PRESHCO Thanksgiving

So this year was my first Thanksgiving without any of my family members. PRESHCO organized a big dinner at this restaurant called Casa Rubio, which is this nicer restaurant right near the Facultad. I was definitely looking forward to the dinner because even though it wouldn't be the same without my family, at least it would be a big dinner with all my Preshquitos. As I expected, I had a lovely time. When we arrived, on each of our plates was a flower wrapped in a piece of paper, which turned out to be the menu for the evening.

The first thing they brought out was fried shrimp, or as my friend Will kept saying, popcorn shrimp. He kept joking that they got them from a bucket from some fast food place. The second dish that arrived was fried eggplant with honey. Now THAT was tasty. Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was a basket of bread that I believe they refilled twice. And this bread was like hard rolls where you break it open and it's soft inside. My friends Pedro and Will seemed to make it there responsibility to keep passing me the bread when it would arrive to the table. It's important to have good friends with you at big meals :) After the eggplant they brought out a plate of vegetables, which was fine, but at that point we were all ready for the turkey.

The turkey dish then came out, served with sweet potatoes, nuts, and some sort of dried fruit all covered in gravy. It was very good. Not the same of course, but I'm grateful that we even got a Thanksgiving meal, considering we're in Spain.

This is my plate after I've eaten everything. Naturally I was so excited for the food that I forgot to take a photo BEFORE eating it. I've never been known for my patience when it comes to food. My host parents joke about it because at every single meal I burn my tongue because I never wait for it to cool.

After the turkey they brought in this pumpkin tort thing. It looked pretty cool. Unfortunately it didn't taste like pumpkin pie at all. I don't think it was sweet enough, but I appreciated the effort. If nothing else, it was very pretty to look at.

After the dessert, they surprised us with a singing group I believe from the Universidad de Cordoba's agronomy school, or something like that. Anyways they were dressed in the typical Spanish attire, and played various famous Spanish songs. I REALLY wish I knew the words to the songs so that I could look them up later. Especially since now I can recognize the songs, I just can't usually catch too many of the words. They also do this hilarious toast that I only caught a few of the words. I would really love to know the whole things. One guy would lead the toast and all the rest of the group would chime in at different parts. I think one line went something like this: "We drink so that-" "WE SLEEP" "And we sleep so that-" "WE DON'T SIN" "And we don't sin-" "SO WE GO TO HEAVEN" "And so to go to heaven-" "WE DRINK MORE" I personally got a kick out of that. I wish I knew all of it.

After we sat and listened to them a bit, everyone started getting up and dancing. Now I must say, at this point in the evening, the waiters had been filling up everyone's wine glasses for about 3 hours now. I myself don't like wine unless it's tinto de verano (which means it's about half filled up with soda), so I just got to enjoy everyone else clearly being intoxicated out of their minds. My 21st birthday is going to be boring to say the least. Not to say that I didn't get up and dance with everyone else. It was a lot of fun, definitely. This is something I will miss about Spain. Among many other things, but I'm saving that for one of my last blog posts.

After the Thanksgiving dinner was over I went out with a group of friends to a bar called Templarios. It was this medieval themed bar, which is SO up my alley. Medieval Studies major + Medieval themed bar = Unimaginable happiness. Of course, I still didn't drink anything there, but I just absorbed the awesome decorations that surrounded me. I hope I can find that place again. I'll just go sit there and allow myself to be amazed.

Pretty sweet right?!! I mean, this bar did not skimp on the decorations. When my friend first told me about it I thought it was going to be some lame effortless attempt at medieval decor, but no, this was legit!

 Now, I had the flash on for all of these photos, so you don't get to really experience the mood of the place. It was dark with green overhead lights. So it was eery too!! There was a downstairs area that was lit with green and red overhead lights, and the downstairs was decorated in a sort of forest theme, with a little fake creek, and all the columns were decorated as trees, with leaves covering the walls. It was SO COOL.

Well, now that Thanksgiving is over, it means that I can officially break out the Christmas music!!! Guess who has been listening to Josh Groban's Christmas songs all morning?! That's right, me. I love his Christmas album. His voice makes me want to cry sometimes. And now I only have 3 weeks and 3 days until I leave Spain. I am definitely ready to be home, but I will miss it here too.

Culture Clash over Economics

Now don't worry, I know the title of this post sounds ominous, but nothing bad occurred in this "culture clash." Not even a debate. This entry is merely going to be my reflection over an interesting exchange that happened between my History of Photography professor and one of my fellow Preshquitos. We were discussing themes for our final photo project, when my classmate presented her idea of doing her project about her fear of being poor. This idea didn't strike me as strange in the least. We all have our fears. Personally I fear death, flying, and Gollum from Lord of the Rings. What has prompted me to post now, a day after the incident, was our professor's response. He immediately responded with,
        "Well that's an irrational fear."
All of us (there were about 6/7 of us in this tutoring session) just sat there in awkward silence. I mean, my fear of Gollum could definitely be called irrational. He's a fictional character for heaven's sake. And my mother has called my fear of flying irrational, although I beg to differ on that point. However, never would I have described the fear of poverty as being irrational. Hard times can come on anyone. He eventually followed that up with, "You'll have a degree from a good university, there's no way you will end up on the streets." Now, I'm guessing he hasn't heard/disregards the common phrase describing liberal arts majors living in a box. However, ignoring all the people we currently know who can't find jobs after graduating, his point isn't completely out there. None of the jobless college graduates that I've heard of are living on the streets. What struck me most was the next thing he said. He said, "What's the unemployment rate in the US? 7%? 8%? Well here it is 30%." We all just sat there kind of stunned. I wonder if he thinks we're all spoiled Americans, complaining about unemployment in our country when Spain is struggling so much more. It was definitely a wake up call to me. Here in our country people are ragging on Obama and talking about how bad our economy is, and people are struggling, I know. But in Spain almost a third of the population is unemployed. More than 3 times the percentage of our country that is unemployed.


     I guess one benefit of spending this semester in Spain is learning the skill of keeping things in perspective. Sometimes I think a lot of us in the US become so focused on our own problems that we forget that other countries have it off worse. Or even that some country's are doing things better than we are. I am guilty of this myself. I didn't even know the basics of Spain's political system, whereas my host family knew all about our election, the situation in the House of Representatives, and many of the details of past elections. They don't know the intricacies of our system, but they still knew way more than I did. That's definitely something I should work to improve when I get back home. Got to try and be more aware.

US Election 2012

Last night I stayed up till close to 7am with a group of us PRESHCO students to watch the presidential election. It was the first election I was eligible to vote in, and I sent in my absentee ballot as soon as I received it in the mail. My beloved home state of Oregon delivered for the democratic candidate, once again. Might as well call her old faithful. I was looking back at Oregon's voting history and what I love is we've been voting Democrat for 30 or so years, and the last time we voted Republican was back when the Republican party was more aligned with the modern day Democratic party.

Even though we were in Spain, and missed out on being in the US for all the celebration, I had a wonderful election party with my Preshquitos. Lots of food and talk and waiting with baited breath for the next projection to appear on CNN. It's kind of been nice being in Spain since we haven't had to deal with the constant barrage of advertisements insulting both candidates. I was on such an adrenaline high throughout the night that the hours seemed to fly by, and sleep remained the furthest thing from my mind. I contributed to the re election of President Barack Obama.

I do have to add that I am impressed with how well informed all the Spaniards are about the political process and current events of the US. My host parents knew the names of both candidates, their political parties, and they understood the current problem we're having in the House of Representatives where the Republicans are shooting down all the changes Obama tries to make. I could not have answered even the most basic question about Spain's political system. Guess I'm perpetuating that stereotype about Americans being more focused on what happens in their own country than anything else....I was ashamed. But even this can't bring me down from my high. I am proud to be a member of a country lead by Barack Obama. All I have to say now is....Clinton 2016 :)

Valencia

All Saint's day (aka November 1st) is a national holiday in Spain, so this weekend was a 4 day weekend for everyone here. To celebrate this, I went to Valencia with two of my friends from the PRESHCO group. I don't know what I was expecting from the city, but overall I enjoyed my time there. It was surprising how quiet everything was. You'd be walking around right at the lunch hour, and there would be very few people on the streets. My Frommer's guide book made a point about Valencia being overshadowed by the other cities in Spain, which I can completely understand. It has a cathedral, but not as grand as all the others. It has an "old city" but not as old as various parts of Cordoba. It was a nice place to relax for a few days, but I can understand why it doesn't even have its own section in the Rick Steve's guidebook.

I have to say, I love big markets. We found one in Valencia, and I think it may have been my favorite part of the trip. Even though they had pig heads and rabbit bodies just sitting in the cases...:( And a guy was killing the eels in front of everyone. People seem to be made of sterner stuff here in Spain. It made me kind of sad. But I loved looking at all the seafood, meat, and vegetables. I don't know why. I guess I enjoy the energy in the atmosphere of a food market.

I've returned to Cordoba now, and so ends probably the only trip I will take during my time here in Spain. I can't honestly say that I'm disappointed about that. Traveling causes enormous amounts of stress for me, and I like being at my home base. Someday I'll get myself to the UK. Just not now it would seem.