La fruta y otras adventuras

Fruit and other adventures

Every day I walk past a fruit stand on my way to class to buy plums or tangerines or strawberries or all three. The plums are my favorites, they're so juicy and sweet and warm from basking in the sun, mmm. The last few days none of my usual fruit stands has had a single plum! I've been late to class already twice this week (and it's Tuesday) because I had to check every fruit stand vaguely on my way. Well, it's better than eating chocolate pastries every day and being late because you can't walk any faster.

Amanda and I ate dinner at a sushi restaurant last night. Apparently the chef is actually Japanese and serves Japanese food, unlike the Chinese restaurant we've been going to where second-generation Chinese immigrants serve Spanish food with soy sauce. Anyway in the past we've gone to the sushi restaurant for tapas and didn't realize you have to sit in a different place (a different floor, even) for dinner, where you don't get tapas. So we're sitting in their basement, waiting for our tapas, when we finally ask the waitress and she says tapas are upstairs only so we left our table and went upstairs. There was a fuss and people were confused and it was challenging, to say the least, to communicate anything in Spanish when neither party really speaks Spanish. It was worth it for the food.

Early Thursday morning we leave for Morocco! We'll be traveling around in Rabat and the desert and getting henna and massages. I'm really excited to bust out my rudimentary Arabic skillz--"Hello. I like chicken shawarma and Fanta. Thank god!" This is how I will order food. In China you got free goodies from vendors when you made the effort to speak (read: maul) their language. I hope it will be the same in Morocco. Also I can't wait to eat things there. We have to be careful with water of course, but we can drink tea and eat couscous and all that, oh it's going to be so flavorful and delicious. Yum yum yum.

Looking over my calendar, there are only a few weeks left here. I still don't have concrete (or even hazy, for that matter) plans for the summer. I guess if I need to I can live in my apartment in Lancaster and volunteer at the museum on campus, babysitting and/or waitressing at night. What fun. It could be a lot worse though, at least I'll be with Chelsea and get to see most of my friends all the time, and have my own kitchen. Anabel said she'd give me some Spanish recipes, and I'm so excited to make cookies and soup again. I guess the only thing I can do is stay positive. It'll be a good summer either way!!

This entire entry has been about food. That will change right now: I'm FINE, by the way. Not that any of you know, but there was an earthquake in Granada on Monday. No one really felt it here, though apparently they felt it in Cádiz and Málaga, which is weird because they're to the west and the epicenter was a little to the east. There's some worry about aftershocks for the next week, but I will be in Morocco and, it being Spain, no one is particularly stressed about it. Anyway if you do hear about it, I'm fine. Everything is fine.

That's all then, next time I post I will have some African adventures to share and wonderful, colorful pictures of absolutely everything. Can't wait!

Viajes desde España

Trips from Spain

Last week was Semana Santa, the holy week before Easter. Granada is supposed to have one of the best celebrations in Europe, with parades every day and fantastic floats, but we don't have housing in Spain for that week (or class!) so everybody goes and travels around Europe. I went to London for my birthday and then met up with friends in Venice. There were some airport and hostel debacles, but I survived and didn't even have to spend the night in a street or airport, which at multiple points was a very real possibility.

London was wonderful. I stayed with Susie from camp and her fun roommates in their dilapidated Greenwich apartment. Mike flew over too! It was rainy and a bit cold and all money was spent on transportation, but it was so much fun just to walk around with people I miss terribly. And we had cake.

It also rained in Venice. I think the rain has been following me this year. But we had fun nonetheless, visited every church on the map, and explored the canals. We were two history majors and an art history major, so we nerded out and compared theories, and scoffed at tour guides and the like. Since going to Italy with my parents in 2001, I've really wanted to see inside of San Marco and the Doge's Palace and I FINALLY got to do it! Unfortunately both were under construction, so I'll have to go back in another ten years and see them in all their grandeur. Hopefully Venice won't have sunk by then. The walls of San Marco were already sagging. Anyway, arguably the best part of Venice was the pizzerias and gelaterias Mary recommended. We ate pizza on a dock over the lagoon. It was so nice to just sit and BE in Venice, to hear the water and the rapid Italian, smelling the dirty canals and all the incredible food around us. And the pizza itself was of course unbelievably delicious. Things you can't Google.

I'm back in Granada now and I missed it. I chose the two most expensive places I could have gone and it's so refreshing now to be back where things are cheap and free and still so tasty. And of course to see my friends again! Every weekend now until I go back to the states is booked. That's such a scary thought. I never want to leave....

Birthday cake in Susie's favorite pub in London!
You have to cross a rickety bridge over a marina to get there.

The balcony on San Marco with Alex and Michelle.

Pizza and wine on the lagoon! What could be better?

The colors in Venice were so beautiful. The canals are polluted but still so blue and inviting....