Random News

This past week has been so tiring and long and stressful! I don’t think I ever recovered from losing that night’s sleep in Valencia….but this weekend has been fabulous! We have a friend visiting from Atlanta and his girlfriend is visiting also from Italy.  Sriroop and Babak’s girlfriends are in town.  And we’ve been hanging out with all our buddies a lot.  We have the best friends.  However, I haven’t been online as much finding beautiful things to drool over and I haven’t given much thought to what Im going to blog about this week.  Shame, I know.  So I thought Id just do a post to give you some random updates and glimpses of our life here.

First.  I know its not very normal for married couples to still live with other people.  I know that.  But we never claim to be a normal married couple.  When people find out that Im married AND I have room mates they look at me very confused and just can’t comprehend why.  Well, as I said before, we have awesome friends and I wouldn’t trade the dynamic in our house for the world!  We have the best little family here and luckily my room mates are hilarious so things are never dull.  Here’s an example: The other day, Martin walks into our room to find this:

These are Sriroop’s undies and Babak’s idea of a joke.

We had been talking about buying a leg of ham since we moved into this place.  If you haven’t been to Spain, ham is their specialty.  The best, jamon iberico, is absolutely delicious and a must try when you come for a visit.  But it can be quite expensive in the bars and restaurants – 20-30 euros for a plate.  We’ve got lots of people visiting so we decided to all go in and finally buy our own.  I think having a leg of ham in the kitchen officially makes us Spanish.  This ham is distinguished by the “pata negra” – the black hoof.  The pigs are fed an acorn diet and because of this, the ham has a yummy nutty flavor.  Here’s Babak digging in.  I joke that at night when I get up to pee Im going to find one of the boys sneakily slicing bits of ham.  It must be true because now, half of that thing is gone!

Friday was Babak’s birthday so we went out to dinner with him and his family.  We finally got to meet his beautiful mother and his uncle, who lives here in Spain, in Alcorcon.  I adore his family! Martin and I have decided that we adopting his uncle as our own, he was a trip!  We went to a super delicious restaurant called Maceiras in Huertas. It specializes in Gallegan tapas, which means lots of seafood.  The food was absolutely incredible.  The only thing I still haven’t been able to stomach to try though, is the pulpo, or octopus……..believe it or not, Martin, the boy who won’t touch seafood of any kind, tried it……Im losing my edge! Sorry Babak, I didn’t get a good picture of you on your birthday, but Id say you stuffing your face is most fitting.  Thanks so much to your family for having us for dinner and happy happy birthday!

It all started over the summer when half our group left Spain.  Matt, Kyle and Tahlei, Shane and Carisa, and Tommy! Although there’s so many things about this year that are better, we have all felt these kids’ absence.  One of the things that really stinks about this kind of lifestyle, is that you meet really awesome people but then either they leave you, or you leave them.  And its quite hard.  I know that we will see them again somewhere else in the world, which is awesome, but all the same its hard!  Well, recently even more people are leaving us! Perry….and now Jordan, noooooooo!  This weekend has been Jordan’s last and so we’ve been hanging out with him lots.  Yesterday we had a picnic and then later that night we went dancing.  It was super fun, because, well…..we rock….and Im really really really going to miss you Jordan!

And finally, today I got the email from my mother that my brother, Daniel, has been accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.  I am over the moon excited and proud of my brother! He’s an awesome musician and just all around the coolest person I know.  And he’s been working so hard that Im so excited that its paid off.  He will be starting in the Fall and I can’t wait to go visit him in Boston!  Hooray for Daniel!