Thanksgiving

I attended my first ever Thanksgiving dinner this Sunday and it definitely didn't disappoint. We all brought different dishes pot-luck style and created a feast.

Our multinational team of aupairs was able to whip up dishes from all around the world, adapted to Spanish conditions. Mulled cider became delicious mulled beer, spices were swapped and tiramisu ingredients improvised all to great success.

The eating part of the mission was accomplished in style and it was so nice to be able to share a big family meal with new friends.

I reckon it's always good to have an excuse to look at look at your life and think of what you're thankful for and I've come up with a few for life in Spain.

Teaching comedy:

The intermediate class we have been teaching for our course are mainly middle-aged women with an intrepid man in the mix. Their discussions tend to be very entertaining and quickly escalate as more get involved in the debate. I really enjoy the Spanish habit to default to anglicising a Spanish word when they hazard a guess that the English equivalent is similar. Many of our words that derive from Latin like velocity, exigent, circumstance are both very similar and common in Spanish whereas we often think them too formal for everyday speech. This creates a surreal situation of a class giving speeches scattered with very formal words, despite the general language being a bit hit and miss.

Looking over the city from the teaching room

Last week the poor man bravely used the sentence 'I frequently eat foreign food' in an interview with his partner about their lives using adverbs of frequency. His partner proudly reported the sentence to me in a class discussion so I asked him what type of foreign food he was partial to. At this point I thought we had a situation of extreme misunderstanding as he looked completely panicked and was silent for a bit before admitting he'd lied. He looked so distraught the whole class burst out laughing.

This catnap was both premature and unhelpful as I tried to work

Siestas:

I've fully embraced the siesta tradition in it's home country and even explained our equivalent of a nap to the grandparents who immediately made the connection with catnap. The unexpected understanding was due to them learning it that morning in their learning English TV programme which presumably teaches them such essential expressions like catnap and recently 'it's completely out of the question'. Their level of English isn't very high so when I go over the notes they've taken from the programme it's very entertaining and I've no idea how they're using their new found knowledge each week.

I've copied the twenty minute siesta after lunch from the host mum and it's working a treat. I get woken up with 'I'm getting a coffee!' at top volume from the mum which also wakes the cat up who's moved into my room for the afternoons. Catnap complete, we're all ready to face the afternoon.

Living by the sea:

I'm really enjoying walking or running by the sea at least once a day. My whole life over here involves talking and being sociable so I'm appreciating being able to switch off and go for a run. If I go with the dog I always get collared by another dog walker and have the same conversation about the dogs' ages and the obligatory compliments-even if it's a horrible little fur ball. I can now have most of this conversation in Catalan on autopilot and I've learnt to keep the headphones in and power forward if I'm not feeling sociable. I was given a very throrough description of a day in the life of one man's Jack Russel that I didn't really feel that it enlightened me too much. The coast is really pretty and even makes the packed commuter train at the crack of dawn (8ish) an almost picturesque experience.

Family entertainment:

Living with another family, especially with the added bonus of a language barrier, provides daily amusement. I think the grandparents think I'm slightly unhinged with the frequent little misunderstandings we have, and even more unhinged when we have fully understood each other. We had a particularly confusing conversation about a famous British shoe brand the other day which ended when I finally recognised that they were saying Clarks when the grandfather whipped his shoes off with a flourish and showed me. 

The logic of a ten year old boy has not been on top form for him recently. He made the mistake of adding salt to his paella before tasting it, I let him as I'd told him it didn't need any salt and reasoned you learn best from experience. The remedy was apparently then to add sugar to the concoction. The grandfather then decided to have a random and long-awaited crackdown on eating the whole plate of food which resulted in an entertaining battle.

The ban on video games for the boy has provoked a new found interest in board games. I got quite excited when scrabble was unveiled as I might have a chance of winning for the first time ever rather than a never-ending string of defeats at the hands of my family members who can actually spell. I'm currently putting off some nudges from my all-conquering auntie on Words with Friends as I can't face the disappointment. However my excitement didn't last long as Disney monopoly was brought to the table. Some pretty maverick rules were introduced, not helped by the fact that he insisted on reading all my cards because they were in Spanish. However because he wants to prolong the game as long as possible I've already been given a pass after being close to bankruptcy after landing on his castle which was quite cute.

Life Abroad:

At times it's easy to forget to continue to make the most of being abroad and keep exploring. I think hunting down the next food and drinks stop definitely counts as exploring, especially as my inability to use google maps on my phone usually turns the trip into a mission. We had a very classy tapas evening in the city which included the unexpected bonus of a chocolate martini called Sharon Stone.

Sunshine:

I may have recently invested in an over the top scarf because it's finally consistently below 20'c but even my hyperchondriac tendencies when it comes to the weather will admit it's not that cold and the sun usually makes a detirmined appearance. Fresh from a university experience in the North of England, this is very welcome!