Tortilla Española

Last Friday we got together with some people from our Bible study. They taught us how to make Spanish tortilla and we taught them how to make cream cheese brownies (thought of Melanie the whole time). Plus, one of the guys made crepes because he's half French and crepes are yummy. It made for a VERY nutritious dinner.

 First we made tortilla. Yum. Now some of you may be thinking I am speaking of the tortillas you buy at the grocery store. Mexican tortillas. NOPE! But don't worry, that's what I thought it was at first too.

Host Mom: "Oh, we are going to have tortilla for dinner tonight."

Kim: "We are ONLY eating tortillas!? Que pena!"

Rest assured. The tortilla they speak of is a simple dish containing egg, potatoes, onions, and a little bit of salt. Might sound gross to you, but you're wrong. It's kind of like an omelet. It's one of the most popular dishes in these parts. There are other types of tortillas, obviously you could put in it whatever you like, but potato is the most popular. Technically it's called tortilla de patata, but if you just say tortilla española people know what you are talking about. If you want tortilla with anything else in it, though, you have to specify.

Anyway, it's quite a simple dish to make. You just peel the potatoes and onions, cut them into pieces, and fry them in a bit of olive oil. Take them out, mix them with the whipped eggs in a frying pan, and cook her up! Oh, and add some salt too. The most difficult part is flipping it. Most people use a plate and then slide the tortilla back onto the pan. 

 Our Spanish friends really like brownies, so they wanted to learn how to make them with us. As we made them, we explained to them what we were doing and they wrote it down so they had the recipe for future reference.
Now, I always seem to have troubles with these Spanish ovens... I'm sure we did the conversion of Fahrenheit to Celsius right (I used the converter on my phone), but for some reason the top was completely burnt and underneath wasn't even fully cooked. Aye! This time we even had it on "whole oven" setting.
The kitchen got a little smokey, but it was alright. We just opened up a window. At first they were pretty disappointed because the brownies didn't work out, but we decided to change the setting to "only bottom" and see what happened. It worked! AND you could barely even tell they were burnt. Go us! So, they turned out pretty well.

Daniel (he's the guy in the background there) is half French and lived in France for three years, so we asked him to make crepes for us. The recipe was his mother's own, and even in French... talk about authentic! Even though I haven't spoken or seen French since senior year of high school, I could even read the recipe :) I was pretty proud of myself. It helps that I know what goes in crepes, generally.
I did a pretty good job making my batch, as you can see. That little doo-hickey appliance was pretty handy! Otherwise I don't think our crepes would have been nearly as circular. It may have been fun to make fun shapes with them though...

So, here you can see our extremely healthy dinner for a fabulous Friday night in Spain. We ended up trying all kinds of combinations of food... brownie wrapped in crepe, tortilla wrapped in crepe, tortilla con brownie...? It got a little crazy.
We had a bunch of fun, though. It almost even turned into a slumber party! The girl's house we cooked at was in a pueblo right outside of Valladolid and the last bus came to take us back at 10:30pm. We ALMOST missed it, but made it just in time.

Next on the list, you ask? MEXICAN!!!!

Update... Finally!

Alright, so I'm doing a terrible job of updating this... Whoops! Things are just happening all over the place!
... And I'm lazy. You all knew that though ;) So, let's see here...



I had my first Spanish cine experience! A few weekends ago we went to see Tangled in a theater. I saw it in December in the states (in English, of course), so it was easier for me to understand. So much fun!

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I also had the awesome experience of watching LOS PACKERS win the SUPERBOWL! What a great experience. Some friends of mine know the owners of a bar called El Aire, so they told the owners that there would be quite a few American students coming to watch the Superbowl if they played it, So they opened up on a Sunday night, just for us, and played the Superbowl. It started at 12:30pm here. I didn't actually hit my bed until 5am Monday morning. Let's just say class was tough on Monday. Totally worth it, though!
What made the Superbowl even more interesting, is that not only were there NO COMMERCIALS, but there were Spanish announcers! I really had to pay attention to understand what was going on because I don't know American football terms in Spanish. Plus, they talk so fast! Without commercials it was harder to pay attention, though, because there were so many breaks and pauses where there would normally be commercials. Oh well. No big. We won :)
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This past weekend we had another excursion. We went to three places: Museo de las Villas Romanas, Portillo, and Tordesillas. The museo is an exhibition of Roman ruins about an hour away from Valladolid. While we were there we saw a short play in a reconstructed building that was made to look like what the ruins were back in the day. Does that make sense?

   From there we went to Portillo and saw a sweet castle. It was a lot of fun. We climbed the tower to the top and there was a fabulous view. It reminded me so much of Guatemala at times. They have similar fences around their houses and their roofing is similar. There is graffiti all over the place in Spain, which you actually come to appreciate after a while. The graffiti in the smaller, poorer villages really trigger memories of Guatemala for me. Some of them even have things all over the place like in Guate. It was just so beautiful to me. What an experience.

Later, we went down to the dungeon, where they would apparently just toss people down to break their legs, then leave them there to die. Kind of dark and twisted. I imagine it would have smelled quite terrible.




Next we headed to Tordesillas, which is where the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed. That's the one that gave Spain dominion of most of the Americas and Portugal got some of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Brazil, etc. EXCITINGGGGG hahaha We learned about the treaty this week in history class, though, so it was nice to have a museum visual to remember it by.

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Sunday we had a lunch at my church. That was super fun. Apparently they have a lunch the second Sunday of every month. Cute. Great way to get to know people and use our Spanish!

Wednesday I got lunch with Andrea, the Navigators missionary, again. I really like their family, they are so nice! She took me to the grocery store and helped me find a few American things I was craving. Example: chocolate chips for making chocolate chip cookies!! Yum! Can't wait for those.

This weekend (today, actually... in two hours? crap! I have to pack!) I am heading to the good old Barcelona with my roomie Jessica, and two friends named Lindsay and Courtney. We are staying at a hostel really close to the beach and it should be great weather there :) We plan to see Sagrada Familia, the old Olympic Stadium, Parc Guell, walk Las Ramblas (something on my bucket list!! wooo!! check that baby off!!!), among other things. Don't worry, I'll take plenty of pictures of my first adventure! We will return on Tuesday night, so I will try and update as soon after that as I can. May be difficult, but we will see.

Not sure when my RA interview is going to be yet, I am waiting for an email back. It should be next weekend though. If you have any tips for me, let me know!

Miss you all!