Roman markets and other matters

A few weekends ago, Juan Carlos invited us to his place in Calahorra for lunch. It happened to be the weekend that they were putting on a Roman market in the village so it coincided quite nicely. (Photo: falcon at the market)

Pablo and I caught the bus up early in the morning and had a look around the market which was fascinating. They had an aviary with vultures, falcons, eagles and owls and cheeses that looked like giant pebbles. While we were waiting for JC to finish work, they put on a gladiatorial demonstration. Apparently in Hungary or Romania there's an actual gladiatorial school, where they teach the guys how to use tridents, nets swords etc. One guy got cut on his belly but JC said last year, some guy got his finger cut half off and another one was rushed to Emergency with blood pouring out of his neck.

Afterwards, we went to his place where they had a vegetable patch, an outdoor fire and hunting dogs and his parents stuffed us with about 10 kilos of meat of spare ribs, sausages, chorizo, cutlets and chops as well as salad, homemade bread, shrimp, canapes, flan, fruit, cake, donuts, coffee, beer, wine... On the way home on the bus, Pablo and I both fell asleep from our gluttonous afternoon and nearly missed our stop.

WELCOME, SPRING!

Unlike Australia, where the seasons start on the first of the month, in Spain Spring is actually supposed to start on the 21st March. So we're technically still in Winter but the weather has been fantastic for the last week. (Photo: picnic of sushi, salchichones, fuet, aceitunas and pan)

I had my first 5-day weekend since the beginning of February this weekend, so I got to completely and utterly relax (and yes, I know most people are stoked to even have a 3-day weekend so I'm not complaining). On Friday, because the weather was so good, I made some sushi and we took it to the park and had a picnic.

And then we had a mini-siesta in the sun. To celebrate the start of Spring, I wore my thongs for the first time since September. And after 10 minutes I already had oozing blisters. (Photo: Beza eating sushi with wasabi and chopsticks)

Allen also sent me some DVDs including Summer Heights High which I watched on Sunday. I'd forgotten what a genius Chris Lilley is.

Ruben moved to Zaragoza for work about a week ago, which I was pretty sad about because it was nice having him living 5 minutes walk from my house. But he came back on the weekend and we had icecream and beer and kalimotxo (but not all at the same time). At least on the positive side, if I want to fly anywhere on Ryanair from Zaragoza, I can always stay with him for free.

With all this good weather, I've been in cooking mode. On Monday, Beza came over to translate an official letter I had to write and as a thank you, I made empanada for dinner. Except it was more a Catherine quasi-empanada because I ran out of pastry so had to make an open-faced pie. And I used the recipe from the cookbook my friends gave me for my birthday but as usual, I was missing some ingredients so had to substitute. So it ended up being very unlike a traditional empanada.

Yesterday, being St Patrick's Day, Andres, Beza and I went to an Irish pub and had Guinness. Actually, it was the same Irish pub that Breda, Mel, Em and I went to three years ago. And they still had the deal where they gave you a free Guinness hat if you bought two pints of Guinness, and they again ran out of hats by about 10 pm. I wore my only green item of clothing, a green dress, but it wasn't very noticeably green. And Andres and Beza wore their Celtic football club shirts which they bought from Scotland. I reckon we were awesome.

Birthday haul

I had the best birthday in a long time. (Photo: Wall Street, Saturday night)

Some of my friends were already sending me birthday messages a few days before and on Friday night, Beza and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was nice to not be alone at home feeling miserable about getting older at the moment I turned 25 (although I'm never home on Friday night anyway).

Then on Saturday, had dinner with all my friends who were in town. I'd only told them on Friday that I was thinking about having dinner, so I thought maybe about seven or eight of them would turn up but they all showed, which really made my day. The only problem was I had an issue with my bank account, where I couldn't withdraw money so I was left with 4 euros on the weekend of my birthday. I'd wanted to shout drinks but I couldn't even do that, because it felt wrong to borrow money from a friend to buy birthday drinks for everyone. And they got me awesome presents too.

Beza made a portrait of me in my Carnaval outfit, Bola made me a CD, Javi and Laura gave me jewellery, Ana a shirt and scarf and the guys chipped in and bought me cookbooks and awesome cooking stuff. I used the cake mould on Monday to make a cake for the teachers at Cenicero.

And Monica made me a video which made me laugh and cry and my family sent me Aussie food. I felt completely and utterly spoilt.

Then on Monday night Juan Carlos, Pablo and I went to an Asian buffet where we stuffed ourselves for two hours straight.

Armed with fried rice

Last night, Ruben came over and told me 'You know, if you reset the modem, it might work?' So I did, and the internet functions!!! I'm a bit overwhelmed. Skype, voipbuster, emails... All these things I lived without for three weeks. I'm not sure whether to check my email, call my family/friends or do school work first. So I decided the best thing would be to cook a huge (think half a kilo) bowl of fried rice at 6 am in the morning and eat it at my laptop.

School so far as been fantastic. In Cenicero, the fact that I have to get up at 7:15 am is offset by the fact that the teachers there are fantabulous and young and vivacious (and we have lunch/dinner once a week together). Last week was Halloween, so we went through some Halloween vocab in class, such as pumpkin, ghost, vampire and played Bob for Apples and Whack the Witch (my invention, where you blindfold a child and give him a stick so he runs around and tries to whack the other kids- potentially dangerous but very entertaining).

I also went on an excursion with the 5th and 6th graders to Vitoria. We visited the cathedral and the Modern Art Museum. I prefered the museum, if only because it wasn't 1 degree celsius inside, but being with 25 10 and 11 year olds is quite draining and I thought I'd die before arriving home. During lunch time, I played skipping rope games with the girls.

The parents have some privacy issues with their kids being photographed, so I've put up a photo instead of Andres peeing in the women's bathroom. Which is just as amusing, if not so visually attractive. Tonight I went out with Ana, one of the English teachers in Cenicero and my friends. As usual, too much beer and too much kalimotxo but also a lot of fun. It's been practically two years since I played drinking games.

Also, the 1st of November is a public holiday for some saint (or many saints) so the supermarket wasn't open which means I only have 3 kg of apples left in the flat. They were on sale.