escape.
Within less than a month of leaving, I discovered said boyfriend was cheating on me. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself that semester, torn between the turmoil at home and the excitement of the foreign culture around me. But thanks to these two girlfriends and a small but close crew of new ones, as well as the lure of late-night tapas bars, I still managed to have a wonderful time.
We were three Canadian girls in a program of about three hundred American students. We thought it would be a semester of learning the history and being immersed in the culture. What we discovered was that most of the other students were just there to drink. For many of them it was the first place they could drink legally. For us, this was not nearly as exciting, since the drinking age in Canada is eighteen or nineteen (depending on the province).
The food in southern Spain is quite different than in the rest of the country. It’s simpler and much more traditional. Seville, in Andalusia, is Spain’s historic and cultural capital but hardly an economic hot spot. Due to the proximity of Morocco, there is a strong Moorish influence. In many ways, it feels more North African than European.
Annaliese and I lived with a family. We ate with them five days a week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On the weekends we’d fend for ourselves because most of the time, we were traveling. We lived with Remy, a single mother, and her two daughters, Maria Remy and Maria José, who were eight and fourteen. Annaliese and I shared a tiny bedroom, so small that we would crash into each other if we tried to stand up between our beds at the same time.
My most vivid food memories are of what I ate in our Spanish home. Breakfast in Spain is always quick, a café con leche on the go. Waiting for us every morning was a simple thermos of instant coffee with cream, which was completely delicious, and little Magdalena cakes, sort of like French madeleines, but a commercial Spanish version, spongy and sugary.
We had a break for siesta every day from one to four o’clock. This included lunch, the biggest meal of the day, for which we would usually come home. On occasion we’d take our lunch with us to school—a boccadillo (a sandwich) perhaps filled with traditional tortilla (Spanish-style omelet with potatoes and onions) and a piece of fruit. But when we came home we ate a much larger and more traditional Spanish meal. Our “ madre ” would prepare a big stew or soup or paella, but it was always quite basic and inexpensive.
She kept us fed well enough, but always seemed to overcook the vegetables. We would drool over enormous globe artichokes on the counter when we left for school in the morning, bowls of garbanzo beans, potatoes, onions, and carrots. When we returned for lunch they had inevitably been turned into a bowl of slop, boiled for hours until they were brown and practically disintegrating.
Thankfully there would always be oranges to finish. Spanish naranjas are big and juicy and intensely sweet. They cost about twenty-five cents for one as big as your head. The juice would drip down our chins and arms, all over our shirts. It was heavenly. Annaliese took to calling me “hungry boobs,” as there was always something running down the front of my shirt, halted on its way to the napkin in my lap by the shelf my chest created. It wasn’t pretty, but it was true.
We’d go back to school from four until seven or eight and then eat dinner quite late. Dinner at our house was always kind of random and on the cheap. A classic meal was spaghetti with ketchup and a fried egg on top. Or the family’s version of pizza, with a chewy homemade crust, ketchup, and a can of tuna fish. It was borderline cat food. The ingredients probably cost about forty cents.
All the while, we knew Remy got a stipend from the school for boarding us. We couldn’t help but notice that while we lived with her, she bought a new microwave, a new washer-dryer, and a new
Within less than a month of leaving, I discovered said boyfriend was cheating on me. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself that semester, torn between the turmoil at home and the excitement of the foreign culture around me. But thanks to these two girlfriends and a small but close crew of new ones, as well as the lure of late-night tapas bars, I still managed to have a wonderful time.
We were three Canadian girls in a program of about three hundred American students. We thought it would be a semester of learning the history and being immersed in the culture. What we discovered was that most of the other students were just there to drink. For many of them it was the first place they could drink legally. For us, this was not nearly as exciting, since the drinking age in Canada is eighteen or nineteen (depending on the province).
The food in southern Spain is quite different than in the rest of the country. It’s simpler and much more traditional. Seville, in Andalusia, is Spain’s historic and cultural capital but hardly an economic hot spot. Due to the proximity of Morocco, there is a strong Moorish influence. In many ways, it feels more North African than European.
Annaliese and I lived with a family. We ate with them five days a week, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On the weekends we’d fend for ourselves because most of the time, we were traveling. We lived with Remy, a single mother, and her two daughters, Maria Remy and Maria José, who were eight and fourteen. Annaliese and I shared a tiny bedroom, so small that we would crash into each other if we tried to stand up between our beds at the same time.
My most vivid food memories are of what I ate in our Spanish home. Breakfast in Spain is always quick, a café con leche on the go. Waiting for us every morning was a simple thermos of instant coffee with cream, which was completely delicious, and little Magdalena cakes, sort of like French madeleines, but a commercial Spanish version, spongy and sugary.
We had a break for siesta every day from one to four o’clock. This included lunch, the biggest meal of the day, for which we would usually come home. On occasion we’d take our lunch with us to school—a boccadillo (a sandwich) perhaps filled with traditional tortilla (Spanish-style omelet with potatoes and onions) and a piece of fruit. But when we came home we ate a much larger and more traditional Spanish meal. Our “ madre ” would prepare a big stew or soup or paella, but it was always quite basic and inexpensive.
She kept us fed well enough, but always seemed to overcook the vegetables. We would drool over enormous globe artichokes on the counter when we left for school in the morning, bowls of garbanzo beans, potatoes, onions, and carrots. When we returned for lunch they had inevitably been turned into a bowl of slop, boiled for hours until they were brown and practically disintegrating.
Thankfully there would always be oranges to finish. Spanish naranjas are big and juicy and intensely sweet. They cost about twenty-five cents for one as big as your head. The juice would drip down our chins and arms, all over our shirts. It was heavenly. Annaliese took to calling me “hungry boobs,” as there was always something running down the front of my shirt, halted on its way to the napkin in my lap by the shelf my chest created. It wasn’t pretty, but it was true.
We’d go back to school from four until seven or eight and then eat dinner quite late. Dinner at our house was always kind of random and on the cheap. A classic meal was spaghetti with ketchup and a fried egg on top. Or the family’s version of pizza, with a chewy homemade crust, ketchup, and a can of tuna fish. It was borderline cat food. The ingredients probably cost about forty cents.
All the while, we knew Remy got a stipend from the school for boarding us. We couldn’t help but notice that while we lived with her, she bought a new microwave, a new washer-dryer, and a new
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