Quick update

We don't have any breaks in February to take a trip so we have decided to take the month to explore Madrid a little more. We want to try to find a good tapas bar near us so we don't have to go so far as to the mercado where Ben likes to go.

School is going well for both of us. Ben is getting more involved in his classes and he has even taught a few classes all by himself. The students love him! In one class they are doing a unit on time so Ben brought in some old soda bottles and showed them how to make a water clock. They went crazy! School is going well for me too. Nothing new to report. I am still enjoying being in my school choir. We are singing a song in English this term and I was asked to help record a media file for people to listen to and use to practice. It was a lot of fun! We are starting a French song soon in which I have a solo. It will be a little more challenging because although French looks a little similar to Spanish the pronunciation is no where near the same. Fortunately one of the other staff in the choir studied French and he is going to help me with the pronunciation. I believe the concert will be sometime in April.

While Ben was researching things to do in Madrid the other day he found a chapel very close to us that houses Goya's tomb. Goya is a famous artist and a lot of his work is in the Prado, a huge museum in Madrid. We only have one room left until we have seen the whole thing!

Life continues to be an adventure but we are loving it!

The chapel where Goya is buried. He also painted the ceiling here. 

We would really like to find where this gondola ride starts!

Cooking with Chef Carlson

It has been somewhat of a challenge (in my opinion) to add variety to our diet. While we are still learning what can be found in the grocery store there are still things, like chocolate chips, that I can´t seem to find. Chocolate chips can easily be substituted for a chopped up chocolate bar. However, things like cottage cheese, sour cream, pasta sauce and Crisco there are no good substitutes. Ben will tell you I am a casserole and crock pot kind of girl. Those are the kinds of meals I cooked back in the states. However, I cannot find cottage cheese, lasagna noodles or pasta sauce to save my life. So in the meantime, Ben has become the chef. Which to be honest I don´t mind. He is a great cook and while I don´t always agree with his methods, for example not measuring ingredients, not following the direction and putting copious amounts of garlic in many of the things he makes, the meals always turn out wonderful!

Like I said though it took awhile for us to have some variety in our diet. We spent maybe the first month eating pasta, fish and salad and then Ben found some yummy seasoned pork loin at the mercado so we introduced that into our diet. When the colder months came we started making soups and by this point I was tired of fish so we were eating pasta with chopped veggies and olive oil, pork loin and soup. Then, we discovered that you can order fresh ground beef at the mercado so Ben made meat balls. Shortly after that we discovered our oven actually has a rotissoire. All these months we have been pushing a button on our oven that makes a buzzing noise and we thought it was a fan to make it into a convection oven. Then one day as Ben is checking on something he is cooking he sees something turning in the back and we realize that that funny metal stick we pulled out of the oven when we first moved in is the spear to put the meat on and you can hook it into the oven and make a rotissoire chicken. You can get a whole chicken at the grocery store for 5€ so we are thinking of making Sunday "Chicken Sunday". Yesterday Ben discovered the Mercadona sells ciabatta rolls so since we had all this ground beef in the freezer we made burgers.

Eating here has been challenging but very fun too because Ben has come up with some delicious meals! You can still get your "American" fix on some items like syrup but it is usually expensive. I wanted maple syrup to go with french toast one morning and while we found it, it was 5€ for a 20 oz bottle. I decided it was worth it though. :)

I can only hope that when we return to the States, Ben will maintain his passion for cooking and making up his own recipes. I will give him a break every once in awhile and bake a casserole but I think I will stick the role of baking cakes, cookies, brownies and other sweets. These are more to my style because you can eat the dough while you cook or lick the bowl clean when you are finished. There isn´t anything appetizing about licking clean the bowl used to make meatballs.

Making meatballs got a little out of hand....

Chicken #1: Stuffed with lemons and garlic.

Chicken #2: rubbed with garlic and seasoned with rosemary, pepper and salt.

Baked brie: brie cheese wrapped in a pastry square and topped with a mixture of melted butter, brown sugar and finely chopped walnuts and macadamia nuts.

The huge chocolate bar we found to chop up and put in brownie-in-a-mug.

Things we look forward to upon return to the good ol' US of A

1. Buying something with my debit card for under a dollar.
2. Eating a cinnamon roll at Cinnabon.
3. Drying my clothes in a clothes dryer.
4. Having a Papa Murphy's pizza with a raspberry Mike's hard lemonade and a root beer float for dessert.
5. Walking around without having to crane my neck in search of street signs.
6. Going crazy with pinterest crafts!
7. Ben will cry because his European vacation is over and then drink an IPA.
8. Buying at least 5 Cadbury Creme Eggs and eating them all!
9. Making at least one pinterest dessert a week.
10. Being back in a culture that is familiar. Although we love it here and love experiencing new things and learning about the culture here, it is true: There is no place like home.
11. Seeing friends and family again.
12. Peanut butter
13. Fast internet
14. Being able to receive packages
15. Not having random power outages because someone is doing some renovations in their apartment.
16. Having a dishwasher
17. Driving to the grocery store and being able to drive your groceries home. (Although our rolley cart is definitely a step up from re-usable bags.)
18. Not having to dodge dog poop as we walk on the sidewalks

Things We will miss about Spain

1. The amazing public transportation.
2. Friends we have made here.
3. Manchego cheese
4. Chorizo
5. Tapas
6. Ben "All the food."
7. Being able to walk to the bar.
8. Traveling on weekends
9. Living in Europe
10. The architecture

11. Shopping at the mercado and getting cañas and tapas afterwards. 

12. Eating fresh meat and produce.
13. Having the mercado guys recognize us. Our meat guy could probably give us our order with out us even asking because we get the same thing every week!
14. Having a rotissory in our oven!
15. The specialty cheese store with the yummy manchego cheese and the yummy herby gouda cheese.
16. French toast made with fresh baked bread. 
17. Being able to use an umbrella without someone making fun of me.
18. Hearing church bells ring.

Lisboa Day 4 (aka Pastry Day)

We woke up and headed to the Confectería Nacional for breakfast. Confectería Nacional is a café that has been around since 1829. We had heard some good things about it before coming and as a bonus it was right in the plaza we were staying in. 

After breakfast we went to the elevator to see the view from the top. We entered the viewing platform for free but once again there is a chance we were supposed to pay. It was hard to tell and no one stopped us. After the viewing platform we started to make our way back to our hotel to pack up. Along the way we became very distracted by the many bakeries with the many, many yummy looking pastries. We ended up stopping and buying a few at a place that was filled with tons of different looking sweets and breads. Ben also tried cherry liquor. I tried a tiny sip but it reminded me of cherry cough syrup! 

Once we were back at the hotel we packed up and checked out. There was an old looking church near us that I wanted to check out. We had stopped in once already but there was a mass going on so we couldn’t go in. The church was amazing! Unbelievably old looking and the least adorned and decorated church we have seen. It doesn’t look it was ever repaired after the earthquake in 1755. The carving in the stonework was beautiful though. 

Next we headed to the plaza and ate our pastries and then we were off to the airport. It was a fun trip and it was nice to get out of Madrid away from home and see something new. 

Confecteria Nacional

The Elevator Santa Justa. The man who designed it studied under the man who designed the Eiffel Tower.

 

Castelo Sao Jorge in the background. 

Another old church that was never repaired after the earthquake. This one was turned into a museum. 

The cherry liquor. 

I caught Ben writing in his journal.

The old church. 

Our room is the second window up on the far right.

Lisboa Day 3

When we woke up, we noticed it had rained the night before and was a little cloudy so we headed out with our rain jackets and umbrellas ready for anything. We stopped to get some pastries and chocolate milk for me and ate breakfast down by the Rio Tejo. From breakfast we headed to the tram station and went to Belem, a little suburb just 15 minutes away.

First we saw the monument dedicated to the explorers of Portugal. It was quite impressive! Vasco de Gama was a Portuguese explorer who found the water passage to India. This was huge for Portugal because it meant they wouldn't have to pay taxes to cross the Mediterranean. We also saw the Torre de Belem which was a tower that combined an old style of the tower and new style of the twin deck cannon platform to help protect the Lisbon ports. The tower let them see things from a long way off and the decks were situated near groundwater so they could make long range shots with cannons. The angle the cannons sat at allowed the cannon balls to skim across the water and they were able to make long range shots with much better accuracy. I believe we accidentally entered this monument for free. I stood near the lady at the cash register to pay but she was chatting away with the guard so Ben just walked on through and I followed.

Next we saw the Monasterio Jeronimos. We walked around the cloister first because mass was still going on. As we walked back to enter the church, we started to head up the ramp when a lady came rushing towards me screaming bloody murder and yelling "NO! NO!!" I paused half way up the ramp and she looked at me as if I was the most inconsiderate person in the world and yelled "That is for the handicapped!" I wish I would've been quicker and told her I had a prosthetic leg but instead I just blinked, said sorry and got off that ramp as quick as possible. Another man told us we could enter around the corner through the main doors.

Vasco de Gama is buried at the church so we got to see that which was pretty neat! We also saw a friend from our Bible study, Ana Laura. We found out later we had been in Sintra on the same day and that later that night we would both end up at the same restaurant for dinner. She went later than us though so we didn't run into her at the restaurant. Next we headed to a pastry shop to get the famous pastries of Belem. Apparently the secret to making them is closely guarded and only a selective few are able to make them. The place was packed! Partly because at this point it was down pouring and people were headed indoors but also because they were so good! We headed for cover at a museum that Ben wanted to check out while we ate our pastries. The museum is a modern arts museum and is by far the strangest I have ever been in. Excessive awkward male and female nudity along with a room of a video of a naked women rolling around on the ground and a recording of a man hurling insults. Once the rain let up a little we got out of there and headed back to our hotel.

It was still a little wet outside so we channel surfed until we found a James Bond movie to watch.

For dinner, Ben had asked the guy at the front desk a good place to eat. He told him that Cervejaria Ramiro would be a good place. We walked over there and when we got there I turned to Ben and asked "Didn't you tell him your wife doesn't eat seafood?" From the looks of it that was the only thing they served!! Portugal is known for their seafood, especially Lisbon and Ben really wanted to try some so we headed in to see if there was any non-seafood stuff on the menu. There was one thing. Out of maybe 20 dishes they had one non-seafood option, filet tenderloin. They didn't even have fish on the menu! So that is what I ordered for dinner in the seafood capital of Portugal, some good ol' red meat. Apparently you aren't supposed to order it as a main dish though. It is what you eat after all the seafood. I didn't care though. I will say though that I tried Ben's giant prawn and clams and I stand firm in my not liking seafood. At least I tried it though!

From how packed the place was, we knew we had come to a good seafood restaurant. The couple next to us said they had driven 120 kilometers to eat there! They said they live in southern Portugal but every once in awhile they will drive to Lisbon to eat at this particular restaurant.

We ended the night back in hotel room with a carton of ice cream and TV in bed. It was nice to have a relaxing day after the busy previous day of touring.

 Some how when packing I only packed one lid to my contact case so I had to improvise.

Breakfast. The guy punched a hole in the cap of the milk for my straw. 

 The monument to the explorers.

Can you see Ben? 

At the top.

The plaza outside the monument. 

The monastery from the top of the monument. 

 Torre de Belem:

Looking down from the window seat we were sitting in 

The monastery.

The resting place of Vasco de Gama.

Our friend Ana Laura.

 At the Museu Colecao Berardo.

Seafood! 

Vihno Verde, Portugal's specialty wine.