So the Spanish day is a little different than your typical day in the U.S. We wake up later, eat a little breakfast, then we have a big lunch later around 2pm (and siesta!), and we eat dinner very late, around 9pm. Then after dinner the night really begins! Everything is super laid-back and chill. Since we haven't really started classes yet, it seems like every day when we decide to meet up after lunch to do something, we end up sitting at a bar just eating tapas and talking for a few hours! It's great.
The food here has been fantastic so far. Funny story: I was a vegetarian for 2 years, and I started eating meat again a few months ago, because I wanted to be able to try all of the food here... it turns out mi madre española is a vegetarian! So she still makes me chicken every once and a while (and it's great), but we don't have meat for every meal, and that's totally fine with me! We've had a lot of soups: lentil soup, a soup with giant beans, gazpacho. Also an egg-mushroom stir fry thing that was great, and a rice-mushroom thing that I also liked... and I don't really like mushrooms. And we have bread pretty much with every meal.
Marzipan is a specialty here, and I tried my first marzipan of Toledo the other day (and another piece today), and it is SO GOOD. I've had marzipan before, but it was with chocolate from Gail Ambrosius. I wasn't sure how plain marzipan would be, but it is fantastico. (Also, I brought a box of Gail's chocolate as a host gift, mi madre LOVED IT, 6-piece box was gone in days!)
Mamen, my host mom, is great! It's just me and Mamen (many students live with families and kids), but we live in the city, which is super convenient. I don't have to take a bus to school, I can just walk! The hardest part is probably the communication: I understand a lot of what she says, but she talks a lot, and quite fast and I often need her to repeat things. Then I respond with one carefully structured sentence, and she continues talking! It's hard, but she's very patient with me, I've already learned a ton, and my spanish is going to get so much better. On my third night here, my host mom took me to a get-together at the uber-classy hotel where she works. It was some sort of drink-tasting for a new type of Schweppes, so I got to dress up, have un gintonic and meet all of her friends! I was nervous to talk with other spanish-speakers, but they were all super nice and talked quite slowly for me! The next day, when a bunch of us students were out exploring Toledo, we ended up at the hotel, and my host mom bought us all drinks!
I'm starting to get the hang of the city as well. Almost every day I've gone on a walk to explore new streets, new stores, etc., and every day it gets easier to find my way around! And of course it doesn't hurt that everything here is old and beautiful! It's so fun to just walk around and look at all the cool buildings! They are amazing!
The food here has been fantastic so far. Funny story: I was a vegetarian for 2 years, and I started eating meat again a few months ago, because I wanted to be able to try all of the food here... it turns out mi madre española is a vegetarian! So she still makes me chicken every once and a while (and it's great), but we don't have meat for every meal, and that's totally fine with me! We've had a lot of soups: lentil soup, a soup with giant beans, gazpacho. Also an egg-mushroom stir fry thing that was great, and a rice-mushroom thing that I also liked... and I don't really like mushrooms. And we have bread pretty much with every meal.
Marzipan is a specialty here, and I tried my first marzipan of Toledo the other day (and another piece today), and it is SO GOOD. I've had marzipan before, but it was with chocolate from Gail Ambrosius. I wasn't sure how plain marzipan would be, but it is fantastico. (Also, I brought a box of Gail's chocolate as a host gift, mi madre LOVED IT, 6-piece box was gone in days!)
Mamen, my host mom, is great! It's just me and Mamen (many students live with families and kids), but we live in the city, which is super convenient. I don't have to take a bus to school, I can just walk! The hardest part is probably the communication: I understand a lot of what she says, but she talks a lot, and quite fast and I often need her to repeat things. Then I respond with one carefully structured sentence, and she continues talking! It's hard, but she's very patient with me, I've already learned a ton, and my spanish is going to get so much better. On my third night here, my host mom took me to a get-together at the uber-classy hotel where she works. It was some sort of drink-tasting for a new type of Schweppes, so I got to dress up, have un gintonic and meet all of her friends! I was nervous to talk with other spanish-speakers, but they were all super nice and talked quite slowly for me! The next day, when a bunch of us students were out exploring Toledo, we ended up at the hotel, and my host mom bought us all drinks!
I'm starting to get the hang of the city as well. Almost every day I've gone on a walk to explore new streets, new stores, etc., and every day it gets easier to find my way around! And of course it doesn't hurt that everything here is old and beautiful! It's so fun to just walk around and look at all the cool buildings! They are amazing!
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| Take a look at that cathedral! |
don't worry Hannah, I'm sure your meat-eating practice will come in handy when you dine at the ham museum tomorrow!
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