, I've been taking full advantage of being able to sleep in) and was inspired by the weather to go for a run. I was able to wear shorts and a cut off shirt and I even put on some sunscreen since it was so sunny outside! I felt like it was summer again!

Also, I wore my new tennis shoes that I've been trying to break in. Check em out!

Funny story about how I got these BEAUTS. My friend Kelli was talking to me about the situation with her visa and how she was going to have to go back to California to pick it up when it was ready. She then said, "Oh by the way, if you need anything from the states, you can just tell me or have it shipped to my mother-in-law's house and I can bring it back for you." About a month before, I had realized that my running shoes were completely worn out and had switched to running in my volleyball shoes. I had been hoping to buy some new running shoes, but after browsing some European magazines, I realized how much more expensive they were over here. For example, in the US a pair of Nike's might cost $100 and here, the exact same pair costs €120. With today's rate of conversion, that's the equivalent of $160! RIDICULOUS! So, when she presented this idea to me, I was super excited and I ordered them online the very next day!

Kelli just got back from California this past Thursday and she brought them by to me on Friday. I went for a short run in them that day and a longer run in them on Sunday (with Kelli). They are awesome! They felt a bit snug at first, at least in comparison to my last pair, so I was a little concerned--obviously it wouldn't be easy or cheap to ship them back to the states to exchange them for a bigger size. However, after the first run, I could tell they were just fine. Today was my third run in them and so far so good. They haven't given me any blisters or any sort of pain whatsoever. They're BREAK-IN FREE! I love it when that happens.

Other exciting news, Kelli found an 8.5K race in a little town called Adra (like 40 min away) that's going to be run this Sunday. She sent me all the info for it and we're both signed up to run it! It'll be my first official race! Exciting :)

After ordering my new shoes, I was also inspired to start a serious search for a half marathon. I’ve been wanting to train for one for a long time now. By the time I started thinking about doing one in Texas, it had gotten way too hot to train. However, since arriving here and having plenty of free time and new places to see, I started running a lot more...especially before I had my gym membership. Once again motivated to run a half, I decided it’d be cool to run my first one in some cool place in Europe to which I’d never been. I originally thought about Paris, but the Paris half isn’t until April and I don’t want to wait that long. So I finally started looking last week and I think I found the perfect race!

I found one in Mdina, a city in Malta, which is a little tiny island country off the coast of Italy (58mi south of Sicily)! I started reading about it and it sounds like the perfect place for my first race. Apparently the island is like a wedge, higher at one end and steadily sloping downward towards the coast. Luckily for me, the course will start at the higher end of the island and the entire race will be slightly downhill until finally you finish along the water. If you want to check out the course, here’s a DESCRIPTION and a MAP.

After browsing some other races, I decided that this sounded like the best one for me. So, I checked my schedule for February 27^th , and whadyaknow, I’ve got a 5 day weekend that weekend for Día de Andalucía! I was worried about having to travel the same day of the race (Sunday) to get back in time for work, but it turns out I’ve got a holiday Monday and Tuesday and I won’t have to work until March 2^nd. So not only will I get there with plenty of time to get acclimated and rested, I’ll even be able to do some sightseeing, if not before, definitely after, the race!

Also, I looked at airfare and it’s only gonna cost me like 260€ (that’s about $345) roundtrip for the flight, which is quite a bit cheaper than some of the other places to which I’ve been hoping to travel—not horrendously expensive and since I’ve basically done ZERO travelling thus far, that’s definitely an amount I’m willing to spend.

Since I’ve been running quite a bit already, I don’t think it’s gonna take me too long to train. I asked Kelli who just finished running the half in Granada to help me with a training program and she said she would. As I said in a previous post, she ran at UC Irvine and is a beast (got 2^nd of all women at the Granada half with a time of like 1:27ish). I’m hoping she can help me come up with a training schedule to get me running at a faster pace, so I can knock some time off of my run. Later, when I get a more concrete idea of where I stand, I’ll set my time goals and publicize them here so that I’ll be more motivated to meet them haha. Also, I'm trying to see if I can get Kelli to run the race with me. She said she'd like to but she doesn't know if she'd be willing to spend the money to get there. Also, I'm going to ask Tomás if he wants to run because when I told him I wanted to train for a half-marathon, he said he'd like to do one too. So we'll see! I might be going by myself or I might have some buddies for the trip...too early to tell right now!

OHHHH and the BEST part is, my friend Audra from school HOPEFULLY is gonna come visit around this time! I’m trying to talk her into coming with me to Malta for the race. If she’s gonna be in Europe, might as well do a little travelling while she’s over here, right? The correct answer is yes, absolutely. Audra I know you’re reading this. Make it happen.

That’s all for now! P.S. aren't y'all surprised that I updated 2 days in a row?!?! Impressive, right? Let's see if I can keep it up.

P.P.S. Completely unrelated...I FINALLY got my residence card! I picked it up like 2 weeks ago but kept forgetting to post a picture of it. 

My beautiful residence card! Too bad I'm not a student hah

The blacked out rectangle below my picture is my NIE (numero de identificación para extranjeros) which I was finally able to give to the bank in hopes of getting my PIN number for my card. I've been in Spain almost 3 months now and I STILL don't have my PIN for my debit card. Every time I go to the bank I ask them about it and they give me some BS excuse about why it hasn't arrived and they always tell me it'll be there "by the next week, and if not the next one, definitely in 2 weeks." I think by the time I actually get it, I'm gonna be changing banks because this has gotten a little bit ridiculous. 

Hello everyone! I'm definitely overdue for an update, so here goes...

This past Thursday, as promised, we celebrated Thanksgiving in the piso with a FEAST for 11 people! We didn't decide on what day to celebrate it until late Wednesday night when the grocery stores were closed, so I was feeling especially unprepared that evening before I went to bed. I was up til like 3 in the morning boiling eggs for my deviled eggs and calling my mom and various others for help with recipes. When the morning arrived (very quickly, might I add), I headed off to work, already very excited for all the food I was going to be preparing. Luckily for me, I finished work at 11 and got to leave early with one of the teachers who was also finished for the day. If I hadn't been able to do that, the meal would've been a massive disaster!

As soon as I got home, I changed clothes and went straight to the grocery store to pick up all the stuff I needed.  Finding that the first grocery store didn't have everything I needed, I came back to the piso, dropped off all my stuff, and went to the other grocery store to get the remaining items. As soon as I got back from my second trip to the store, I started cooking around 2:00.

First, I prepped the chickens since they had to sit in the fridge to marinate for a little while before I cooked them. By the way, I was so surprised to find that you can buy whole cleaned chickens at the grocery store for 4euros! Very cheap and lots of food...gonna have to start cooking them more often! But anyway, I used a recipe that my friend Kelli had recently told me about...super easy and the result is really good! All I did was chop up some cloves of garlic and then lift up the skin of the chicken, rub it around, and leave it there. Once I had put garlic under all of the skin, I put some cloves inside the chicken (whole or diced...doesn't really matter) and also some wedges of lemon. Lastly, I squeezed some lemon juice on the outside of the chicken and put it in the fridge to marinate for a few hours.

After I had the chickens out of the way, I started doing a little bit of everything...peeling eggs, snapping green beans, peeling sweet potatoes, chopping onions, peppers, celery, and mushrooms for various dishes, etc. A couple hours in, Martín's girfriend, Raquel, came over to help me chop, peel, and do whatever other odd jobs I needed help with.

The first thing to be finished were the deviled eggs. Second, were my green beans. I made them from an old Grandma Mac (my Mom's mom) inspired recipe--green beans, steamed with onions and small pieces of bacon. Deeeelish. After I finished the green beans and boiling the sweet potatoes it was already like 6:30, so I decided it'd be a good idea to get going on the cooking of the chicken.

That sounds like an easy task, but it was actually a whole lot more complicated than I had hoped since our oven doesn't really work. It heats from EITHER the top or the bottom, but not both. Endika had tried to cook a chicken in it before and it failed miserably, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to rely on our piece-of-crap oven. Since Raquel lives only like 2 minutes away from us she offered to let me use her oven. Thank goodness or I would've been screwed.

So after removing the sweet potatoes, and getting the regular potatoes boiling, I ran the chickens through the street to Raquel's piso on a baking pan. I covered it in foil to avoid strange looks from the neighbors and people in the street haha. I tossed it in the oven at Raquel's and she agreed to keep an eye on it. Then I ran back to the piso as fast as I could since my potatoes were still boiling. They were done right when I got back and so I started work on the garlic mashed potatoes. Didn't take too long to get those looking and tasting good!

The rest of the cooking is all pretty much a blur. At some point, when Tomás got back from class, he told me he would go to the store for me to buy paper plates, water, drinks, bread, etc, so on his way, I sent him to Raquel's with my bits of thinly sliced turkey breast smothered with garlic, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and olive oil, as well as my sweet potato casserole. The turkey dish was my own creation. I just made it up so that I would at least have something with turkey in it to serve since it was a Thanksgiving feast, and no Thanksgiving could POSSIBLY be complete without turkey. When I found the bits of turkey breast, I decided not to go with the turkey leg idea that I mentioned in my previous post since I figured the legs would require more time to cook since they're thicker. The sweet potato casserole was an adaptation of a recipe from my brother, Ben, that I had to adjust since Spain doesn't have brown sugar or molasses (from which apparently, I could've made my own brown sugar). The topping was the only part that required brown sugar, so I was able to make do without it. Also, I had to use almonds for my topping instead of the traditional pecans, since I don't think they have pecans in Spain either.

Somewhere in the mix and rush of things, I managed to finish up my homemade stuffing and and corn on the cob. People started showing up around 9 (more or less on time for once...Martín says they only showed up on time because it was to eat...if it were for anything else they would've been AT LEAST a half hour late haha). Fran and Raul were the first to show up and they brought the beer with them. I insisted that the only beer that we drink would be BUDWEISER hahahaha. Only AMERICAN beer for my AMERICAN dinner celebrating a very AMERICAN holiday.

The last thing that we had to do was run over to Raquel's and get all the goodies from her oven. When we entered the piso, I was surprised and EXTREMELY pumped at how good everything smelled. We debated for about 5 minutes about how we were going to get the chicken back to the piso without spilling all the juice out of the pan, and eventually, Tomás just ended up carrying the tray with two towels and walking reallly slowly. This time we didn't cover the food and it was HILARIOUS to see the looks we were getting while walking through the streets with plates full of food. I wish I had had a camera and a free hand to take pictures of Tomás with the chickens!

Much to my surprise, I finished up with everything relatively on time, and all the food was on  the table around 9:30. After taking pictures of all the dishes, I said a short prayer in English, translated it for them, and then we dug in! I've posted some pictures of how it turned out below. Click on the pictures to enlarge them if you'd like to inspect more closely the deliciousness of all the food I prepared :)

The whole crew: (L to R) Tomás, Cheti, Jose,
Fran, Juanmi, Raul, Endika, Martín, and Raquel
(not pictured Noelia)

The crew with the COOK! I didn't know our ping-pong
dinner table expanded to seat 11! I'm gonna have to
start expanding it so I can win at ping pong hahaha

Corn on the cob, deviled eggs, and
green beans with onions and bacon

The main course, lemon garlic chicken!

 Baked turkey breast with mixed vegetables,
homemade stuffing, and garlic mashed potatoes!

Much to my surprise EVERYTHING turned out really well. Everybody ate the deviled eggs first while I was getting the rest of the stuff on the table, and they were a big hit. A few people even told me that the eggs were their favorite thing that I made. The stuffing was really good too and was one of the first plates to be empty. I was proud and surprised at how much my homemade stuffing actually tasted like the Stove Top kind. All I did was toast some bread in the oven, chop it up into little squares, sauté some onions, celery, and mushrooms, mix it all together, then add a little bit of chicken broth to soften up the bread, and then bake it. Really simple, not very time consuming, and much more impressive than saying that you used a box of stuffing mix!

One thing that didn't surprise me was that no one was too crazy about the veggies. Hardly anyone was even brave enough to try the green beans. I made Tomás try them and he didn't like them. Noelia, however, said she LOVED them and since I had so many left over, I sent her home with a whole tupperware full of them (I had a full one too!). The corn was more liked than the green beans, but overall, everyone was more interested in the other foods. Endika was surprised when I served the corn on the cob the way that I did--boiled then topped with butter, salt, and pepper--because he says his mom makes it that way and whenever he prepares it, everyone else thinks it's really weird. Apparently Basques and Americans like to eat their corn on the cob the same way...who knew? 

The garlic mashed potatoes were really good but they didn't really catch anyone's attention since they're less out of the ordinary here. My favorite part was actually the turkey which is strange since I usually prefer the sides. I was surprised because I totally just threw random vegetables on top of the turkey in hopes that it would produce a good flavor and sure enough it did. At first I wasn't sure that people liked it because there was lots of it left in the pan, but then next time I looked at the pan, it was all gone, so at least one person liked it haha. 

Out of all the things I prepared, my least favorite was the chicken. Don't get me wrong, it was still actually really good, but I think it was the fact that it didn't really blend with the other flavors as well as I would've hoped. The lemony-ness of it made it stand out from the other dishes. Since I didn't prepare any gravy, I knew I would have to give the chicken a stronger flavor, but I think lemon was the wrong route to choose. Something that might have blended better would have been maybe a rosemary basil chicken. But oh well, it got eaten and everyone liked it, so maybe I'm the only one who noticed that it didn't fit in!     

And now, here comes the bad part of the story. When we left Raquel's with all the food, my sweet potato casserole still wasn't crispy on the top like it was supposed to be. So, bravely, I decided to toss it in our oven to let it finish up, slash to keep it warm. I kept checking on it every few minutes or so, and it was not getting any crispier. So, I decided to move it up a rack to get it closer to the heat that was coming from the top of the oven. Naturally, I got sidetracked by eating and forgot all about it after that. It was only when Tomás went into the kitchen to grab something that he reminded me that my dessert was in the oven. Oops. Pulled it out and sure enough, the top of it was blackkk.

As you can probably imagine, this was quite disheartening. Everyone was enjoying all the food so much, and the buildup for the dessert was huge as no one here had ever heard of making a dessert with sweet potatoes, or as they're called here, boniatos. Also, when preparing the sweet potatoes, I, too, was super excited because I kept tasting it, and it was delicious. I was so proud that it was turning out so well as I was totally ad-libbing the recipe. When I opened up the oven to see my beautiful creation ruined, I literally almost cried. The dessert was supposed to be the grand finale.

My burnt sweet potato casserole :'(
as you can see, it still got eaten haha

But anyway, everyone was really nice about it, and luckily, the topping--a mixture of almond slices, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg--was the only part that got burnt. It was super easy to peel off the black part and underneath everything was fine. Raquel actually told me that despite the fact that it got burnt, it was her favorite part of the meal, and she wants me to teach her to make it! Of course I would've liked for the dessert to have come out perfectly, but I suppose I can't really complain as that was pretty much the only thing that went wrong the whole evening.

All in all, after 7+ hours in the kitchen, my Thanksgiving dinner turned out WONDERFULLY. Everyone was super complimentary and the roommates told me that they were VERY shocked haha. They kept asking me, "Wait a minute, have you just been pretending not to be able to cook this whole time?" hahahahhah

All the excitement that I had all day was definitely worth it, and I'm not gonna lie, I really made myself proud. Not only did I prepare an entire Thanksgiving dinner BY MYSELF, but I did it for 11 people and nearly everything was super legit. Another thing that I was surprised about, was that I actually got the timing nearly perfect. Everything finished up right around 9 and the parts that I had finished before nine were easy to reheat and get on the table with the rest of the food. Overall, I've gotta say, GREAT SUCCESS! (Borat voice haha). I think I made America proud :)

Lastly, I had forgotten how good Thanksgiving leftovers are! It's currently Monday, and I haven't cooked since Thursday. I swear the food keeps getting better everyday haha. Unfortunately, today will be the last day for leftovers, as they're nearly gone now. DAMN. 

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as good as mine and that you're enjoying all the Christmas spirit that I'm sure has filled the neighborhoods, stores, tv and radio stations, etc. I'll be updating again soon as we've got a holiday til Wednesday and I'll have a bit more free time for updates. I still haven't finished writing about my volleyball team, so I'll get that update to y'all soon!

I've been SUPER busy lately and haven't had much time to update the blog but I figured I couldn't NOT post on Turkey Day! Here's a brief recap of all the Thanksgiving goings-on in my life this week...

I've been preparing presentations and crafts for the big day allllllll week. On Tuesday, I taught the 5-year-olds to make traditional hand-print turkeys (which apparently the auxiliar from last year did too). Because I let them trace their own hands, most of them ended up looking pretty malformed, but hey, they were cute! The 4-year-olds colored various Thanksgiving pictures...inevitably, their turkeys all ended up being purple, pink, green, and blue instead of the traditional brown, red, orange, and yellow. 

The 5th and 6th graders and 1º ESO learned about the history and modern day traditions of Thanksgiving from a PowerPoint presentation that I made them. Also, they learned how to talk about things that they are thankful for. We went around the room and each kid had to say "I am thankful for [insert ONE thing that you are thankful for]." I was surprised at how difficult this was for them. And not because it was in English, but because they're just kids and it still hasn't really hit them how lucky they are to have family, friends, health, etc. 

Lastly, I helped my favorite class, the 1st grade, make a poster of a giant turkey with feathers made of different-colored handprint cutouts! I'm definitely most proud of this project...it turned out really well, as you can see below!

My favoritesss :) María, Ainhoa, Francisco Cruz, Adrián, Aroa, Francisco Garcia, Zaira, Julián, and Yeray

With all the projects and presentations leading up toThanksgiving, it's quite a letdown not to be celebrating it at home with FAMILY and FRIENDS and of course all the delicious AMERICAN FOOD! This is, hands down, the most I've missed home so far. 

We are planning on having a Thanksgiving dinner in the piso, but Martín and Tomás left for Rome on this morning to visit a friend who is studying there, and we won't be celebrating it until after they come back the following Wednesday. This is actually fine by me because since I've been so busy lately, I haven't had much time to prepare recipes and definitely haven't had time to try any of them out (and with my incompetence in the kitchen, trying them out for myself before serving them to anyone else is a must!

And now, here's the bad news. My roomies and I aren't going to get to experience the deliciousness of a true Thanksgiving...and no, it's not because I can't cook (though that doesn't help the situation). There are NO whole turkeys!!!! Besides sliced, the only turkey I've been able to find is turkey legs. Not sure if I'm gonna go with turkey legs or if I'm gonna try to cook a whole chicken instead. Also, there's no cranberries or cranberry sauce, no Jiffy corn bread mix, and worst of all, NO CANNED PUMPKIN so I can't even make a pumpkin pie unless I buy a whole pumpkin, clean it, cut it, cook it, and then mash it! :( :( :( Wow, what a depressing Thanksgiving dinner this is going to be. Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie shouldn't even exist. Come on, Spain. Get it together.

Though I haven't finalized anything, besides either turkey legs or a whole chicken, the menu will likely include mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, devilled eggs, and apple pie! I'm hoping to get my grandma's old recipes for sweet potato casserole, though it'll require some modification since Spain doesn't have brown sugar either :( 

Considering how much food that's gonna be and the fact that we've only got 4 people in the piso, I'll probably end up inviting the whole crew over for an American Thanksgiving Dinner! Tomás has insisted that we download the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and watch it while we eat hahaha!

Despite the fact that today doesn't feel like Thanksgiving to me at all and, unlike every other American, I won't be eating even a bite of turkey, stuffing, or pie today, I would still like to make a list of all the things I'm thankful for. Here goes...

I am THANKFUL for... 

• family--I haven't been able to talk to y'all as much as I'd like lately, and I just wanted to say I love and miss y'all SO much! I'm super bummed I'm missing the huge Zein-Eldin/Powell family gathering with the addition of Uncle David, Aunt Nessa, Cameron, and Joanna. Make sure to eat enough for me and make sure you call Mike to make his say grace before you eat! hahahahah
• friends--I MISS YOU ALLLLL! I have been blessed with some of the most loyal and dependable friends anyone could ask for and I'm so glad that we continue to keep in touch so regularly even though I'm half a world away from y'all. Bear with me as I try to make time to talk to everyone...it's quite time consuming because everytime I call someone I usually end up talking for at leasttt 30 minutes, and as you can imagine that eats up quite a bit of my time.
• Skype/AIM/the internet--I don't know what I would do without these 3 things. The fact that I can see y'all's lovely faces via skype, text you from AIM whenever I'm at my computer, and creep on all of your lives via Facebook, gives me so much comfort. Makes me feel so much closer to home than I actually am. What wonderful inventions!
• my new overseas family--I could not have asked to be placed in a better situation here in Spain. I live in a BEAUTIFUL town, the school where I work is awesome, I've got Jose and his family here to take care of me if I need anything, I've already made TONS of really good friends, I get the opportunity to watch world-class professional volleyball for free like every other week, I've found a small group of American friends (Kelli, David, Greg, Chris, and Sarah) who can relate to most everything that I'm going through here, my 2 groups of friends, while entirely different from one another, are both SO much fun to be around, and (**sung as in The Hangover**) I've got the 3 best roommates that any girl could have, I've got the 3 best roommates that any girl could have, I've got the 3 best roommates that any girl could have, and we'll never, never, never, never, ever leave each other! hahahahhaha
• the opportunity to be here in Spain--I decided a little more than a year ago after returning from Málaga, that coming back to Spain and working here was what I truly wanted to do after graduation. The fact that I'm really here, living, working, making friends, and improving my Spanish every day really is, as gay as this sounds, a dream come true. Some days, everything feels normal, but others, I find myself overwhelmingly grateful, proud, and still shocked by the fact that I'm on my own, half a world away from nearly everyone that I know, and managing to do just fine for myself. 

Even though I'm not able to be with my family and friends to celebrate today, writing this list has made it feel just a little bit more Thanksgiving-y. I am EXTREMELY blessed to be mentally and physically where I am today and I am so grateful for all the people I know and opportunties I've been given. 

I hope that everyone back home is eating lots, experiencing tryptophan-induced comas, spending time with family, watching AMERICAN SPORTS (I'm still bitter), and just overall enjoying this wonderful holiday and what it's all about. ¡FELIZ DÍA DE ACCIÓN DE GRACIAS!

Much love to all :)

Yesterday marked 2 months in Spain for me! Hard to believe. My understanding of Spanish has improved by leaps and bounds! My speaking has also improved, but not as much...though Tomás told me yesterday that my Spanish is exagerao de mejor (wayyy better) than it was 2 months ago. It really has started to hit me, how cool it is that I can really hold my own in most conversations. I don't have to be talked to like an idiot anymore and I usually even feel confident enough to try to chime in when the roomies are debating something (though with Tomás, you can never win). Along with this, I've also developed quite the ability to completely shut off my brain and still look like I'm engaged in the conversation hahahah. Sometimes this gets the best of me and I end up looking like a huge dumbass since I look like I'm listening and then when someone asks me something I have no idea what they've been talking about. So far, I'm really liking it here and pretty much every day I think about how lucky I am not only to have this experience, but to have been placed in such a great city, with such great people, and with Jose, his family, and Paco & Maricruz (my host family from Málaga) so close. I'm still not sure what I did to deserve all this luck, but no complaints here!

This past week was a busy one for me! Halloween was Sunday, we had a holiday on Monday (Día de todos los santos--All Saints Day) so I didn't have to work, Wednesday I started teaching my private English classes with María del Mar's kids, Marina and Alberto, Thursday I went to the Unicaja Almería game, and for the weekend I went to Málaga!

Halloween was pretty uneventful. I went to Lourdes and Jose's house on Sunday night to watch a scary movie and have dinner. We watched REC, which is like a combination of a zombie movie and The Blair Witch Project, but in Spanish. It was hard to understand at first because of all the screaming and whatnot that was happening, but by the end, I pretty much got the gist of it. I'd say it was no better than ok. We ate a bunch of pizza and drank some calimocho, a concoction which, Endika proudly told me, is from País Vasco and is a mixture of red wine and coke (Audra, you should try this since I know how much you love red wine...it's surprisingly good).

After that, Jose kidnapped me and we came back to my apartment for botellón with the usual crew (Martín, Tomás, Endika, Juanmi, Fran, Cheti). I was feeling pretty tired, so I took it easy, went out with them for a little bit, and then when we ran into Lourdes, Luis, Alberto, and Juan again (they were all painted up scary and/or had masks on), I decided to leave with them instead of staying out.

To compare Halloweens, I'd say that here, everyone is more about dressing up scary rather than funny or skanky. Most people have blood painted somewhere on their bodies and are typically zombie-looking. They do have a holiday for dressing up in funny costumes which they call Carnaval (I'm assuming this is in the spring and is probably similar to Carnaval in Brazil?). As for trick-or-treating, that doesn't really happen here. The kids at school did some trick-or-treating around Rioja for their Halloween party, but I think that was just to simulate an American Halloween celebration. Here are a few Halloween pictures...

Typical Spanish Halloween--(L to R) Alberto, Alex, Lourdes (Lulu), Luis, Juan, Mari, and Pico (Luis' brother)

Me, Alberto, Lulu, and Luis

Me, Jose, and Sarda...he got white paint all over EVERYTHING that he touched

Juanmi stole some girl's bug costume long enough to pose for a picture hahahah

On Wednesday, I started my private English classes with Alberto (11) and Marina (9), the second grade teacher, María del Mar's kids. Judging from the first class with each of them, they're really bright kids. Their mom is from Spain and their dad from Italy (they were born in Italy), so they already speak fluent Spanish and Italian (not fair!). Alberto's been studying English for a while and he knows more than Marina who has been taking French up until now. I'll be working with Alberto 2 hours a week and with Marina only 1 hour a week.

Since starting these lessons, I have realized that lesson plans are a lot harder than I thought...especially having no background in teaching and not knowing what my students have and have not already learned. But anyway, I'm sure I'll get better at this as time goes on.

I went back yesterday for my second class with Alberto, and María del Mar had already found me another client...her sister. Her sister is starting an English class and knows basically nothing, so she too wants lessons. On Tuesday's when I only have 1 hour with Alberto, I'm just going to stay there an hour longer and work with María del Mar's sister too. And the best part is, after the class, she's going to give me a ride back to the piso so I don't have to spend 25-30 minutes walking back! I'll write more about my classes later as I have more sessions and get a better idea of what exactly is going on.

On Thursday, I heard back from David Smith, the American on the men’s professional volleyball team, Unicaja Almería! He sent me a message telling me that they had a home game and that if I wanted, he could get me a free ticket to sit with his wife, Kelli. Of course, I said yes, and at 8:15 that night, I met his wife outside of the Pavillion. She was with another American guy named Chris who had met David and Greg, another American who is in the process of signing with Unicaja, on the beach while they were throwing around a football. 

It was a funny situation because none of us knew each other but we were all sitting together at the volleyball game and I ended up finding out some cool stuff about them. Chris, who is from Minnesota, is also in Almería teaching English. He works in a little town on the coast called Aguadulce and he also teaches classes in an academy in Almería. When Kelli brought up the fact that I played volleyball and she ran cross country, I found out that Chris had played football and hockey in college at a D-3 school in Minnesota. When I asked him where, he told me St. Scholastica, which strangely enough, is a school that I remembered Ben’s team had played. Chris graduated in 2009, so he and Ben probably played against each other. I love small world stories like that!

Anyway, Unicaja ended up winning the match. They lost the first game and then came back to win the last 3, so the three of us had plenty of time to talk and whatnot. Kelli got both Chris and me VIP wristbands to sit with her and afterwards, we got to go upstairs and eat some food and meet some of the players. It was BADASS. I was so impressed and so excited that I got such a cool opportunity basically just for being American haha. The sad news is that I was in a rush to leave the house to meet Kelli at 8:15 and I ended up leaving my camera at home, so I didn’t get any pictures  :(  The next time I go, which hopefully will be this coming weekend, I’ll be sure to bring it so I can get some pictures for the blog. Kelli said they can pretty much get me a free ticket whenever I want, so hopefully I’ll be able to go to all or at least most of the home games.

As far as Kelli and David, as Ashley would say, they’re a super-couple. Kelli is a little-bitty, 5’3”, petite, blonde girl who ran cross country and track at UC-Irvine. I believe she said she’s 27. David, on the other hand, is 25 and stands at an impressive height of 6’7”. He played volleyball at UC-Irvine where he won a D-1 national championship and was named a 1^st team All-American. He currently plays for the US national team and according to Kelli, he’s considered to be one of the top 5 middle blockers in the US. He’ll be in contention for a spot on the next US Olympic team for sure.

Since graduating, David has played internationally in several different places including Germany, Puerto Rico, and now Spain. The funny thing is that before playing in Puerto Rico, neither of them knew a word of Spanish. Kelli took one Spanish class and I’m not sure about David, but from what I gathered from Kelli, they both still know next to nothing haha. I’d imagine It’s pretty hard playing on a team where you don’t speak the same language as the rest of the players, but somehow he’s managing to do quite well for himself. I know that one of the coaches speaks OK English and I think some of the players understand and speak a little English but for the most part, there seems to be a pretty big language barrier.

Another funny coincidence is that David is legally deaf and wears 2 hearing aids! YAYYY for hearing impaired people like me haha! It’s funny to watch him play because sometimes when there’s a crazy play and people are out of position, he’ll sometimes take the second ball because he’s  there and he can’t hear anyone calling him off. But I mean, he’s skilled enough that he can do pretty much whatever he wants with no problem.

Kelli and David live only about 10 minutes from me and Kelli goes to the same gym as me, so we’ve decided that we’re going to start going together so that we can get stared at TOGETHER for being the only 2 athletic girls in the gym hahaha. It doesn’t help that in addition to being athletic, which is a rare thing for girls here, we both look pretty darn American, so we definitely stick out like sore thumbs at the gym. Chris, who’s just about as white blonde as they come, said he pretty much gets stared at 24/7 because he very obviously isn’t from here.

Greg, the other American who is going to sign with Unicaja, is from Buffalo, New York. He’s probably about 6’7” as well, plays right-side, and is sooo goofy. His Spanish is pretty brutal too, but he is not embarrassed to try speaking with the other guys in Spanish. He reminds me of Tomás in that pretty much everything that comes out of his mouth, I find hilarious haha. Right now he doesn’t have a place to stay so he’s been bumming at Kelli and David’s place and is about to start “couch-surfing” until he finds one hahahah! If you don’t know what that is, check out THESE LINKS. Very interesting idea and it looks like it works pretty well. I might try this out when I start doing some more traveling haha.

After the game on Thursday, I decided to stay in so I could get up early since I was planning to head to Málaga on Friday. I got some much-needed sleep (slept til 11) before getting up to run errands. I don’t think I remembered to write about the last time I went to the bank, so I’ll do a double update now…

I had finally picked up my debit card 2 Fridays ago and I was so excited to finally be able to withdraw money from a cajero automático, or ATM, whenever I needed to. However, when I went to pick it up, the guy activated it for me and I was all excited. Before I left, I asked him, so I can go take out money from the ATM now right? And he tells me, no you still don't have a PIN number. You'll have to come back in 2 weeks to get it. Whatttt is that about? Why would you ever issue anyone a debit card without a PIN? What can you use a debit card for if you don't have a PIN number? And why can I not choose my own? Just another thing to add to the list of things I don't get about the way things work in this country.

So anyway, I went back this past Friday to finally get my PIN and the dude tells me it's not there yet. He starts piddling around on the computer and eventually comes to the conclusion that my PIN won't come until they have my NIE! I know what my NIE is now, but I still have to wait 2 more weeks before I can pick up my actual residence card with the NIE printed on it. I gave them my number since I knew what it was, so we'll see what they end up doing. I'm willing to wager I won't have a PIN for another 2 weeks after I bring them my residence card.

But anyway, after the bank, I went to the gym, came back home, ate, and then left for Málaga by bus at 5:30. I didn't realize that the only direct (3 hour) route to Málaga was the bus that left at 3:30, so it ended up taking me nearly 5 hours to get there since we had to stop in probably at least 7 or 8 little towns along the way. Before it got dark (which it does really early now since the time change...6:30ish), I managed to get some sweet sunset pictures from the bus.

When I got there, I showered, we went to eat dinner, and then we went out. It was fun, but Málaga is definitely a more expensive place to go out than Almería...especially when you don't have a friend that owns his own bar (2 summers ago, our friend Edgar owned a bar in Málaga called Big Band, so we never had to pay much there). We stayed out til around 5ish--Jose wanted to moverse su eskeleto (literally: move his skeleton, actually: dance) while Juane (his roommate) and I didn't haha. The next day we just relaxed and did a whole lot of nothing. It was nice to get a break from all the crazies that inhabit my piso during the weekend! I definitely needed to recharge my batteries and Málaga was just the place to do it. We went to get milkshakes in the afternoon, then came back and watched an illegally downloaded version of Inception that night. I had not seen it before and I was VERY impressed...interesting idea and very well executed.

The next day, I packed my things and left Jose's around 12:30 to go to Paco and MªCruz's house. It was awesome to see them, as usual. We just sat around for a little while, talked about how things are going for me here in Almería, how they like their new students (2 American girls and 1 Danish girl), etc. Hana, you'll be saddened to know that Paco seemed almost as obsessed with these girls as he was with us :( Ok maybe not quite as much, but he did brag on them quite a bit. Lindsay, in particular, got a lot of praise. She is "una chica FANTASTICA" according to Paco. She got props for always having a smile on her face, loving to try new foods (minus point for you, Hana), never leaving "ni un lágrima de agua" (not even a drop of water) in the bathroom (didn't know that was an issue...ooops haha more minus points for us), and probably some more stuff that I forgot. But what they can't compete with is your CULO! You'll always have that edge on everyone hahahaha. Speaking of which, I have a surprise for you, Hana...miraaa

Hana y la luna! a masterpiece by Paco himself...BAHAHAH it now hangs on the wall in our room in your honor

New furniture in our old room! And a wall-mounted TV!

The sign in the bathroom written in the very, very, very broken English of Paco & Maricruz haha

 And finally, the sign in our bedroom which we forgot to take a picture of. The bottom one has 4 rules. They read something like this...

1. PLEASE SHOWER SHORT (5 TO 10 M) BECAUSE WATER IS A SCARCE
2. FROM LAS 22:00 NO HOT WATER
3. 14:30 LUNCH HOURS
    21:00 DINNER HOURS
4. INTERNET HOURS 9AM TO 12 MIDNIGHT. DOWNLOAD THE MOVIES AND FORBIDDEN BY INTERNET (I am virtually certain than Hana and I inspired this rule because it definitely wasn't on the list when we were there HAHAHAH)
5. THANK YOU AND HOPE YOU FIND YOUR HOME IN AS.

After, I chatted with them, as usual, they fed me lunch! Paco made a delicious salad with shrimp and some other sort of worm-like fish with a vinaigrette type dressing, and Maricruz fried some fish and an egg for me. For dessert, we had delicious brownie-like cakes with warm chocolate syrup...it was like a mini version of the molten or whatever it's called at Chili's. You'd think I'd know what it's called after how many times we went to Chili's on volleyball trips hahaha--I guess it's because I never looked at the menu since I had it memorized...or maybe because we always got Chili's To-Go bahahah!

After lunch, Paco generously offered to take me to the bus station on his moto so I wouldn't have to walk carrying all my things! I LOVE my padres españoles (Spanish parents)! They treat me like I'm one of their own kids!

Once again, I didn't sleep a wink on the bus ride back since it's such a pretty ride. I got some really good pictures this time! Here are a FEW. Sorry you can't really see all the detail since the pictures are so small, but I'll put them in my album on facebook soon, which you can access via this LINK.

This either is or is near Velez-Málaga

Gorgeous...not sure what they're growing though

The girl sitting in front of me was eating a tomato like it was an apple. SICK.

Castle like building (probably an Alcazaba or fort) up on a hill

preciosaaa

To conclude this entry, I'm just going to include a section of RANDOM THOUGHTS because I've been working on this entry for wayyy too long and I don't feel like trying to tie all these scatterbrained ideas together nicely...

• There were 2 earthquakes here in Almería last week. One was at 6something in the morning (I was sleeping) and the other at 1something in the afternoon (I was in Rioja at school). I didn't feel either one even though they registered at 3.6 and 4.1 on the Richter scale (according to wikipedia, these usually cause "noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises. Significant damage unlikely").
• I see the people from the Oficina de Extrajería EVERYWHERE! It's like they're following me and mocking the fact that 1. I still don't have my TIE and 2. I have had to spend so much time in that horrible place
• Whenever I write a word on the board in capital letters, no one recognizes my G's...not even the teachers. They literally have no idea what letter it's supposed to be even though the only difference is that I extend the the line from inside the G back down to the bottom of the letter.
  
• Ricky, when I was going with Paco by motorcyle to the bus station, we both had to put on helmets. As he was putting his on, I noticed a familiar word written across the side of the helmet...CONDOR! Needless to say, with that helmet, it didn't take us long to get to the station. GO TEAM CONDOR! (if I'm still allowed to claim it that is...)
  
• If anyone has easy Thanksgiving recipes for me, PLEASE share! They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here (obviously), but my roommates want to have and American Thanksgiving dinner. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated...send them to alizeineldin@gmail.com (Mom, I need that recipe for the cheesy cornbread casserole! My faveee!)
  
• Since there is no Thanksgiving here, they start decorating for Christmas even earlier than in the US. Literally the day after Halloween, they were putting up X-mas stuff. Ridiculous. The decorations aren't quite as extensive...or at least not yet. 

Finally, I'm done with this entry. Sorry it's so long! I promise the next update will come sooner!