Swedish meatballs and quince sauce

Dinner was a success! Everybody loved my meatballs. Alexis brought us a quince the other day and since there are no cranberries to be had in Logroño, I made a quince and apple sauce to go with them instead. (Sorry Elisabeth if that´s considered sacrilege.) I was considering buying red food dye and colouring the sauce red so it looked like cranberry sauce but I would probably have got an allergic reaction to the dye. Luther is sitting behind the quince and apple sauce in the photo and to the left are the meatballs. I also made salad and honey soy chicken and Em kindly made the dessert- tarta de melecotón yumyum.

No one rang up the next day and complained of food poisoning either (maybe they all died, heh heh). In the photo from left to right: Em, Marco, Stefano, Marie, Johanna, me, Mel and Kamela. And then there are all the girls with Marco.

FIREWORKS!!!

FIREWORKS!!! FIREWORKS!!! FIREWORKS!!! (And the last photo is of Mel, Alexis, Em and me on the ride)

No photo

The guy hasn´t sent me the photo yet. If he doesn´t send it to me, I curse the day he was born. A pox on his family. I knew I should have gone back again the next day and jumped in front of another bull so my friend could take the photo.

On Friday, Javier and his friends kidnapped me and Emily and took us to his grandfather´s place. He´d told us we were going to have dinner at his grandfather´s house, so we assumed we´d meet his grandparents and got all dressed up to make a good impression, but it turned out his grandfather is dead and it was just a bunch of his friends (like around 15) and us two token girls. They... ahem... cooked for us (which involved four guys opening a packet and placing it in the microwave). It was great fun- his grandfather has a huge boar´s head hanging from the wall and cinnamon liquer in his cupboard. Below is a photo of Reuben and me. He´s one of the coolest guys I know (because he carries anti-fatigue eye cream around with him in his bag).

Saturday was the last day of San Mateo and we went to see the fireworks which went on for around 20 minutes- absolutely stunning. Usually I don´t like fireworks that much. They seem a waste of tax payers´ money. But since I´m not a tax payer here I could enjoy them with the knowledge that someone else´s hard work was paying for my entertainment. Then we went to a fun park on the other side of the river where I went on this vertiginous ride that could possibly have made me throw up if I´d had food in my stomach. And I´m not a queasy type.

I think Mel has invited some people over for dinner because her friend from Vienna is leaving tomorrow morning. However, since they´re both in San Sebastian at the moment, I suspect it means I have to go buy and prepare the food. At least I can make the Swedish meatballs that Elisabeth gave me the recipe for. If they´re gross I´ll make sure they´re too hungry to reject them ha! Or I´ll lock them in the flat till all the meatballs are gone. Last time we invited Emily over for dinner she got food poisoning and was up the whole night.

I got gored

Yesterday, Emily, Alexis and I went to the running of the bulls in Logroño. We ran at the beginning, which was similar to Pamplona except that the lane was so much shorter the bulls doubled back and had to run it twice. Then after the bull fights, Alexis asked me if I wanted to go into the ring with the bull and I said yes so we went in.

I felt incredibly small and open to attack but I was already in the ring so it was too late to back out. Well, I guess it wasn´t really but I´m just stubborn. So we were in the middle of the arena and the bull had his back to me when suddenly he turned and charged at me and I didn´t have enough time to run away. I got caught between his horns and he would´ve chucked me except I didn´t want to go flying so I grabbed tight onto his horns and I think he shook his head violently a few times to try and dislodge me. Eventually the professional ring people managed to distract him and I didn´t get trampled on, which was my one big fear. They evicted me from the ring because they´re sexist and chauvinistic and they don´t really allow girls to go in (I was the only girl in there). They also probably thought I was under 16 which I think is the minimum age to enter because they asked me how old I was and later a policeman came by looking apoplectic and asked me how old I was as well but he calmed down when I said 22. Still, the same thing happened to a guy on Saturday and after he picked himself up and shook himself off he jumped right back in. Bah!

Afterwards, everyone kept stopping me on the streets asking me if I was the girl who was in the ring. I´m famous! Poor Alexis said he turned around because he saw someone had got caught by the bull and nearly had a heart attack when he realised it was me. Mel was taking photos for us but when she saw me getting caught up she froze and wasn´t able to take any photos. A photographer stopped me later though and showed me the photos he´d taken and I asked him if he could email them to me but since he´s Spanish (and they usually don´t do what they say they will), I´m doubtful about ever getting these pictures.

So- I didn´t technically get gored but it was insane to see a bull so close up. And actually it was only a baby bull, about one or two years old. They don´t even call them toros because they´re too small at that stage; I think they´re called vaquillas.

Foam party

On Monday night, we went to see some an acrobatics show that was put on for San Mateo. There were people dressed in white with stilts, running around throwing petals in the air. They put on a show at the town hall and afterwards pulled out a massive hose/tube and pumped out all this foam. This is a photo of Mel and Stefano (Em´s new flatmate) frolicking in the foam. Some guy dragged his poor little dog into the foam and because there was so much of it the creature disappeared and reappeared some time later all white and soapy and miserable. Then we went to see the toro de fuego, which is a guy dressed in a bull outfit with fireworks spouting from his suit. It´s supposed to be really dangerous because he runs through the crowds and often people catch on fire or get burnt, so they have the ambulance and firemen stationed nearby but the one we saw was very disappointing. No one caught alight, no one got hurt.

San Mateo madness

These are some photos from San Mateo. On Sunday, we went to the Plaza de Toros to watch the Corridas. This time, however, they didn´t kill the bulls, just sort of taunted them harmlessly. It was great to watch. The one with the seesaw was pretty cool- if the bull attacked one of the guys, the guy in the middle had to swing that side up. After the first round, they let a cow in and when she trotted out, the bull followed. They later did the same thing but with a fake cow (two guys in a cow costume) and the bull followed them out as well. Maybe bulls are stupid or blind. At the end, they let in normal people to run around the ring with the bulls. I was going to go but am glad I didn´t because you need to be able to run really fast and jump over the fence surrounding the ring and I don´t think I would´ve been able to with my knee. There´s another one on Saturday though and I should be fine enough to run around then. One guy got thrown a couple of times by the bull because he wasn´t fast enough hopping over the fence but he looked pretty intact when the bull had finished with him.

Photos from top left: launch of San Mateo; communal shower in Calle Major; Mel, Veronica, Em and I (new haircut!); bull ring; bull following cow

Autumn has arrived

Apparently the day before I arrived back in Spain, the weather was still really hot but on the day I landed, it started raining and the temperature dropped by around 10 degrees. Soon the leaves will turn yellow, drop off and rot, then the temperature will drop by another 10 degrees, the sky be dark for longer than it´s light and before I know it, I´ll be on my way back to Sydney. Being back in Logroño makes me appreciate that I had the chance to travel around Europe and see so much stuff. Saw some bizarre things... (goats on the main shopping strip, ear on a cathedral and bike in the air) and some beautiful things... (cathedral in Antwerp, Amsterdam by night and the Blue Lagoon) but everything I´ve seen and done has been unforgettable. So thanks for all the fish!

Another Sunday gone

Went to the start of the festival yesterday; it´s insane! When the rocket launches at 1pm to signify the beginning of the festivities, all the people in front of the town hall start throwing eggs, flour, tomato sauce, mustard, shaving cream etc on each other. You could probably cook them and end up with a pretty tasty dish (except, of course, for the shaving cream). Then everyone streams towards the old town where all the bars are open and dance till they drop. I didn´t dance till I dropped, thank goodness, because the floors of the bars were filthy, but I had a great time.



These are the photos from Iceland- the top photo is the glacier on which I fell, and the bottom two are my wounds. Tasty.

I´d like you to meet Luther

Finally able to put photos on blog. This is Luther at the beginning of the trip when he was still clean. Very cute isn´t he? Photos from top: Luther; Luther drinking beer in Germany; Luther eating icecream in Leipzig; more icecream in Berlin; Luther eating weiner in Berlin; Luther eating pirogi in Warsaw; more pirogis; Luther at vegetarian restaurant in Wroclaw; fancy restaurant in Zagreb; more pirogis in Bratislava; salad in Ljubljana; the tastiest sandwich I´ve ever eaten, in Amsterdam; Luther before opening the can of surstromming; Luther after opening the can of surstromming; homemade sushi; hotdog place by the wharf in Reykjavik

Hatred! Hatred!

I´d forgotten how rude and pushy and obnoxious the Spanish can be. Always shoving to be first in line, the first out of the aeroplane, the first to BE RUDE... bah! When we touched down in Barcelona, you could tell who the Spaniard were because they were already out of their seats and hustling towards the exits before the plane had stopped moving. And at Zaragoza, when I went to buy my train ticket for Logroño, the woman at the desk had the sulkiest face I´d ever seen and practically snatched the money from me and threw back the change. I mean, if it´s an inconvenience for her to sell me a ticket, perhaps she´s in the wronge line of work. At that moment, it fully hit me that I was back in Spain.

Never mind... four months more of rudeness and then I´m home. Home to beautiful anonymity, home to a country where people don´t stare at you for looking different, hooooooome to my little red demon dog.

I buy this delicious fruit and nut mix in which there are only hazelnuts which I disapprove of. I used to throw them out or give them to my friend, but I´ve decided to hoard them in a little bag and use them as ammunition on the next people who enrage me. The next time someone pushes me out of the way to grab something from the aisle, the next time someone asks me if I´m Japanese, the next time someone coughs or sneezes 2 cms away from my face without covering, I´m going to pelt them with my hazelnuts. Like a demented squirrel with an anger management problem. Ha!

Things Cath Can´t Wait To Do:

1. Get an 8 euro haircut (although it may now cost me a bit more because my hair will probably be considered long. Have not cut it since April)
2. Wash smelly clothes. Batch one smells like Surströmming. Batch two just smells from being wet and in a plastic bag for 4 days.
3. See Mel and Emily again.
4. Eat salad.

Things Cath isn´t looking forward to:
1. Walking home from train station with 3 months of accumulated crap and an oozing knee.
2. Finding 2 other people to share piso with.
3. Starting Semester 2 of In-Country study.
4. Looking at her bank account balances.

Goodbye, cold country!

Today is my last day in Iceland. Am very sorry to be leaving this grey, wet but amazingly bizarre country. Every day has been fantastic and damp and I now know the difference between water-resistant and waterproof (waterproof is infinitely better on the top of a glacier with freezing wind and rain). The landscape is crazy. When you go from one place to another in Europe, sometimes you forget where you´re headed or where you´ve landed but as soon as you see the scenery in Iceland you know where you are. On the way from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik the land is just flat with black mounds of cooled lava covered in pee-coloured grass and moss. No trees.

I missed puffin season, so was going to console myself with eating puffin but couldn´t find that either so have had to content myself with postcards of puffins. I did eat the putrefied shark meat though- the woman at the fish stand in the flea market kindly let me try a piece and I wasn´t masochistic enough to buy a whole fillet. Whereas the Swedish rotten fish just tasted salty, you can actually taste the putridness of the shark meat as a lingering aftertaste that creeps up your nostrils and into your lungs.

I also went ice climbing and was the only girl in the group to actually make it to the top, haha! But I was extremely inadequately dressed and by the time I got halfway up the ice face my hands had frozen around the ice hammers so I couldn´t swing them properly. One of the guys in our group, Edwin, took a video of me climbing and I look extremely uncoordinated and slightly mentally challenged. When I got back down they had to prise my hands off the hammers. I didn´t dig my crampons in on the walk down the glacier and I slipped and burst open the scar on my right knee (yes, the one from the biking accident 3 or 4 months ago). So it is now a wound once again. It didn´t actually hurt that much, being frozen so I only realised it was bleeding when my leg wouldn´t move properly. The scar is still attached by two bits but the cuts have formed a sort of tunnel through it. I was very surprised to see the detatched part was purple because I thought it would be pink or at least flesh-toned. I also have lava bits embedded in my palms.

Went horse riding on one of the Icelandic horses and I love them! They are the cutest animals on earth. So tubby and round. They´re apparently very independent and intelligent. My horse wouldn´t walk in line but kept running to the front and then farting in the other horses´faces. He obviously also didn´t like walking through the streams (I´m not surprised) because he´d always pause a bit to think about it and then try to dash across. I got a really sore bum from the ride but soaked in the Blue Lagoon and felt much better.

Had dinner with Edwin on his last two nights in Iceland. He´s the guy I met while ice climbing- muy majo as the Spanish would say. It´s one thing I´ll miss after I get back to Spain, being able to meet people randomly and finding things in common.

The clothes and designs here are really unique. I think being so close to the magnetic north must affect their brains somehow. Am spending another night at the airport. Yay.

Surströmming- a rotten word

I finally tried it. I was traumatised.

The can was a bit distended, which I thought was how I´d bought it, but when I went to open it with the can opener, the release of pressure caused the fetid briny water to spray out of the can straight into my face. Apparently it had been fermenting inside the can without me knowing and Elisabeth´s friend who said it smelt like a dirty toilet was very right in her observation. So I sat there gasping for breath which didn´t help because I was covered with rancid water but I didn´t want to go inside and rinse off in case the smell clung to Elisabeth´s furniture.

It didn´t taste that bad, just really salty and kind of slimy. And once you get used to the smell you sort of forget it´s there. But I think once is enough for me. I ate it outside the apartment block because I didn´t want to stink out the whole building but everyone who walked past gave me weird looks and I saw a few cyclists actually lose their balance on their bikes when they rode past.

We made sushi today for lunch. Kind of ugly looking but extremely tasty nonetheless, especially since I´ve been deprived of decent Japanese food for so long. Taught Elisabeth some new words: beanie, stuffed toy, resurrect and learnt a few as well: turkey, car (very important because they have these yummy lollies shaped like cars), fringe. Oh, and cheese but only so I can see if it´s in sandwiches.

Ooh, I forgot

I forgot to mention that the elections are coming up so all the political parties have stands in the city centre. So when Elisabeth and I were walking around Uppsala the other day, I went up to all of tem and took their stickers and party badges and free stuff. No pens though, unfortunately. They must have been out of them.

Free political Propaganda

Sweden has been fantastic. Admittedly expensive (think London prices) but that´s fine since I´m not paying for accommodation. The weather has been great, except for a brief thunderstorm yesterday afternoon but it didn´t matter because I was indoors anyway. When I arrived, Elisabeth´s brother met me at the train station at Uppsala and helped me get a student discount card and then we had dinner at a student pub, then the next day Elisabeth came back to Uppsala and we did some tourist sites. On Friday we went to Stockholm and yesterday while she was working I went to the pool and gym at her work. Which was just as well because we´d had a buffet breakfast (for 3 euros, so I stuffed my face) and I was so full I swear I actually had a massive pot belly for around 3 hours until the food digested a bit. I tried to squeeze two months of gym workouts and jogging into the four hours I was at E´s work, but it didn´t work because there was an adventure pool area with water slides and a whirlpool area and lots of floating things you climb up and jump off and I just had to try them all.

Last night we had dinner at her friend´s flat which has a wonderful view of the garbage burning station then went to see a live band perform. But that was a bit of a letdown because we were in the queue for 45 minutes and by the time we got in, they were up to their last song so we only heard one song. And I was so tired from my... workout... that I went home early.

They have rancid fish in Sweden too! I was going all the way to Iceland to try their rancid fish but apparently it´s a delicacy in Sweden as well, although a different breed (race? type? species? I have suddenly forgotten the word) of fish. I´m too scared to open the can though because someone told me it smells like a dirty toilet and someone else said it smells like month old garbage.