Good Eats

Hey all!

Living in my new flat has been great so far but I feel bad for my roommate because I was apparently snoring last night. Anyways, on Wednesday morning, Claire, Claire, and Maelle made us a really great breakfast with American pancakes and toast and scrambled eggs with bacon and onions. I didn't take any pictures but it was tres mignon.

That night, because I'd been talking about Mexican food so much, I made tortilla soup with queso and guacamole. I wanted to make enchiladas but they don't sell corn tortillas in Spain, only super nasty flour tortillas from Old El Paso, the worst mexican grocery brand ever. They also sell guacamole here that comes in a jar and looks like thin green gruel. Gross.

At first, I was scared I wouldn't be able to find tortilla chips, but never fear. Doritos makes naked corn chips! Called Dippas

They were really good actually but pretty salty. They tasted a lot like Tostitos.

This is my mexican feast. I thought it turned out pretty good.

Not to be outdone, Michael made hamburgers for us on Thursday night. We had potato chips too and Maelle thought she was supposed to put them on the hamburger. I think that would actually taste pretty good but it's not really traditional.

Andrej is planning some special meal for tonight but he's being really secretive about it so we'll see. I hope it's slovenian food.
We have two guests staying in the apartment this weekend. One is Maelle's friend Dauphine who's studying in Berlin and Claire's friend Fabien who's erasmus in Granada. I think by the end of this semester I am going to be able to understand and at least speak a little french. I am surrounded by french people. I will try to pepper in some french phrases so you guys can get some french learnin too. Here's me reading French Elle. I'd like everyone to notice that the girl on the cover is wearing black high-pants and has fat arms. Basically, it's me.Well, maybe not. But anyways, I heard postcards arrived in America and I hope everyone is ready for Round Two! I gotta find some new postcard stores though, the other one didn't have a super seleccion, as some of you may have noticed.
Ciao!

Pre-Departure: Ft. Davis, TX

Hi everybody! Only 33 days until I leave for Zaragoza, Spain. I miss all my Norman friends but Christmas in Dallas was great.

My family and I just got back from Ft. Davis (near Marfa) in far west Texas. We saw the stars at the McDonalds Observatory and about a zillion cactuses everywhere else. Seriously. It was out of control. We also drove through the lovely community (not big enough to be a town) of Saragosa, Texas, site of the 3rd deadliest tornado in Texas history. I wanted to get a picture so I could compare it to the original Zaragoza later but my dad wouldn't stop. He didn't want to miss the killer bird watching in Balmorhea Springs...

The best part of our trip by far was driving 70 miles through the Chihuahua desert to see Prada Marfa, an art installation of a fake Prada storefront over 30 miles from the nearest gas station. Here's me and Lydia checking out the merch.

West Texas is kind of a weird place. We passed through a lot of dying towns, and then all of a sudden there's Marfa, a thriving hipster/arts community. The weirdest part was this blimp we saw. We saw it once on a hike in Ft. Davis National Park, over the southern horizon. Apparently it's tethered in place out between Marfa and Valentine as a National Security measure. It looks for planes coming in over the southern border. When we passed it on the way to Prada it was landed on the ground so we got an up close look.