NO ME FALLES, YO NUNCA TE HE FALLADO

Sunday morning I went to my very first live football match (soccer game for my Americans readers). I was very excited to see what happens at a spanish sporting event. Americans take their tailgating pretty seriously, myself included, but unfortunately this tradition hasn’t quite made it across the pond. There is of course a bit of “pregaming”, beers and disgustingly fattening food is sold and consumed at trucks surrounding the stadium.

I was told that this game was not the complete experience because it was at noon on Sunday, instead of later in the day. Apparently, as I’ve previously experienced since I’ve been here, the Spanish are not morning people. And noon on Sunday is just too early for the beticos (Betis fans) to get going. The fans were pretty dead for the first half of the game, except the one section called aficionados (I think), who are comparable to bleacher creatures at Yankee Stadium. They were on their feet singing and cheering and cursing the whole game. Speaking of which, I learned a few new words during this game, none of which I are appropriate to repeat here.

By the second half, people had woken up a little more, or recovered from their hangover from the night before, and the crowd livened up a bit. The game also got a little more interesting. Real sociedad (the bad guys) had two goals and Betis had none. In my opinion, Betis was controlling the game just couldn’t get the ball in the net. But what do I know about soccer.

Finally, Betis scored two goals to tie the game and everyone was going crazy. Did I mention they haven’t won a game in the past 8 games? Well they haven’t, so this was an exciting opportunity for them. It appeared as though they would at least tie. But then in the very last minute, a real sociedad player launched the ball towards the Betis goal in a last ditch effort (is that the right phrase) to win the game, and miraculously the ball flew right over every Betis players’ head, including the goalie, and landed right in the net. It was a pretty incredible shot but I wish the bad guys did not score it. I was pretty sad to see Betis lose, everyone in the stadium just sat in their seats in awe/crying.

Go to 3:26 in this video if you want to see the shot.

poor betis:(

Even though they lost, I think I have officially been converted into a Betis fan. Te quiero Betis.

**side note—the name of this post is part of a song the beticos sing during the game. I cannot remember the rest of it for the life of me.

A Spanish Thanksgiving, Round Two

This year was technically the third time I’ve been in Spain for thanksgiving. Although it is an American holiday, not celebrated here, I have never let the day go by unrecognized. The first time I was in Barcelona and the family came to visit. Although we did not have anything close to a typical thanksgiving feast, it was nice to be surrounded by family—a very important part of the holiday. During my semester abroad in Madrid, I did not have family visiting, but I did make a delicious meal with my roommate Christina (she actually made most of it) and we had a little celebration in our home stay with Conchi, Louisa and some friends.

This year was a little different because I had to work all day on Thursday, at school and then tutoring. Even though I didn’t get home until 6pm, I still got to celebrate thanksgiving with a proper meal thanks to my roommate Chelsea and her mom who is here visiting. They spent most of the day cooking for us: stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. We bought some rotisserie chicken because we couldn’t find a turkey, nor would we have been able to cook one in our oven. For desert we had a delicious apple pie because pumpkin was just too hard to find. We also added a little Spanish flair with a tortilla española (potato omelet) and olives and bread. (only took one picture that doesn't properly capture the yumminess of the meal)

Although it wasn’t a typical thanksgiving, I still had a great day. At school we celebrated Fruit Day, Day against Violence, Children’s Day (everyday no?) and we even dedicated a small part of the day to discussing thanksgiving. I had to stand up in front of the whole school and speak to them, in Spanish, about the holiday. At first, I was pretty nervous to have to speak in front of so many people in Spanish, but I was glad I did it. One of the second grade classes did a cheer for me when I finished, so that made it all worth it.

I had a lot of fun at school yesterday. We got to eat fruit, yummy! (however, I was not happy about how many bananas I had to peel, yuck!) They were playing music (New York, New York when it was my turn to speak) and the kids, and some teachers, were dancing. There was also a nice moment when the students released balloons with an anti-violence ribbon on them into the sky. I don’t know exactly what the significance of that action was, but I suppose it had to do with the release of violence at the school and in the town.

Now I have the post-thanksgiving uffs. I had another plate full of leftovers for lunch, which I am really regretting. But it only happens once a year so why not enjoy it while you can!

After two consecutive weekends of travelling, I am looking forward to staying in Seville this weekend. Hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving day!

The Long Awaited Post

Ok my dear blog readers, here it is, my long awaited next blog post. It has been brought to my attention that it is no longer Halloween, and is in fact almost thanksgiving. So I apologize for not writing for so long and that you had to see “today was Halloween” for so long. I guess I’ve been kinda busy…or maybe just lazy. Many things have happened since Halloween but I don’t think they are the most interesting events to recount. I’ve picked up another private lesson, thank god! And yesterday, I started a new language exchange, or intercambio (I like that word better), with a Spanish girl named Isabel. She is really sweet and has already invited me to do a ton of things with her and her friends.

In the past two weekends I’ve taken two really fun trips. First I went to Arcos de la Frontera to visit a friend I made on my flight to Spain. Cece, the friend, kindly hosted me and three other Sevilla amigas in her awesome apartment that she has all to herself, and pays for it as much as I pay for my room... The price you pay to live in a city; although the price I pay would buy me one kitchen tile in NYC. En fin, Cece showed us around her lovely pueblo blanco, her very hilly pueblo blanco. At least I got some exercise, although at the time I wasn’t much enjoying the climb up and down the hills to get to her house. After seeing the old town, eating some delicious food, and hitting up the Friday morning market, we made our trek back to Sevilla. We had a fun night out on the town, and I met a few of Cece’s Spanish friends here, super fun.

After another busy week of doing I don’t know what, I went to Madrid for the weekend. It was sort of a spur of the moment decision, but I am SOOOOO happy I decided to go. It was great to be back. I stayed with my host mom from my semester abroad, Concha. She was and is so great. She gave up her room so that I could stay in it with a friend. Also, Concha and her sister Louisa cooked us almost every meal we had there. It was really nice to eat real meals three days in a row, however it did make my potato chip lunch on Monday that much worse.

In Madrid it was cold and rainy so I didn’t do that much sightseeing, plus I have already seen a lot of the sites. We did walk around a bit and eat chocolate con churros at the city’s famous San Gines. One night I went out to dinner with a girl, Marts, who coaches/plays for the girls’ lacrosse team in Madrid. After dinner she showed us around town a little. It was a really fun weekend. We didn’t get back into Seville until 11:30 Sunday night (after a miserable 6.5 hour bus ride) so needless to say, Monday was a difficult day for me.

This Thursday is thanksgiving, as most of you know. As an entirely American holiday, it is not celebrated at all here in Spain. I do have plans to eat thanksgiving dinner with some American friends so hopefully that will be fun, if we can find a turkey.