Sidreria

Once a year, Beza's cousins from San Sebastian have a cousin gathering. They arrange to go to a sidreria (cider brewery) for dinner. It usually happens around February because cider brewery restaurant season is from the end of January to the end of March.

The breweries dedicate themselves to making cider all year round and only open the kitchen to the public for two months while the cider is fermenting. You get all-you-can-drink cider straight from the barrel and there are usually at least three or four barrels, with up to thousands of litres capacity. Apparently the menu is always the same- tortilla de bacalao (cod omelette), bacalao (cod), chuleton (fat, juicy steak) and dessert of cheese, walnuts, almond biscuits and flutely biscuity things.

I had an awesome time and ate heaps. We were a group of ten in the end because some cousins couldn't make it. Some of his cousins don't eat too much so I got to stuff myself.

I've been making lots of things recently to relieve my stress because I swear some of the kids in my classes are terrorists in training. I made a dog iTouch cover for Beza, a cat phone cover for Ana, two cheesecakes (one for us, though it made me sick from all the dairy and one for Beza's family for Saturday lunch), a tofu cheesecake (which I ate most of because it apparently doesn't taste so nice compared to a philly cheese cheesecake), a sheep finger puppet, bread rolls and random food that looked interesting.

This week I intend to attempt a pavlova and macaroons, the pretty, colourful ones. And if I have time, foccacia bread, lemon fingers, potato pizza and any other food I plan to make for my birthday.

I got my first ever Valentine's Day rose! I didn't actually get it on Valentine's Day, but I liked it so much more because it was a surprise and Beza didn't pay a ridiculously inflated price. Plus I'm an anti-Valentine's Day shrew. In my Valentine's Day presentation for my classes, I always tell the kids the true story behind Valentine's Day, about the priest who got stoned and beheaded. I also like to add some gory graphics just to be positive the kids get the message.

A meringue is a beautiful thing

I made this meringue (and about 20 others but without the decoration) on Sunday morning. It was surprisingly simple, although because I didn't have an electric beater, I had to beat it by hand and now have a sore right arm. I don't know how the people used to survive without electricity. They probably didn't make meringues.

Afterwards, Millán was playing in an ice hockey match so we went to watch him. The weather has been weird- it changed from sunny to rainy every five seconds yesterday. So I left the house thinking it would be hot and sunny, in shorts and thongs and nearly froze in the ice rink.

Macmillan, soccer and tortilla

On Wednesday, Macmillan, the publisher of the primary school textbooks that we use, held a series of talks to publicise their new textbooks and market their readers a little.

It was absolutely awesome. In the talks, the speaker talked about activities you could do with kids and every time he needed a volunteer, I was the first to put my hand up, because I love this sort of thing. Some of the teachers attending probably thought I was a bit crazy, or hyperactive and over-eager but I got free stamps for volunteering, so ha!

Afterwards, I met up with Beza to watch the all-important Barca vs Chelsea soccer match in a bar. It was a great match. Chelsea were winning 1-0 and Barca was down a player because of a penalty but in the last two minutes they scored a goal and the bar went crazy. So now they're in the finals which will be played at the end of May and I bet there'll be people waiting in the bars by 4 pm to nab some decent seats.

We went back to my flat to make dinner because the bar was just down the street from me and Beza kindly offered to make tortilla. So I started making homemade soy icecream while he fried up the potatoes and onion. While I was boiling the icecream on the stove, he asked me 'Is that it?'

I thought he was asking me if it was icecream so I said yes, and the next thing I knew, he'd grabbed the saucepan and poured it all into the potatoes and onions. My shriek of anguish almost cracked the glass in my flat. We ended up eating the eggs he hadn't used for dinner but I was incredibly upset that I had no tortilla and no icecream.

On Friday, I decided to recreate our unsuccessful tortilla. IIt was tasty-ish but lacked an egg, so it sort of fell apart. I've been told that if I learn nothing else in Spain I have to learn how to make a decent tortilla.

Cooking and bureaucracy

I've been in cooking mode lately. So far (aside from the risotto, sushi and empanada) I've also made pizza with homemade pizza base, homemade spaghetti with sauce, chocolate macaroons, carrot cake, banana bread, burritos, choc chip biscuits, anzac biscuits, cuajada...

Last weekend I made teriyaki skewers with homemade teriyaki sauce and raisin bread.

I'm not very good at Spanish food because it's so cheap and easy (and tasty) to eat out here but I have two awesome Spanish cookbooks that I'm going to conquer.

Yesterday I went to the Oficina de Extranjeros (the Government office for aliens and yes I think they actually use the word aliens in their official text) and was given a ticket and told I had to wait more than two hours.

This debacle started at the end of October when I applied for my residency card. They told me they'd send me a letter within a month and I'd have to go in with an ID photo and get my fingerprint taken. At the beginning of January after returning from holidays I still hadn't received the letter so I went in to the office, waited almost an hour in queue and got told they were delayed with lots of paperwork but I should get a letter within three weeks. Three months later (and five months after I was supposed to get the letter) I still haven't received anything.

You'd think after a five month wait, spending two hours in queue isn't too much. But frankly I don't give a damn any more. If they've already sent me the letter and it got lost in the mail, they can damn well send me another one if they want me to have my card so badly (which I sincerely doubt) and if they haven't sent it yet, I'm not going to wait two hours to be told to wait another three weeks.

Meanwhile, Friday is another public holiday and with one thing and another, I'll only have worked two days this week. With a working week like this, I can put up with shitty bureaucracy.

Cooking and other things

On Friday I made a mushroom and chicken risotto and an endive and goat cheese salad.

On Saturday I had dinner with Ana's uni friends who are also English teachers and are absolutely hilarious. I made some chocolate and coconut macaroons, which I called wombat droppings because that's what they looked like. Later we met up with the guys and had drinks. The putting forward of the clock one hour was absolutely painful (not that I slept one hour less, just when I woke up, I had one hour less of the day to do things. Not cool.)

And then today we had a flat meeting to discuss issues with the flat, except it was mostly Pablo saying what he had issues with and JC and I going 'Ok. Ok.' Well, anyway, the good news is he's going back home next Tuesday until the 20th.