Churros con chocolate

First off, I need to say one thing:

HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY BEN!!!

I love you and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Ok, here we go...

Another day of Orientation Spanish class, but this time we learned about foods and gestures. We went through a bunch of different types of typical Spanish food and learned what they were. It was helpful, as sometimes translating the vocab on menus doesn't exactly tell you what they are. We also learned some phrases for restaurants. The gestures part was really interesting. Apparently, the American sign for crazy (circling finger pointed towards the temple) means to think. Or to say you don't have any money, you making a V with your index and middle fingers, point them towards your face, and move up and down a few times from your forward to the tip of your nose. Odd huh?

Afterwards Tina and I went to go finish the points for our Cultural Passport! On the way to getting some churros con chocolate, we made a detour for lunch...to the Bagel Shop! AMAZING. We found bagels in Spain. Bagel sandwiches, to be exact. SO yum. The entire time we sat there, saying, "This is SO GOOD." Amazing.

Then we got some churros con chocolate! The chocolate is like really really thick hot chocolate---not quite hot fudge, but still thicker than say, Hersheys. It was really really good, and goes well with cafe con leche. Scrumptious.

We came home and hung out for awhile. Caitlyn and I are trying to plan a trip to Paris for the first weekend of February! Exciting no? We think we found a reasonably priced flight but we might look around a little more. Then I took a nap. :-)

We had our first Spanish House activity tonight! We made an authentic Spanish dinner. The term "we" really included our RAs, Cristina and Pau, but we tried to help. It included tortilla de patatas (a type of Spanish omelette), patatas con pulpo (potatoes with octopus on top, native to Galicia), a selection of jamon iberico, chorizo and queso, and pan con tomate. SO GOOD. The pan con tomate especially, since we each made our own. For those of you who don't know, pan con tomate is a piece of toast bread (baguette) that is first rubbed with a garlic clove and then with a tomato. The point is to get the flavor and the juice into the bread. Then you drizzle olive oil and salt on top. That is it! You can also eat it with jamon or queso on top. SO yummers. Then we dug into some of my peanut butter and Tina's Nutella for dessert. :-)

Now we're just relaxing. I'm still tired from last night, and the big meal made me sleepy. The guys from upstairs might come down and we're all going to watch Planet Earth DVDs. Slumber party!

One more day in Barca and then on to Valencia on Friday!

Besitos