Blog 7: ¡La Comida Española! (Spanish Food!)

Blog 7: ¡La Comida Española! ( Spanish Food!)

            It’s Valentine’s Day back in the States, but according to my host sister and intercambio (I’ll explain who she is soon) it’s not a big deal here in Spain. But in celebration of Valentine’s Day, I’m dedicating this blog to my friends and family back at home. Love and miss you all!

            Recently, we visited an ancient Roman ruin called Itálica on the outskirts of Sevilla. Apparently it dates back to about 200 BC! We walked through the amphitheater where gladiators would fight each other in Olympic-like games. In the middle of the arena there was an area that was carved out where they would keep animals. Blood (sangre) would seep down the floorboards down to where the starved animals were kept in order to make them even more vicious. Even more disturbing is that sometimes when a gladiator was killed people in the crowd would rush down to drink his blood because they thought it was a cure for epilepsy. !Qué asco! (How gross!) It was strange walking around a place where so much blood was spilled. Itálica is so peaceful now compared to it’s former self.

            The next day, I went to Carnaval de Cádiz. It’s is basically a big, crazy fiesta that takes place in the costal town of Cádiz. It’s kind of like Halloween because people dress up. Muy loco (very crazy) but muy divertido (but very fun). There were so many people gathered in the square and when we left to take the bus back to Sevilla around 4:30 in the morning there were still people there! I’ll be forever in awe of how late Spaniard's party.

I feel like I haven’t sufficiently talked about the food, people, culture, and my classes yet. I’ll talk about food first since my friends were just talking about this during our after-school coffee break. The food here is muy delicioso (very delicious)! I won’t say it’s mo beta den Hawaii cuz we get some good grinds (I won’t say it’s better than Hawaii because we have good food- threw in some pidgin haha!). Poke, loco moco, shoyu chicken, lomi lomi salmon, oh so ono! But I have to admit all the Spanish food I’ve had here is amazing. They have fresh bread (pan) with almost every meal and they dip it in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The salads they make here are simply dressed with salt, olive oil, and vinegar. My family sometimes puts these salty Spanish olives, tuna, carrots, and corn in the salad (richens the salad and is one of my personal favorites).  Ham (jamón) is also very popular here. The literally have legs of it hanging and dripping in store windows. A typical Spanish dessert is fruit or yogurt, much healthier than American treats. Other favorites of mine are tortilla epañola (Spanish omelet with potato and onion), lentil soup, fresh prawns and mollusks, and of course paella. The last is making me salivate right now. I’ll end off by saying those who have never tried traditional Spanish paella have not lived...that’s how good it is!

Our Carnaval costumes were kind of random...we were on a budget!