Chicken and Rice

This is my roommate Jaime and I. That nut you see there is from our first adventure to a town called Vitoria which I mentioned in my last message. I figured that I gave all of you a good background of why I came here and what I have been doing so far but I forgot to give information about my roommates! Jaime is 27 and hails from California. This is his 3rd time to Spain and his 2nd time here through this program teaching English. He is Mexican and is bilingual, so needless to say I point to him when strangers approach. Just joking, I am improving my Spanish a lot. Just yesterday I was hanging out with some local friends who don't speak English. After they said something to each other I realized that I understood almost everything they were talking about! Anyways, back to the Jaime and the chestnut. The reason we brought the chestnut back to our flat is because every time we go on a day trip somewhere, we are going to bring something back with us as a souvenir.

If I am going to be here for 8 months without a mother or a cafeteria, I am going to have to learn to cook, right? I was getting pretty tired of cereal and pb and j's every night, with the occasional exception of Annie cooking meals for Jaime and I. So i have decided to learn to cook! Since my skills are limited to oatmeal and the occasional cake(frequent phone calls included), I started off basic. My first meal was spaghetti, sounds easy, right? WRONG! Okay so I know how to cook the noodles, you fill the pan with water, put some oil in it and when it is boiling you add the noodles. Ready to eat when you throw a piece on the wall and it sticks, it works I swear! But the sauce, that is a different story. I had no idea how to cook it and was thinking of just adding some water to the 2 cans I bought from the store. But I had no idea therefore I waited for Annie to get home to show me. We diced and onion, a red pepper, added chicken stock, chicken bouillon, garlic powder, cream and cooking oil. Thank God I waited, I think her spaghetti tasted a little bit better than mine. I won't consider myself a spaghetti maker until I can accomplish it without her help.

         (Grandpa! I took this picture for you. It was the coolest car I could find at the Car Show in Vitoria.)

So I am sitting here in my living room writing the blog post, with my belly filled up with Special K Fruit cereal. It WAS supposed to be chicken and rice. The story behind that starts with my roommate Annie. She is a great cook from the Dominican Republic and is teaching me how to cook. Although it slipped her mind that we were cooking chicken and rice for dinner. I was enjoying the nice morning sun on my balcony when Annie tapped on the window, asking if I would like to eat some of her chicken and rice lunch. I blanched, saying that I had no idea she was cooking, but I would love some of it. I guess my cooking skills will have to wait for training until tomorrow night. If any of you readers have seen the movie Julie and Julia, you will know what I am talking about. She cooks 2-3 meals a day then publishes them in a blog. That is NOT what I am doing, I just happen to have a blog and am learning to cook at the same time. My meals will make their way in here of course, but not in too great of detail.

This is a picture that I took on a walk. As you can see Bilbao is BEAUTIFUL! I am so lucky to be here, although I am pretty sure the winter is going to suck. The kids tell me that it rains for 2 months straight and the river floods. I'm not sure whether to believe that it is that extreme here but if it is i'd better buy some rain boots. The gymnasiums around here rent out bikes for free for the day, so Jaime and I are going to go rent some for a day and explore our neighborhood of San Inazio and the surrounding landscape! Next time I update this blog i'll hopefully have pictures of my classes that I teach and maybe a picture of me without hair(???). Today I taught from 3-4:30, so a pretty relaxed day. And it only included 2 students, but they were both teachers that want to improve their English conversation skills. The reason that there are only 2 students in the class is because A) it is optional and B) because today was the first day, not too many teachers know about it yet. Hopefully more start coming, but i'd rather keep the amount of students down to about 15. Anymore that that and I won't be able to spend quality time with all them! With the two students today we talked about controversial subjects such as Barack Obama, Animal Experimentation and Household Guns. These topics were just designed to get them talking and use irregular vocabulary. After that we listened to songs on youtube that had lyrics. I chose "I can't wait to be king" from the Lion King and then we listened to Roxanne by The Police. After that it was time to call it a day, but a good day at that. They told my supervisor that I was "Dynamic" so she complimented me! Well I think I shall go and enjoy a chocolate croissant. Check back in a couple of days!!!