Hot Chocolate...and other food

Spain has the best hot chocolate I've ever had...it is thick and very chocolatey, almost like drinking a melted hershey's bar. It's delicious! At cafes here, if you order tea, or a cappuccino, or most any other hot drink, it comes in the tiniest cup you've ever seen! It is smaller than an old fashioned tea cup. I see the reason for this though, after my first cappuccino over here I was up all night, so that tiny cup must have a lot of expresso/caffeine! However, the hot chocolate comes in a normal size cup, which is another perk.

On Wednesdays I have one lesson at 10:30 am, then three English lessons in a row, 4:30-5:30, 6-7, and 7:30-8:30. This makes for a long afternoon, because I have 30 minutes in between each lesson which is not enough time to walk home, and it only takes 5-10 minutes to get from one lesson to another. When it looks like this outside...

...its not really fun to just wonder around the street, so a few weeks ago I found this great bakery/cafe right beside my 2nd lesson. I stopped in for some hot chocolate, and not only was it the best I've had yet, but they gave me some free little cookies too! They were so cute that I took a picture:

The girls who work there are so nice too. So now every week I look forward to my Wednesday hot chocolate break. :)

As far as other food goes, I have actually kept a New Year's Resolution this year! My resolution was to eat better and more. This sounds funny and is opposite of the typical resolution to eat less, but I did a terrible job in the fall of feeding myself. All of Matt's food is provided as part of his contract (which is great!), but as a result, I never want to cook or make a good meal for just myself. Last fall, I ate a lot of cereal, and every week I would make a big pot of spaghetti and eat it for about 5 days in a row. Needless to say, I'm really tired of spaghetti.

My biggest hurdle to get over is that I don't want to make a big mess by cooking for just me. So in January, I just decided I was going to cook and make a mess every day, and I needed to just get over it. I haven't cooked every day, but I've done much better eating "real" food (aka not cereal and chips) and not being hungry. I've found some new recipes that I can make over here and they mostly require all fresh foods which makes me feel healthy. Speaking of healthy, the other day I finally spent some time at the store locating some baking necessities, and I made chocolate chip cookies! I surprised Matt with them when he came home from practice, and he was really excited. I'm so glad I finally got flour, sugar, baking soda, etc. because now I've come across so many things I can make! I don't really enjoy cooking (as in dinner, etc) but I love to bake! Also, at the store I found some American pancake mix, so the last two weekends we've made a great breakfast with eggs and pancakes, and that's been really fun.

I've been spending more time at the grocery store when I go, to just wonder around and find new things I didn't know they had. I've also been taking the time to Google Translate ingredients before I go, and that has helped a lot! I'm finding a lot more things, and realizing that every store here carries different things. I was trying to make chili last month, and could not find kidney beans at the most American friendly store here. Last week I was at the small market store, and I saw kidney beans. So I just have to remember who has what. I think the stores probably have more than I realize, but the packaging and the language make it difficult for me to find! For example, last week my friend showed me sour cream - it is non-refrigerated (as is milk - yuck!) and comes in a cardboard, tall skinny box. Never would have looked for that!

My friend Jackie, who's husband also plays basketball over here, sent me a lot of recipes all containing basic things you can find. I tried one the other night, the Lemon Chicken with Mushroom sauce, and it was delicious! I can't wait to try the rest of her recipes. If anyone has suggestions please leave a comment with a recipe!

Weekends

Weekends are my favorite time over here, especially when Matt's games are on Friday. He gets Saturday and Sunday totally off, so we get to hang out for two days straight :). I'm not very busy over here, but he is! He lifts weights on top of 2 practices on Monday, 2 practices on Tuesday, "only" one on Wednesday, weights again and two practices on Thrusday, one a shooting practice, and then a game on Friday or one practice Friday and game on Saturday. (Or something pretty close to that schedule.) So he is worn out most days during the week, the coaches work them really hard.

So weekends we take it really easy, watch movies and pretty much stay in the apartment almost the whole two days. This weekend, on Saturday I went to Cuatro Postes, the hotel where the team eats, and ate lunch with Matt. This was a treat for me to have a good meal prepared by someone else. Then we came back to the apartment and did nothing, it was great. We played on our computers and got on Skype with our families and watched some TV. Oh, and I started this program to learn basic Spanish free through my library in Florida, so we'll see if I can stick with it. It's about time I started actually studying Spanish, not just picking up on random words a few times a week.

This morning (Sunday) we made a big breakfast, which was delicious. In Orlando we used to cook breakfast on Saturday sometimes, but we haven't eaten anything but frosted flakes since we've been in Spain. We made eggs and pancakes and had orange juice, it was great, definitely going to become a Sunday tradition. Then we watched the Sunday service from Church of the Highlands live, which is so awesome to be able to watch the worship and everything. After that, we watched the Justin Bieber movie, Never say Never, which I actually really enjoyed, it was good. For the rest of the day we've just been on Skype with our families and relaxing. I did fold some laundry so that was one productive thing.

So that's a glimpse at our weekend. Sounds lazy, I know, and it is for me, but Matt really deserves it after a hard week, and honestly just needs to be off his feet for a couple days. It definitely makes Monday harder though, when we both have to get up at 9 (oh so early), me for an English lesson and Matt for the first of a 2 a day (really 3 a day if you count weights) practice. That's a glimpse in our life, I'll give you a glimpse into a weekday later, maybe a Wednesday when I have 4 English lessons to make me sound busy :).