[Almost] Wordless Wednesdays 3/14

"Springtime Spirit" - Munich, Germany

While I know it is somewhat late for a Christmas-y photo, the colorful, fresh produce does tie it into Springtime a little bit. Incase I do not get around to posting my December puentes, I wanted to share a small sample of Germany's Christmas Markets. With how warm the temperatures are beginning to get here, I am not sure I will find much motivation to post cold weather pictures after this week. 

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

I may have celebrated Thanksgiving more this year than any year in the past, which is ironic since I was not on American turf. Granted, my celebrations were a bit different, and it was my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Luckily, I had some good friends to celebrate with here so I was not lonely on a holiday centered around spending time with good company!

Thanksgiving Dinner

Thanksgiving #1 - Dinner with other auxiliares/expats!
My roommates and I hosted a Thanksgiving feast in our piso for dinner on Thursday. Since our piso has both an oven & a large table, we cooked the chicken here. (No, I do not mean the turkey. It is tough to find turkey here, and if you want a whole one, it must be ordered weeks in advance from what I have gathered, so we settled for baking 2 chickens instead.) There were 11 of us & everyone brought a dish. We had mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, salad, rolls, a jello dish (family tradition of one of the auxiliares, kind of our substitute for cranberry sauce), apple pie, and a couple other desserts.

The rest of our group

Thanksgiving #2 - Skyping with my family!
It was really fun to be able to see and chat with not only my parents and siblings, but also my aunt, uncle, and cousins! It made me feel not so far away to talk and joke around with them for 30 minutes. Definitely made it feel more like a holiday as well.

My family on Thanksgiving last year - miss you all so much!

Thanksgiving #3 - Cooking a Thanksgiving meal for a few of the Spaniards in Mérida
On Sunday Angela and I cooked another traditional thanksgiving meal for her host family and a few other guests. It came out really well, and they seemed to enjoy it. The menu was very similar, but we added homemade stuffing this time. It turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. I was very proud of our cooking skills because we only partially used a recipe, then just invented the rest. (We used bread, celery, celery leaves, onions, garlic, chicken stock, and quite a few spices & herbs.) I stayed around to hangout for several hours after the meal, it was a great time to just relax & enjoy each other's company.

Part of our improvised Thankgiving dinner

I have been cooking from scratch way more than any other time in the past. It's not as intimidating as I once thought, and I usually end up like the food more than the quick things I would make back home.

Another homemade success! 

Halloween in Spain

Several people have asked about Halloween over here, so here's a bit of an explanation: Halloween is becoming more and more popular in Europe, especially in the larger cities. It still is not hugely celebrated, but most of the students learn about it in their English classes.

Some of my students had made pretty neat crafts earlier in the week that they presented on my day with their class

Over here, they focus only on the scary side of Halloween & not on how creative it can be. If they dress up (like for a festival, there is not trick-or-treating here), it is only as a vampire, witch, ghost, spider, etc. My students (and some of the teachers) were surprised to hear that it is also very popular to wear costumes of princesses, celebrities, animals, movie characters, etc. 

Besides scary costumes, the other thing associated with the holiday is Michael Jackson's song "Thriller." I was in Sevilla on Halloween; while at The Festival of the Nations the song was played on repeat throughout the short Halloween performance that was incorporated into the festival. 

November 1st is a holiday here, not October 31st, and it's called All Saints Day. So, no school/work on Tuesday Nov. 1 means Monday Oct. 31 was a puente! (puente=bridge: when a holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, they automatically turn it into a long weekend! Awesome concept, I wish America would follow suit!) This also made the 31st a popular night to go out with friends even though it was a Monday, regardless of whether the Spaniards were celebrating Halloween. A few bars had decorations and one offered a drink special, but otherwise it was just a normal night. There were more people in costumes than I expected, but most of them were study abroad students. 

My friends and I contemplated wearing our newly purchased Venetian masks