Christmas in Spain!

Hey everyone! As promised, here comes the fully detailed account of my Christmas in Spain. When I first arrived in Sevilla for my scholarship, I had planned on staying for the holidays in order to experience Christmas traditions in another culture. As Christmas itself got closer, I started to get nervous about that decision. I was worried I would be lonely and homesick. In the end, I had nothing to worry about.

Most of my friends/roommates headed home for the holidays around the 23rd of December. During that time I was still pretty busy with school and research, so I did not have time to get bored! Now I love to cook, but I hadn't really delved into too many Spanish recipes since my arrival. I decided to use my free time on Christmas Eve to make a recipe I've been dying to try: lentejas. Lentejas refers to a traditional lentil stew that they make here. My host mother in Salamanca made it all the time and I loved it. It turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought! I essentially just dumped lentils, potatoes, carrots, chorizo, ham, onions, garlic, and a little bit of wine in a big pot of water and let it sit for about an hour. I was really pleased with how it turned out, and I would recommend you give it a shot if you are ever in the mood for some Spanish cuisine: Lentejas.

Christmas Eve here is called Nochebuena, and it is a big family day. Ordinarily people eat dinner with family, then the young people go out with friends afterwards. I spent Nochebuena with Alfredo (Rotary host counselor) and his family. Alfredo's wife, Aurora, had to work, so she was not able to come. We went to Alfredo's sister's house and I was able to meet his side of the family. The apartment was beautiful with a nice formal dining room where we ate. In Spain food always comes in multiple courses, first come the cold dishes and smaller tapa-like dishes. In this case we had a variety of little things like jamón (Iberian ham), shrimp, langostinas (mini-lobsters), olives, a rice dish, and a Spanish salad. The second course was lamb and potatoes with a salsa. When they say "salsa" (sauce) here, it normal refers to a pan sauce, so the drippings from cooking the meat. Yum. For dessert Alfredo's sister made a delicious tiramisu and we had "Agua de Sevilla." Now throughout the meal the whole family was warning me about Agua de Sevilla. It is a special cocktail that they have every Nochebuena that translates as "Sevillan Water." I say they were warning me, because apparently it is a dangerous cocktail to drink because it is very sweet and you cannot taste the alcohol. They were right. If I remember correctly, it had whiskey, champagne, pineapple juice, and cream. Yum, but be careful! The meal was delicious and I really enjoyed spending time with Alfredo's family - they made me feel very welcome.

On Christmas day I went to Alfredo's house for lunch with his wife Aurora's side of the family. Aurora is a doctor and she was on call the previous night, so it was nice to be able to spend Christmas itself with her. Her side of the family was a bit rowdier than Alfredo's side the previous night. Alfredo informed me when I arrived at 2:00 that it was a family tradition for all of the women to start the meal with a glass of vino dulce (sweet wine). Well, I am not accustomed to drinking liqueur at 2 in the afternoon, but I was certainly not going to break the family tradition! The meal was organized the same way - a table full of a variety of food, followed by a second course of meat. The second course in this case was turkey! It was great to have turkey since I had missed it at Thanksgiving. It was prepared pretty much the same way a Thanksgiving turkey is - roasted with stuffing and all. It was delicious. After the turkey we had a triple chocolate pie. It was a pie with a layer of dark chocolate, a layer of milk chocolate, and a layer of white chocolate. Delicious. After that (notice that there is always another after...) we had a champagne cocktail with lemon sorbet and champagne. Champagne must me a typical holiday drink here, since we had it at both meals. So what did I learn from this experience? Holidays are pretty much the same everywhere! They revolve around food and family, with a variety of unique traditions intermixed. I loved celebrating the holidays in Spain, but I was also very thankful for modern technology that let me video chat with my family as well. When I got home we Skyped and my family set the computer so that I could see the whole family, and it felt like I was there. I feel like I got the best of both worlds!

After Christmas I headed back to the States to spend some time with my family and friends. I spent New Year's Eve in Washington DC with my brother and some of my college friends, then headed back to Cincinnati for a few days to spend time with my parents. I had a medical school interview midweek then headed back to Spain on Saturday, January 8th. The trip flew by, but it was incredibly refreshing to spend time with my family. Even though saying goodbye again was tough, I was excited to get back to Sevilla. I wasn't enjoying the cold in Cincinnati too much...so it was nice to come back to a place where the high is in the 60s in January! I'm still adjusting the time difference (waking up this morning was rough...), but for the most part I've settled back in nicely. Last night was my first Rotary meeting of the New Year and it was great to see everyone again. Next up, exams!