Dogs, Sales, and Fanta

Last Wednesday we got to do another fun activity with our program: a Catalan cooking class!  This was an activity that I had been looking forward to as I love to cook and I wanted to be able to learn how to make some Spanish dishes.  It was a lot of fun cooking a big meal for ourselves and then getting to eat it.  We made four dishes, the first one being a modern version of Spain's famous gazpacho.  It's basically a cold tomato soup and ours had pesto sauce, allioli (garlic mayonnaise), and grated cheese topping it.  As an avid tomato-hater, I didn't have any of it, but I was told it was very good!  The next course was a tortilla española (omelet with potatoes and onions) that I helped to make.  It was my job to cut up the onions and whip the egg whites.  It's such a simple dish, but it tastes so delicious!  Unfortunately the pans in my apartment are awful and I don't think I'll be able to make it here since everything sticks to them, but it's definitely something I'll do once I'm home again!  For the main course we made another one of Spain's famous dishes, paella.  It was absolutely delicious.  Ours had shrimp, cuddle-fish, clams, and mussels in it.  The spice that makes paella so distinctive is the saffron in it.  Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, for just one gram of it, it costs around 5€.  Saffron comes from a flower and it takes over 100 flowers to make just one gram, hence the expense. For dessert we made crema catalana, Catalunya's version of creme brulee.  Flan is traditionally from the south of Spain and creme brulee is obviously from France.  As Catalunya is in the middle of the two, crema catalana is almost like a mix of the two.  It was absolutely delicious, probably my favorite of anything we made. While I currently don't have the ability to make any of these due to my limited kitchen supplies, I'm definitely going to bring these recipes home to bring a little bit of sunny Barcelona to Wisconsin!

Unfortunately I've been sick with a bad cold for the past week so I haven't been up to too much besides going to class and trying to get better.  So instead of telling you all stories of what I've been doing, I thought I could try and tell you about some observations I've made about life in Barcelona!

1. The dogs in Barcelona amaze me.  There seems to be a decent amount of them all over the city and none of them are on leashes. Ever.  They simply follow their owners wherever they go. At first I thought that they must train their dogs to do this when they're young by starting them out on a leash, but then I saw the cutest little german shepherd puppy the other day and he wasn't on a leash either!  I really do not understand it at all. If I brought Storm (my dog) here and let him off of his leash, I'd never see him again. He would be running all over the place, smelling everything and saying hi to every person he saw.

2. Las Rebajas are crazy.  Las Rebajas (or sales) take place twice a year, once during January and the other during the summer.  It's like a national, month-long Black Friday.  Every single store has almost all of their items on sale for 40-70% off. I don't understand it at all, but it's great!  I haven't bought too much as I'm hoping to be able to travel a bit around Europe and the rest of Spain (I actually just booked a ticket to Prague!), but it has been fun to shop around and see what the stores have to offer!  I did spot an absolutely gorgeous python-skin jacket at Gucci for only 5,900€, if anyone wants to make a donation.

3. They play the exact same music in clubs here that they do at home.  I'm not quite sure what I expected, but it is pretty amusing to hear heavy accents scream out "New York!" during Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind.

4. Orange Fanta is everywhere.  If you order one at a restaurant they serve it to you with an orange slice in the glass.  The Spaniards can't get enough of it!  I like orange soda just as much as the next person, but I really don't understand the obsession.

5. If you want to fit in with Barcelona fashion, wear a scarf and a pair of knee high boots (for girls, of course).  These seem to be the two essentials.  Sadly, I didn't bring either with me, so I'll have to take advantage of Las Rebajas!

6. This isn't really an observation, but if anyone is interested in seeing a bit more of what Barcelona looks like, Shakira's Loca video was shot about 20 minutes from my apartment this past summer.

That's all I can think of for now. Always remember that I love getting questions from people about life here and I'm more than happy to answer anything!  Also, if anyone is interested in the recipes for any of the dishes we made, I'd be happy to send them to you!