Birthday party in the country

Today was the 28th birthday of Noelia's little sister, Janet. To celebrate, we went to the summer house of their parents in Tamarite. They have a farm/orchard there where they grow lots of different foods, and I was lucky enough to get to try many of them. Right when we got there Jose brought over some Jujubes for me to try, which he had just picked from a tree. They were very good. The texture and taste was like an apple, but they are much smaller and have one seed inside them, kind of like the size of a cherry and cheery pit.

I had also had some toast with jam on it for breakfast, and the jam was from Cabell d'angel (angels hair squash) which Noelia's mother had made from squash in their garden at this house. It had a texture in it similar to shredded coconut, and was very sweet. I'll definitely be having this again tomorrow.

Janet, Jose and Noelia showed me around and introduced me to some other new fruits. Quince, a fruit that looks like a pear but is very bitter until cooked, was growing in trees all along the road to the house. I didn't get to taste this one.

Figs (higos) were growing on a tree near the driveway, so I got to pick some and eat them. I had never had a fresh fig before, only Fig Newtons (which do them no justice at all). If you've never had one... go find some and eat one. Or more. They are delicious. Very sweet, but not overly juicy. I had one after dinner for a dessert.

There were several sorts of olive trees on the farm too, and we brought some that had been pitted and canned (jarred?) home to try.

There were several nut trees there as well. Multiple almond trees, a walnut tree and a hazelnut tree. So of course I ate some of those too.

Add to this long list several pomegranate trees (which are called Granada in Spanish, and is where the name of the Spanish city came from). Lots of grape vines all over, too. Plus a veggie garden with eggplants, green beans, lettuces, leeks, asparagus, red bell peppers and tomatoes. Also, an herb garden. Seriously, this place was like a supermarket. I fell in love with it immediately, and with the whole family nearly as quickly as well.

Janet is the youngest of the girls in Noelia's family. Her boyfriend is Federico, and he is from Argentina. Sandra is the middle daughter and is married to Javi and they have two kids, Sara (2) and Raul (5). Noelia is the eldest daughter. Their parents are Laura (65) and Pablo (70), who are just about the most adorable couple I have ever met. Pablo's sister Pilar (75) was there as well. Laura was cooking up a storm, roasting peppers and eggplants over a fire outside, and then cooking snails, mushrooms, potatoes, and asparagus inside. Federico was also cooking, roasting a quarter of a lamb over a fire outside for all the meat eaters (so... everyone but me).

Once all the food was done we went in to the house and had dinner. I sat by Avril; we are already nearly attached at the hip. She is such a sweetie. I ate my delicious dinner, then watched everyone else enjoy the lamb. After dinner we all sang happy birthday to Janet as they brought out an apple with candles in it, then a pastry with candles in it, then another pastry with a firework in it. It was amusing to see the look on Janet's face as each one came out, getting more and more impressive. It was puff pastry with dried fruits and nuts on it. Yum!

After dinner we chatted for awhile, and I introduced everyone to my craftiness by knitting. They were all interested in it, because not many people here knit. Then when it was time to leave, Pablo and Laura packed up loads of food for us to take with us. It was like going to Sam's Club, but free. I was excited to see we were bringing back figs and jujubes with us. We had a crate, and two Ikea bags full of food.

Before we headed back to Lleida, we stopped a couple miles away at Jose's parents apartment. They are named Jose (70) and Josefa (65), but their family and friends call them Pepito and Pepita. We didn't stay there very long, but while we were there Noelia showed me pictures of a trip she and Jose had just taken, which the company one of them works for had paid for. I also taught Avril the actions for the "Cups" song, which she was super excited to learn. She showed me the song in Spanish too, which I didn't even know existed.

We went home after this and played around a bit. Avril was showing me the music video for chandelier and the girl does the splits, so I said "I can do that." She looked doubtful, so I did it. She and Alex were shocked, and immediately tried to do it too (not very successfully). Then Noelia and Jose came in and tried to touch their toes too, as well as a couple other bendy things. Noelia was the closest, and could touch the ground a little, which she said was because she does yoga. Avril was nowhere near the ground, so I told her she should try yoga with her mom. Later we played a game where one person puts on a button down shirt backwards and only closes the top button, then someone else goes behind them and puts their arms through the shirt so it looks like they are the first person's arms. The most hilarious one was when Avril was the first person and Jose did her arms. Avril moved slippers with her hands too, to look like feet, and they did a Michael Jackson imitation, doing his moves. I almost cried I was laughing so hard.

We had dinner a bit later (I had squash and onion soup, which was awesome!), then watched some TV. While watching TV we played with some clay that the kids had, and I taught them how to make clay roses. I learned this years ago when I had been reading up on cake decorating, and things you can do with fondant.

Then... bedtime. I had a Skype video chat with Ryan for a little bit, which helped me feel a little more connected to my Minnesota life. Unfortunately, it is super late already, so I had to cut our chat short to finish up this blog post and head to bed. So... goodnight!

Here we go...

Where to begin...
I haven't had a post in awhile, so I didn't yet mention the wonderful party my big sis threw for me on Sep 12th. There was family, friends and cake. Definitely a success. Thanks again for that Kayla ;)

More current news: On Wednesday I spent my last night with my wonderful family. We went to Ciatti's, one of my favorite restaurants. It was also my farewell to dairy, as I am quitting it cold turkey, and I had fettuccine alfredo one last time. Plus some tiramisu. Mmmm...

Thursday morning I finished off my fettuccine, packed the last of my things and hopped in the car with mom and Ryan to head to the airport (after having a teary goodbye with my dad). Oddly, the directions the GPS gave us brought us to a maintenance hanger rather than where people go for flights, so we had to put in a new destination that was more specific (St. Paul international airport, terminal 1). We parked my car and headed in, and I handed off my keys to my mom, since I won't be needing them for a long time. I checked in to Air Canada and was super lucky because my checked bag ended up being exactly 50.0 lbs. Any more and I would have had a $100 fee, or would have had to take stuff out and hand it to mom to mail to me later.

Then came the hard part. I had to give my mom and Ryan hugs and say goodbye. That was super tough. Then I went into the security line (which was wonderfully short) and watched mom take a bunch of pictures of me with her silly wind up camera. Went through security and had my bag searched, because I had jars of wild rice soup mix in it that they were afraid may have been jam (god forbid...). I find this amusing, since I had been planning to pick up some Jim and Hazzy's Jam from Lana that morning to bring with, but figured I couldn't fit it in my checked bag and knew I couldn't bring that much on the plane in my carry on. Guess I was right on both counts.

I sat at the terminal and waited for the plane for a little over an hour, at which time I finally called Family Mobile to cancel my phone service while I'm gone. Unfortunately I won't be able to keep my old phone number when I get back. Oh well.

My first flight was to Toronto. The plane boarded, and I got a row to myself. Plus, the seats all had little touch screens to watch movies on for free. I picked How to Train Your Dragon 2, since I had wanted to see it in theaters earlier this summer (glad I didn't.... it was good, but not worth the $10 they charge at Parkwood). The ride was around a hour and 45 min. Then I had a walk through the Toronto airport to my next flight (to Barcelona), which boarded about a half hour later. I was sad to see that this plane didn't have the little screens. They had ipads with movies you could rent, but I didn't want to pay for that so I just read an ebook on my ipad and tried to sleep. The sleep part didn't go so well, as I only got about a hour of sleep the whole flight (about 8 hours). The food was quite good though. I had called on Wednesday and requested a vegetarian meal. Better yet, it ended up being vegan. Curried tofu, steamed veggies in an Italian vinaigrette, a whole wheat roll, and an organic vegan chocolate chip cookie. I was served before everyone else too, which was nice. My breakfast was vegan too, with a raisin bagel (also served first). The flight attendant was even nice enough to fill my big water bottle for me.

I landed in Barcelona around 10:20am, local time (around 3:20am St. Cloud time). I went through a line where we had to show our passports and get them stamped, which went really quickly since they didn't ask questions or anything. They just checked the passport and stamped. They didn't even look at the visa, which made me feel a little cheated, after all I went through to get it.

I went to baggage claim and loved how my black and white polka dot bag stood right out, so I was able to grab and go quickly. I went through the final gate and saw a horde of people with signs waiting for passengers. Before long, I found the ladies with the CAPs bags and connected with my group. We sat around for a couple hours waiting for more people to get there before being loaded onto a bus and brought to a lovely place to stay the night, called Marti-Codolar (http://www.marti-codolar.net/index.asp).

We checked in, got rooms (2 people per room - I roomed with a girl named Danielle, from Miami, who I met at the airport and had made friends with), had a snack (salad, apples and biscuits) and mingled for awhile. I went to the room after awhile because I was so tired that I felt dizzy, and had a nap for about 2 hours. Then we had dinner (I took salad, couscous, a pear, and some steamed spinach with chickpeas - YUM!) and mingled some more before heading to bed. I'll tell you... those beds were so freaking comfy! It was like a giant squishy foam pillow. I slept quite well. We went to bed around 11pm, and woke up at about 7:45am. It was weird for me to be up so early and feel well rested. We packed up our stuff, brought it down to the main floor and went up for breakfast. I had a couple croissants and strawberry jam. I guess that means I had dairy, since there is butter in croissants.... oops. Oh well, one last thing won't kill me ;)

(me and Danielle)

More mingling... then our families came to get us. At around 12:40 my family came. They are wonderful! The parents are Jose and Noelia, and their kids are Avril (11) and Alex (8). They asked if there was anything I wanted to see in Barcelona that day and I mentioned how much I love Antoni Gaudi, and would love to see some of his architecture. Not only did I get to see something Gaudi... I got to see the Familia Sagrada! It's like the mecca of Gaudi! I couldn't believe I was actually there, walking right next to it. They said we didn't have time to take the tour inside, but that we could come back some other time. We walked all the way around the church, to see it from all angles. It's very obvious which parts are the newer parts and which are Gaudi's original creations, but all of it was lovely. Gaudi's part, though, took my breath away. Noelia even bought us each a strawberry frozen fruit pushup.

On our way to lunch, we also drove past the Casa Batllo. My pics are lacking... so I'll add one from the internet.

 

We also saw these cool street lamps/benches that were inspired by Gaudi and were all over the place.

We went down the most touristy party of Barcelona and turned off down a little alley that lead to the restaurant we were headed to. Noelia's younger sister lives in Barcelona and recommended the place to her. It was called Biocenter, and has a completely vegetarian menu. Many vegan foods as well.

I had heard that they have larger lunches here and smaller dinners, but I was still surprised at how much food we got. For less than 10 euros each, we each had all access salad bar, a main meal and a dessert. I think it was the best vegan experience I've had yet! The home made dressing at the salad bar was delicious (don't ask me what was in it, I haven't a clue). Then I had breaded seitan with a dressing on it with mashed potatoes, followed by a banana torte dessert with coconut shavings on top. I was stuffed!

After lunch we wandered around the shopping area a bit and they showed me the Boqueria market. There were several fruits I had never seen before and had to ask what they were. I would have bought some, but Noelia told me not to... because tomorrow we are going to her sister's birthday party at their parent's house in the country, where he has a huge farm/orchard with nearly every fruit and veggie you can imagine. Can this get any better? I'm excited to pick and eat some figs, since I've never had a fresh one before, and she says they're currently in season and ready to pick. They did buy some candies for the kids though, and a chocolate covered cherry for me.

On the way back we passed this fountain that seemed tiny and unimportant... but apparently it is La Rambla Drinking Fountain (http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/ramblas/ramblas-drinking-fountain.html) which is supposed to be lucky, and all the soccer players come and celebrate when they win a game by drinking from it. It also has a superstition that if you drink from it you will return to Barcelona. I didn't know that until later, so I didn't drink. Maybe I should have ;)

After that, we drove home to Lerida (Lleida in Catalan) and saw these beautiful mountains on the way. They were the Montserrat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montserrat_(mountain) and were gorgeous! Noelia told me there is a monastery in the middle of the mountains as well.

Then we arrived in Lleida and I was surprised at how quiet it was. The city has around 140,000 inhabitants, and yet it felt nearly empty. They brought me up to my new home and showed me around. Avril is kind enough to let me have her room while I am here, and she is sharing with Alex. She also gave me this cute elephant coin purse, made in Cataluña.

It is a lovely apartment, and (get this...) I get a bathtub! It is longer and deeper than American tubs too, so I actually fit in it and can cover my whole body at once! I bathed later and thoroughly enjoyed this (and the fact that I was finally clean again). We went on a stroll around the area and they showed me the school the kids go to and where I'll be teaching. It looks lovely. We stopped at a grocery store on the way back so I could see what they all have available, and so they could buy some bread. We also stopped at an Asian discount store, which I was happy to see had jersey fabric yarn for sale for crazy low price. It's usually about $20-30 a skein in the US, and was only 2 pounds here. I may need to go take advantage of that later.

We came home and I unpacked while Avril took a shower and Jose and Alex went to buy him some school supplies. Oh, btw.... I don't have to work Monday! It's a city holiday, so there is no school. Sweet! Then we all plopped down by the TV and I started knitting, which grabbed everyone's attention. So I also, then, took out my spindles and yarn to show them. The kids really were interested in this. Alex even jumped up and asked questions and touched the wool, which made me happy since he had been really shy all day. Avril is very sweet and confident. She is very eager to learn and loves practicing English with me. Jose and Noelia speak some English as well, but not as much as Avril. They are going to speak to me in Spanish (castillano) and Catalan as well so I can learn more.

Around 9:30-10 we had dinner. The Jose, Noelia and I had salad and avocados and the kids had fish and fries. Apparently they really don't like salad. I had figured that out when we had lunch and neither of them took any at all. We watched TV a bit more after dinner and I knitted as well. Then it was time for the kids to head to bed, and for me to plop down and start typing all of this out. Man... did all that really happen in just two days? Jeez. If it keeps going at this rate time will fly right by and I'll be home in no time.

And now.... to bed.

Visa!

My visa came last Wednesday! 19 days from my appointment. Considering they said it would take 4-5 weeks and it came in less than three, that's pretty awesome! So, I have my visa, I have my ticket, Friday is my last day of work at my current job... It's really happening!