A Day in Espana

Hola. Today I woke up and had Cafe con Leche and homemade bread with chocolate sprinkled on top and then I walked 30 minutes to school. It is definitely a long walk, but it's good for me. I came home right after school for lunch. The entire family was over and I got to play with Pilar, my niece. :) She is really sweet and quite precious. We had a really yummy soup with an olive oil base, noodles, potatoes, shrimp, white fish, mussels, clams, octopus, and scallops. It was delicious!! We also have been having this harder form of red jelly, called Membrillo. It is homemade somehow by boiling down yams. I know it sounds disgusting, but its delicious. My favorite way to eat it is to get a piece of bread, put a cream cheese type spread on it, then put the membrillo, then put another time of hard cheese on top and its absolutely amazing!!! They also are not big on dessert here. Mama insists we have fruit after every meal. She always brings out a huge basket with apples, bananas, oranges, tangerines, and pears. The membrillo, bread, and cheese is also kind of considered dessert. We also had pieces of chicken and/or pork too. We always seem to have some type of soup, a meat or fish, bread, sometimes a salad, and fruit. The type of soup that mama serves is like a soup that we would eat as a main course in America. There is always soo much food, but she never lets it go to waste. Finally my mama let me help wash some dishes (although I think I was only allowed to because she didn't know that I was). I also got to do a load of laundry; well she let me give her the laundry and she did it. There is no dryer in our house, but we have a washing machine and then we let the clothes dry over several days on a line. There is only enough room on the line to have one load of laundry drying at a time and the dryer is probably half the size, if not smaller, of a regular washer in America. I am going with my brother, Mateo to the farm now. My familia owns the farm, but since they are older and the sons all have other jobs, they lease it out and other people do the work. The main thing they grow is olive trees and they make a lot of olive oil. They use it in everything at the house. Its used for salad dressing, soup bases, It is about 45 minutes away from the city. I am soo excited to go and see what it looks like, although it is dark now, but hopefully I will get to go back again in the day time. I'll report how it goes later...xoxo