I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Ours was certainly different than ever before, but fun nonetheless. Doug promised we'd write about some of the crazy Catalán Chrismas traditions, as they are plenty, but we will get to those in a bit.
It's been nice to be so busy over the past week or so, so we have less time to miss being home. Last Thursday Hailey Carmichael, a friend from Dothan, came to visit for a few days before she went back to Alabama. She's teaching in Madrid for a year. One of her friends from Furman, Edward, has been travelling around Spain for six week studying its food. He goes to different regions to learn about their traditional techniques. We gladly had them over to cook dinner for us Friday night. We had rosemary hamburgers, sweet potato fries and grilled colchot onions with Romesco sauce, which was a nice change from canned tuna pasta and lentil soup.
Saturday night we had an impromptu Christmas party. Hailey and Edward were still here, and my friend Erin who lives in our neighborhood came over. Then Carrie, who was an Alpha Gam with me at Auburn and is living in Madrid, had a surprise layover here and showed up at our door. It was fun to have a little party since we knew it was going to be a quiet week.
I finished my lessons for the month last week and have been being extra lazy. Doug had a swim meet last Sunday after everyone left and swam great. Most of his team was at Spanish Championships in Madrid, which he can't yet legally compete in, so he was there with the younger kids. It was so crowded and I walked in right when he swam his first race, but could only see him leaving the blocks, and not again until he was back in the same spot. He told me his races would be an hour and a half apart, so I went and sat on the floor outside and read for a while. I heard people cheering, as they had done for his race earlier, but thought it couldn't be him. When I went in about an hour later, someone started to speak to me in German, because that's apparently what I look like to them. It was a nice change from Dutch, which is what everyone speaks to us when Doug is with me. They were asking if I was Doug Pai'l (because apparently the name Paul doesn't exist hereand Pablo doesn't go as well) Van Wie's "woman" and that he "swim like from other galaxy," whatever that means. They had all given him a standing ovation at each of his races. I even got ushered to the front and center, the lady excusing herself from pushing through be saying "la mujer de Duck Pai'l. la mujer de Duck Pai'l."
We went skiing in La Molina, up near France, on Christmas eve. Doug kept saying we'd feel more at home if we had a white Christmas, which I'm pretty sure he's from Charlotte and I'm from Dothan and neither of us have ever had a white Christmas, but it was fun anyway.
Doug snowboarded. Correction, Doug tried to snowboard for the first time. He did a lot of tumbling down the slopes, even right off of the ski lift, which is just impressive. I am certainly not a great skier, but would ski past him and then wait and wait and wait at the bottom and then just see this big poof of snow, which was Doug wiping out again. People from the ski lifts were looking down at him like "are you ok!?" But he'd get up without saying a word and try again, only to wipe out harder the next time. I have become increasingly paranoid since knowing Doug who will just chuck himself off anything. I just kept telling him to give up because we don't have Spanish medical insurance and had he ever heard of Sonny Bono?
He came back with only a broken phone and a broken watch, thank the Lord.
We took the afternoon bus back to Barcelona and went straight to the beach, just so we could say we had done both in one day.
Christmas night, amongst calls from my sisters rubbing in the great food they were having a home, we went to Zoe and Jay's house for a "proper English Christmas dinner." We had roast chicken, potatoes and parsnips, English peas, mashed potatoes and gravy, pigs in a blanket, cabbage and carrots.
Santa/Papa Noël even found us here! My mom sent us a package with stockings already stuffed to hang in our house and both our moms sent presents to put under the tree, so our little tree from the Chino wasn't so depressing.
Doug's favorite game to play is "let's not buy each other presents, we will just save the money for our month-long train trip and to go skiing. Oh look! I got you a present! Surprise!" So of course I didn't have anything to give him, but this is where the laziness of Spain comes in. They have another holiday as big as Christmas on January 6 for the Three Wise Men or Reyes Magos, so he can just get a Reyes Magos present instead.
My Christmas present from Doug is awesome. I have been making him listen to the Wicked soundtrack since we met and have been jealous that I'm the only person who hasn't seen it, so he surprised me with tickets to Wicked! In London! We fly out the weekend of January 16. I am so excited! He knows I'm giving him a coat, which isn't near as exciting, but oh well.
We got to have a Catalán Christmas also, with Brenton's family. We had lunch at their house yesterday with the aunts and uncles and the lot. It was Saint Stephen Day, because of course they can't go with another reason for vacation. We had canalones, which are apparently typical here in Catalunya, because we had them in the mountains as well. We also had little goat ribs and lots and lots of pork, as usual. Doug's favorite part was the turrons, which are just 100% sugar blocks in varieties such as chocolate or Crema Catalá, like solid creme brulee. We learned about Brenton's grandfather who was a famous magician in the 1960s.
So, Catalán traditions are nuts. We have already talked about eating turrons and Reyes Magos, but our favorite zany tradition is the Caganer. In their traditional manger scenes, among the wisemen and animals, is a man who is squatting to go number two. I don't know how to put it less crudely, but the statue is crude and the number two is visible.
Another crazed tradition is Cacatío. This is a log with a smiley face and a Santa hat. The kids beat it with a stick and it also number two-s presents from under its cape. Told you they were strange.
Anyway, here is our Christmas week in a nutshell. We still don't have internet, but are hopeful that we will have it by next week.
We are off to the mercat! Love you all!
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