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[frommainetospain2020]

Leaving Spain (A post about 3 months late)

So, I left Spain at the end of June, but I just never had the real ambition to write this post about the experience of doing so. So, just about 3 months later, here I am. So let’s reminisce about the adventure that was returning back to the USA from Europe for the second time.

I had started to pack my things a few days before departure, as one would. I packed the numerous books and movies I had purchased in Spanish into a large suitcase that I had purchased from Amazon. The unfortunate thing for me, was that I had a sneaking suspicion that the suitcase was over the bag weight limit for my flight. I fully prepared to need to pay an overweight bag fee, but I didn’t have my scale, so I didn’t know for sure.

The day of departure came. I did my last minute packing up, so that I could fit the past 9 1/2 months of my life into two suitcases and a backpack, which I did successfully, I might add. As I was leaving, I encountered my roommate, who I had quite a rocky acquaintanceship with. She wished me safe travels, and I was off.

Spain marked the first times I had ever gotten an Uber. I got one to go to and from my first TIE appointment, one to go to my second TIE appointment (I maneuvered the train back from that appointment), and finally this last Uber to get to the airport. After maneuvering public transport with 2 suitcases and a backpack when leaving Italy, I knew that I didn’t want to have to do that coming to the airport this time, and I certainly did not.

My driver was a guy named Francisco. The ride itself took about 20 minutes give or take, and it went fairly smoothly. He took a wrong turn shortly after the start of the trip, which he quickly remedied. My main observation was that, since I am an anxious driver, I was thankful that I hadn’t driven in Spain. That highway was intense.

Once we got to the airport, he helped me get my bags out, and I tipped him and gave him 5 stars on the Uber app, and went to start the airport procedure. Walking into Barajas airport, I saw a lot of people standing in line. I had the initial reaction that I had to stand in this long line in order to get where I needed to go. After a minute, I realized that each line was for specific airlines, and this line was not for my flight. I looked at the lines and eventually found the one for my flight. This was a very long line as well, but it didn’t take as long as I had anticipated.

In this line, there were two girls ahead of me that were from Indiana. They were doing a short study abroad, which I later found out was from the same company as my year abroad, but a different program. I learned that they themselves were Spanish majors and came for the cultural immersion. There was a girl a few people ahead of them whose suitcase was REALLY over the weight limit and she had to pull to the side and legitimately throw possessions away in order to not be over the overweight limit. This made me nervous because my bag looked to be of similar size to her, so I hoped that wasn’t the case.

When I got to the front, I put the heavy suitcase on the scale, and it weighed 30 kg, which was thankfully within the overweight bag limit. I did have to pay the overweight fee, but I had anticipated that. Once my bags were checked, I had to find airport security and begin step two.

There was a large statue of a giraffe that I seemed to be following. I saw them bring it in the door of the airport, and I saw them bring it through airport security. I’m not sure the story with that, but it definitely happened. I took a photo to document.

But anyway, the security checkpoint was easy enough. Put your belongings on the belt and loose items into the containers to be x-rayed. Since I wasn’t carrying anything sketchy, I got through easily.

Then I waited for boarding. I saw the girls from Indiana again at the gate, and one of them was in the seat right behind me. The line to board was long, but I’m not sure what exactly the reason for the line was. It was split into two lines for some reason, and people had carry ons checked. But anyway...

They boarded based on where on the plane you were, and I was accidentally reading the wrong part of my ticket, so I could board when I didn’t think I could. On the flight, I was seated next to a guy from the Dominican Republic. (I think... That could be wrong, it’s been a while) We didn’t talk much, aside from me translating one of the meals for him into Spanish, and trying to help him get his tv screen unfrozen.

Aside from being long, the flight was fairly uneventful. I watched Ratatouille in Spanish, as I had watched it in Italian on the flight back from Italy. I watched a few other things, but I don’t really remember those. I do know that I watched Back to the Future on my phone.

The in-flight meal was a Thai Chicken Curry with Kaffir Lime Sauce and Jasmine Rice. I took note to remember that because it was really good. It wasn’t spicy and hit the spot. I also had caramel ice cream, which was super good. This was really the only meal that I ate, since I was full. The other meal had been a choice of either barbecue chicken pizza or goat cheese pizza. This was the meal choice I translated for my seatmate. (Pizza de pollo barbacoa o de queso de cabra).

This flight landed in New York JFK airport. When it landed, we walked a long corridor to get to the border checkpoint. They asked me where I was coming from, what I had in my luggage and things like that. Once I got through there, I had to get my bags, and move them to a different carousel. I struggled to retrieve the heavy bag because the carousel kept going and it almost took me with it. I managed it though, and took them to the other carousel.

Then I maneuvered to the passport/security check. I thought I got in the wrong line at first, but later found out it was the right line. I went through and got through again pretty easily. After this, it was my new task to reach my gate. I gotta tell you, airports are massive. I swear I saw about 5 Dunkin Donuts and about 6 different convenience stores of the same franchise on my walk to my terminal. I let a very tall man pass me, since he appeared to be a pilot and was walking like a man on a mission.

I finally got to the terminal for my flight to the Bangor airport. While there, there was a man who spoke Spanish who was boarding a different flight that they struggled to communicate with. Obviously my skills were not up to par to do this. An airport employee was able to communicate and get him where he needed to go.

There was also a woman, her child, and her father waiting for the same flight as me. She was communicating both in Spanish and English. She was talking about a snack to her daughter in Spanish but then said “blueberries” in English. I told her I think it’s “arandanos”, at least in Spain. I told her about my time in Spain and she said that her family is from South America.

When we boarded the plane, the only real thing of note was the guy sitting across the aisle from me. This dude was incredibly entitled. To get a visual, I want you to imagine all 4 of the Try Guys combined into a single person. First he asked if he could move forward to one of the open seats in front of him. Well.... those seats were roomier and required an upgrade, so when told no, he kind of sulked. Then he made an issue about the attendant forgetting his pretzels. I wanted to smack him, but obviously I didn’t.

Then we got to Bangor, and it was raining. My mom was in the airport waiting for me, and we picked up my baggage and waited for my dad to pull up with the car and then they brought me home.

Thus completes my adventures in Spain.

[frommainetospain2020]

San Isidro and Churros Con Chocolate

So, it’s been a while... And honestly, I’m writing this a little bit late, considering it actually happened a couple weeks ago. But as the old saying goes, better late than never.

Madrid has a holiday that until I experienced it here, I had never heard of before. It’s called San Isidro. It’s based around the patron saint of farmers Isidore the Laborer in Madrid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isidore_the_Laborer

I’m still not 100% sure of the logistics of the holiday, but I know that it was a pretty big thing. My school celebrated it on a Friday, but I don’t usually go on Friday’s so I wasn’t there. They said that they were going to have churros con chocolate. I took that as a challenge. I made it my goal to attempt to make it myself.

When it comes to finding a recipe, I literally just searched for Churros con Chocolate on Youtube and clicked the one with the most views. This one to be exact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk03DlJC9Mo . It has 22 million views, so it must be fine, right?

The process was relatively easy. Mixing up water, butter and sugar and heating it up, and then adding flour. Letting it cool slightly, and adding eggs. Pipe that batter into a pan with hot oil (I used sunflower oil) until golden brown. My churros didn’t look like standard churros because I didn’t have a churro press, or a churrera. I only used a plastic bag with the corner snipped off.

The chocolate part was also pretty easy. Melt dark chocolate, milk, and sugar, and then add some corn starch mixed with a little water once the chocolate starts to simmer.

I had churros con chocolate briefly from Chocolateria San Gines, which is the most well-known churreria in Madrid. I got it when I was in my AirBNB when I first got here. I also had some shortly before I attempted to make these ones that were from the Relaxing Cafe just down the street from where I live. The chocolate that I made was dead on accurate. The churro was pretty close, but I definitely think there were some differences.

Overall, definitely a worthwhile cooking venture that I would recommend.

[frommainetospain2020]

Actually Experiencing Madrid?

I gotta say, having an antidepressant that actually starts to work after you hit a mental low is an extremely good feeling. I’m approaching about a month and a half of being back on my antidepressant, and honestly, the difference is night and day.

Spain has a week called Semana Santa (Saints Week), where schools are closed for a week. During the beginning of Semana Santa, I managed to complete a task that I had procrastinated for approximately four months. I actually bought some clothes that actually fit me.

The intention of the endeavor had three goals in mind. The first one was to deposit a check from my insurance for a doctor’s visit that I had. I was told at the branch that I went to that because the check was an international check, I had to go to my designated branch to deposit it. Instead of doing that, I just did the picture deposit with my American bank, and it worked fairly well.

The second goal was also a failed attempt, but it requires a little backstory. For those that know me, they know that I have an extensive digital movie library. My iTunes has over 1100 movies. I found out recently that I can use my VPN to buy movies from YouTube dubbed into other languages. “Why buy dubbed languages that you don’t even speak?” you may ask. I find that listening to dubbed movies for movies that you know extremely well is an extremely good method of language learning.

Anyway, I wanted to buy the Spanish DVD of Matilda, because it wasn’t on YouTube in Spanish, but it was in every other language that I’ve looked for. I went to a book/movie store that I had been to a few times, which has one of my favorite store names of all time: FNAC. Unfortunately it wasn’t there, so I bought it on Amazon.

The final task was to purchase clothes that fit me. This was the only successful task of that adventure. I went to Madrid’s Gran Via, which is a main shopping street, and I went to a store called Primark. It’s a place with very affordable clothes. I didn’t take any pictures, but the store was enormous and looks like this:

So yeah, thankfully, I didn’t have to maneuver numerous floors. Only the third floor had men’s clothes. I walked the perimeter, bought a 5 pack of socks, a 3 pack of underwear, two belts, 8 polo shirts, and a pair of pants. The polo shirts were cool because they fit me super nicely, and they were only like 3,50€ a piece. The pants were tricky, because all of the pants that the store had that were sized by numbers were all too small. I bought a pair that was sized by Large, Extra Large, etc. I’m not too keen on the fit of those, but they function.

So that was that adventure.

Numerous times, I was told by madrileños that I HAD to see the Museo del Prado, which is a big museum in Madrid. So towards the end of Semana Santa, that’s exactly what I did.

I took the Cercanias train to Atocha station, one of the main train stations in Madrid. It looks like this:

I saw a homeless guy sleeping on a pallet in one of those archways, which is mostly a blurb for me to remember it, but not one that is an important detail to a casual reader.

The museum was just a short walk down the street. It was a HUGE building that looked very grandiose. It looked like this:

I made my way to the ticket office, and asked the guy if he spoke English. Seeing as this museum is something that basically every tourist goes to, he obviously did. I asked if I could buy a ticket, and he told me that my timing was good. He said that ticket sales were going to stop in like 5 minutes for some reason. I’m not 100% sure why, but I was able to get in.

Once to the top, I had to go through a metal detector, and then I was free to explore. This museum was huge. I originally started by reading all of the little blurbs for each piece of art, but then I began to just skim because there was so much art to cover.

Since I don’t go to museums often, I was planning to try to take pictures, but a museum worker quickly shut that idea down.

Overall, I was quite impressed with the art that was there. Most of the art was biblical, either showing the crucifixion of Christ, the immaculate conception, and all of that stuff.

My favorite art that I saw there was a piece called “El Bufon Primo” which depicts a little person from the 1500s. I like this piece because I learned that Peter Dinklage (Tyrion in Game of Thrones) is actually an ageless vampire from the 1500s.

I knew that I wanted to purchase a guidebook, but I wanted the cheaper one for fear that I would have to carry the books that I purchase back in my suitcase. In seeing the stuff I’ve got, I probably could have gotten the bigger guidebook, and honestly I still might. I ventured downstairs and saw a bookstore that was closed. I thought that I wasn’t gonna be able to buy a guidebook, but I later found out that the small bookstore I saw was not the main gift shop for the museum. There was an enormous giftshop, where I purchased the 5€ guidebook, and proceeded to finish up my trip.

After Semana Santa, I knew I wanted to maneuver myself to Las Ventas, to the Plaza del Toros, aka Madrid’s bull fighting ring. Obviously, because of COVID restrictions, it was closed, but it was still cool to see. It was an enormous colosseum type thing that looked like this at the front of it:

I walked the perimeter and took a bunch of pictures. There were a few statues of famous bullfighters and things like that. I didn’t do a tremendous amount here, but with my connection to bullfighting (My junior recital, “The Tantalizing Tale of the Timid and Tactful Toreador, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpk429FB7tY ) it was definitely a cool thing to see.

Finally in this saga of me finally going out to do things, I walked to the closest centro comercial (shopping mall), which was about 3 km from where I live. I walked there and back, so I basically walked about 4 miles that day.

The mall was enormous. It looked like this:

My main goal here was to see a store that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I managed to see an open and functioning Toys R Us.

I wanted to see if I could find something that I could use at my school with the toddlers that I work with. This was a small Toys R Us, so I wasn’t able to find anything that I was able to use. I also went to another toystore in the mall, to which I found nothing. I finally went to the Casa del Libro, a bookstore, and bought a book about teaching English to toddlers.

While walking back from the mall, I saw an enormous Coca Cola bottling plant across the highway.

I also saw a decapitated rabbit head and a guy doing donuts in a cemetery parking lot. Which reminds me that the walk also consisted of walking by an enormous cemetery that was laid out mausoleum style, with a bunch of buildings.

Hopefully my antidepressants will continue being nice to me, and I’ll venture out to do more things. Here’s to hoping...

[frommainetospain2020]

The Grizzly World of Mental Health

The sensitive topic that no one usually wants to talk about, myself included. But since it’s important to end the stigma associated with mental illness and also somewhat therapeutic to let it out into the open instead of bottling it inside, that’s what I’m doing. Will I regret it later? Probably.

I’m going to start this tirade by saying it. I have anxiety and depression. I’ve had it for, what I imagine to be, longer than I’ve known what it was. I was first medicated for it in the spring of 2016. When I went to Italy, the medication wasn’t really working for me the correct way anymore, so then I stopped taking it. I found myself secluding myself for a good chunk of the time I was in Italy, partly due to the lack of medication assistance, and the fact that I had a cold/flu that knocked me flat on my ass. I was then unmedicated until my first year of teaching. I went and saw a doctor because a lot of that teaching job was incredibly stressful, and was causing another spiral. So I was on a different medication from that point. Unfortunately, that one didn’t work as well, and while it made my anxiety lessen, it made my depression get worse. So, I again stopped taking it. My third attempt at anti-depressants came more recently. I can’t recall when exactly I began this, but it wasn’t tremendously long ago. I made the stupid mistake of trying to go cold turkey from the anti-depressant when I came to Spain. Big mistake.

I could say that a lot of factors could contribute to my current mental state. I’ve moved to a different country for a year, in the middle of a pandemic. I’ve had a weight loss surgery that makes me see a different person every single time I look in a mirror. I am still wearing clothes that I wore 120 lbs ago because I lack the energy to go clothes shopping. I’m working with extremely young children that can barely understand their own language, let alone mine. The old saying goes that “You are your worst critic”, and boy let me tell you, ain’t it the truth. Every time I look into a mirror, I’m ultimately disgusted with myself. “What did you do to yourself?....” I’d say to the reflection. “You’re not worthy of friends.” As harsh as it sounds, I’ve genuinely gotten used to the negativity within my mind.

Anyone that knows me well enough, knows that I’m not social. At all. I was thankful in Italy that I had a friend group that was easy to find or get a hold of. Coming to Spain, I knew that the dynamic would be different. For starters, I was in a small town in Italy, whereas I’m in the biggest city in Spain. I was taking classes with the same group of foreigners, compared to everyone within my program being scattered all around the Community of Madrid. I knew it would be different, but this is downright debilitating. Lacking the energy to even do something as simple as buying clothes that fit me, my mind expects me to be able to socialize? The only people that I talk to on a regular basis are my roommates, my landlords, and anyone at the school. Of those, the only one that is fluent in English is one of my roommates. I knew to expect culture shock and to feel out of place, but the reality of the situation was much more “othering” than I anticipated.

How did I cope? Well... if you’ve read this blog, I’m sure you could figure out the answer to that. Since I’ve had my surgery, I cannot eat NEARLY the amount of food that I could before. A majority of the things that I bake, I do so to bring me peace of mind. To make me feel productive. Useful. My mind certainly hasn’t been doing that. My roommate is usually the one who partakes in my baking ventures, but it’d be nice to be able to know more people to share it with.

With this debilitating feeling of downness and lack of energy, I decided to, yet again, attempt to get anti-depressants. I sent an email to the hospital recommended to us by our program, and told them I wanted to get back on anti-depressants. They said that I needed to see a psychiatrist, and they made me an appointment. 

When the day arrived, I went to the therapy center, but I was met with a devastating realization. Somewhere in the appointment process, someone messed up and scheduled me with a psychologist, instead of a psychiatrist. Don’t get me wrong, I need them both, but ultimately I needed to get back on antidepressants, which clearly wasn’t happening that day. A moment that struck me during my session with the psychologist was my involuntary reaction to a simple statement. After telling the psychologist my story, she said the simple phrase, “You deserve to be happy.” Friends, when I tell you I was a mess after that, it’s an understatement. I left that session in tears, both from the whole “delving into the inner psyche” thing, but also because I was probably going to have to pay for an appointment that I wasn’t intending to even have in the first place.

After leaving the session in tears, I then had to maneuver the public transit system with tears running down my face, and snot collecting under my mask. So that was a time.

I made the correct appointment, but the initial appointment I made, I rescheduled because when the day came, it was a rough day mentally and I just couldn’t. The actual appointment was yesterday. This one was less of a journey into my mind, and more like an interview. There was a masters degree student that observed the session, and it went well. I was prescribed the same medication that I had before I came to Spain, so we’ll see how this goes.

So, in closing, don’t suffer in silence. Seek help. There is help for you out there. Don’t let your mental illness own who you are.

[frommainetospain2020]

The Mysterious Holiday of Carnaval

OK, so I’ve obviously heard of it, but I didn’t actually know what it was in detail. Well, if you didn’t know, Carnaval is most definitely celebrated in Spain, and today my school celebrated it. These are my recollections of this experience.

Let’s rewind a bit. The principal of my school asked me to prepare something relating to Carnival. Despite my lack of Carnival knowledge, I obliged. The extent of my preparation is a story that makes the following statements: During Carnaval, people wear colorful costumes, play festive music, and have big parties. That’s pretty much what it consisted of. I threw in a lesson involving Saint Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals to fill it out, you know.... as the music teacher in me is apt to do.

Back to the present day. The classrooms that I circulate between are named by color (Red, Orange, Blue, Green, Yellow, Pink), and the students in each class were wearing their classes color when I got there. Unintentionally, I was with the Red class, and happened to be wearing a red shirt. The day goes as it normally does to start with. I read my Carnaval story and taught Carnival of the Animals. It didn’t seem as engaging as my other stories tend to be, but who knows....

Then we went outside. The classes were split into different parts of the playground, and the staff all had costumes of some sort. To be honest, there were a few that were wearing feather headdresses that seemed to possibly border on offensive undertones, but I didn’t say anything.

The principal had a costume of a character with blue hair, and she passed out pom-poms to each kid, in the color of their respective classes. She also passed out these corn puff things. Think like a cheese puff without the cheese and the size of a hotdog.

The maintenance guy at the school had a speaker system set up. There’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve observed with this guy. His natural speaking voice is very gruff and hard to understand. Like.... not even accounting for my lack of Spanish knowledge. The thing is though..... when he sings, his voice is clear as day. He sang in Spanish and English, and I understood both perfectly fine. Two songs of note were the Spanish version of Achy Breaky Heart, as well as the English version of Start Spreading the News.

When we went back inside, the rest of the day went as normal as one can expect it to go. The kids had lunch and a nap.

But yeah, Carnaval. Interesting holiday....

[frommainetospain2020]

Una receta de mi bisabuela

Let me give you a little history lesson about my lineage.

This is my great grandmother, Alma.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, she wrote columns for the local newspaper in New Gloucester, ME. These columns ranged from nature, to history of the town, to alumni news, to cooking columns. Considering the majority of this blog, I bet you can guess which column I was most apt to peruse.

I was hoping to locate something that I could try to make that was a family recipe, or at least something relatively close to it. Most of the columns had recipes shared from either people in the town, or from a cookbook from my hometown church, that my grandparents probably gave to her.

Searching for the diamond in the rough, I found this column:

I wasn’t about to make a bread and potato stuffing, so I was drawn to the other recipe. According to her introduction, these cinnamon rolls were a staple at family holidays.

Player 2 has entered the game. This is my great great grandmother, Ruth. Also called Nammie. She’s is Alma’s mother.

Apparently, these cinnamon rolls were her usual contribution to the holiday meal. With this find in mind, I wanted to try it. 

The only issue, which you may probably deduce from the recipe above, is that parts of it are incredibly vague. The filling directions just say to add cinnamon, sugar, and butter, but it doesn’t list any directions. Ultimately, my final product came out delicious, but they weren’t the way they’re supposed to be.

Perhaps I thought too literally into this, but with the directions of adding the filling, along with the name in the article being “Quick Rolls”, I thought they were just regular rolls with cinnamon added as an extra bit of flavor. My mother later informed me that that was not the case.

If you’ve never made actual cinnamon rolls before, you basically roll the risen dough out, spread the filling on that rolled out dough, roll it until it’s a cylinder, and then cut the cinnamon rolls from there. This recipe says to “Roll out, not too thin. Form into rolls. Add mixture... to each. Fold over, and put in pans to rise again.” So, that’s exactly what I did. I rolled the dough into a large square. I managed to separate it into 14 rolls. I made those rolls circular, and added a filling mixture I had to take from another recipe from the internet. I added a dollop to the center, folded it over, and put it in the pan to rise again. I did this to all of them, and then after rising a second time, I covered the top with the remainder of the filling.

Before:

After:

I gotta say, while they weren’t the intended variation, these smelled amazing. This was also probably the best textured bread I’ve made thus far.

I also learned a valuable lesson. This recipe involved a lot of yeast. I’ve had a finicky history with yeast. First of all, the dry yeast packets in Spain are 14 grams, while the US has them in 8 gram packets. I’ve been only using the US amount each time I use yeast. I’m now convinced that Spain’s yeast is just weaker or something. I made bread again, like a week after making these rolls, and the result turned out pretty decently.

I also know that if I try this again, I’ll make them like actual cinnamon rolls. Oopsie...

[frommainetospain2020]

The snowstorm of a half century?

As is clear by the name of the blog, I’m from Maine. Maine gets snow. And a lot of it. If it snows, no matter where I am, I don’t really blink an eye. But Madrid surprised me.

Before I get into the main point of this post, I just want to recount a story from before the holidays. When I was at my school, I was chatting to one of the teachers I was working with that day about how cold Maine gets. I then explained how much snow Maine gets. Recounting my story of moving dorm rooms right before a snowstorm with its own Wikipedia page.

As I was explaining this, I saw motion out of the corner of my eye. Outside of the window, it began to spit snow. “Esta nevando?” (Is it snowing?) I asked. “No....” replied the teacher, quickly and with no hesitation. “Mira!” (Look!) I said, pointing at the window. She looked and saw what I was seeing. “Que es eso?” (What is that?) she said. She began to investigate. I opened the window and confirmed that whatever it was, it was made of water. The flake melted in my hand. This was snow.

The teacher proceeded to see if she could see it from the next classroom, who’s window faced the same way as this window. She saw nothing. Windows facing other places also had nothing. The teacher brought teachers in from other classrooms, the principal, the school secretary, and members of the custodial staff. So, I’m convinced that I made it snow.

Fast forward to last weekend. My English speaking roommate was back in the UK for the holidays. He was slated to return on Friday. Thursday morning, it began to spit snow. I sent him a picture and said “Look! It’s snowing!” and the conversation pretty much ended there.

Friday morning, the snowflakes were much larger, and coming down much harder. I sent him a picture, and he told me about the winter storm warning where we were expected to get 20 cm of snow (about 8 inches). When he flew back that night, his plane couldn’t land in Madrid, so he was stuck in Barcelona for the weekend.

Friends, the storm I just described is named Filomena. https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borrasca_Filomena (Have Google translate the page or figure it out. This was the more thorough wiki page.)

Seven people died, two in Malaga because of floods, and five homeless people died from hypothermia.

Ultimately, this snowstorm made me facepalm. Hard. This is a storm, the likes of which Maine would’ve had cleaned up in an hour. But apparently, this snowstorm was the largest snowstorm Madrid has had for half of a century. And it looks it. We’re almost a week later, and while the cleanup is still ongoing, it’s going at a snail’s pace. 

This was what my street looked like, a day after the snow fell.

This was a parking lot when I walked to the grocery store today:

This is a satellite photo of Madrid buried in snow:

Ultimately we got little over a foot of snow, which in itself is one thing. However, it cancelled an entire week of school for me. This snowstorm landed at the end of my Christmas break, which was already long enough, and made it a week longer.

-sigh- It’s what I get for assuming I wasn’t gonna see snow this winter... Oh well...

[frommainetospain2020]

The thrilling season finale of 2020?

No baking on this one friends. This was a purely chaotic New Years Eve. One could say, the most chaotic I’ve ever experienced. The stunning conclusion of the year that is 2020. So, let’s start at the beginning shall we?

It’s no surprise to anyone that my sleep schedule on vacations (and in regular life, but I digress) is not ideal. Truthfully I fell asleep at like 4 AM, and got up at like noon. Anyway, I got up to shower, and that went off as normal. I was sitting in my bedroom afterwards, checking social media, as I often do. My roommate frantically knocked on my door, and when I opened it, she was frantically explaining something to me in rapid Spanish. The phrase I got from the rapidly spoken Spanish was “Mira la calefacción” which means “Look at the heating”.

This is where it kicks off. I looked into our living room, to see it completely flooded. I’m not talking a minor leak here. The radiator was spewing its contents like the flood gates opened. It was as if the radiator was holding an active fire hose.

My immediate reaction was to call my landlord. This is an interesting process, considering my landlord doesn’t really speak much English. I called her via WhatsApp and attempted to explain my situation. I gotta give props to my roommate in this whole thing, she was the sole explainer of the situation to basically everyone involved. I told her I was talking to our landlord and she gestured for me to hand her my phone, which I did. So, my landlord and her husband were en route. They told us to turn the heating off, which I did, which stopped the water, but the living room was still flooded.

As we were figuring things out, numerous people came to our door wondering what was happening. I’m not 100% sure whether they saw water coming from a pipe to the outside (which I later learned was a thing that apparently exists), or if they lived below us and had water leaking down.

This process was completely and utterly terrifying to me. There were probably 6 people that came to investigate what was happening. Some of them were severely irritated and were demanding to know what happened from me. Knowing my skill with frantic and rapidly spoken Spanish, you can guess how these interactions worked out. I spoke in probably the most broken Spanish I could muster, until my roommate came and explained in fluent Spanish to them what was happening.

A few of the people that came to investigate proceeded to help to dry the floor of the living room. I wasn’t a whole lot of help because our resources were: Our mop (used by my roommate), and a bunch of towels (used by the ladies that were helping). My contribution was to dump the buckets of water that were quickly filling. Most of the rest of my contribution was to stand around, trying to process what the hell was actually happening.

Shortly after, my landlords showed up, and were both helping to dry, and also to figure out why this happened in the first place. They explained that the radiators are only about a year old and that this shouldn’t happen. Earlier (as in, about 2 months ago) the same radiator was slightly leaking, but not substantially. This time, however, using any other word less than “substantial” would be an understatement.

So, as it stands, our heating is turned off and it’s quite chilly in here. Hopefully we get a plumber in to look at it and fix it. Our landlords took us for a drink afterwards. I had an Iced Tea. So that was fun.

I was wondering what 2020 had planned for a season finale, and I gotta say, you went out with a bang, 2020. So good on ya....

[frommainetospain2020]

The most copycatted cookie on the internet?

After developing a baking habit, what’s one thing you’d probably expect me to do? If you guessed watching baking videos on Youtube, you’d be right. So imagine my piqued interest when I come across “Levain cookies”. Having experimented with sourdough bread, I initially thought that these were just cookies that included sourdough starter (also called a Levain). But then I fell down the rabbit hole of what exactly Levain Bakery actually is.

If you didn’t know, Levain Bakery (https://www.instagram.com/levainbakery) is a famous bakery based in Manhattan. It was started in 1995 by two women who would make cookies for themselves when they would run marathons. They eventually made them very large and into what the Levain cookies are now, and the rest is history. Levain cookies are very tall and very heavy cookies. The dough balls weigh 6 ounces. The outside is crisp and chewy, as you would expect a cookie to be, while the inside is gooey and slightly underbaked.

The actual Levain bakery has four main cookie types: Chocolate Chip Walnut, Double Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Oatmeal Raisin. Naturally I tried two out of the four, because the Peanut Butter one requires peanut butter chocolate chips, and I wasn’t about to go back to the specialty store to get them. I didn’t try the oatmeal raisin because raisins are clearly the worst form of grape. Fight me if you don’t agree.

So anyway, I eventually landed on the Delish copycat recipe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JSFKhco8cY

I made the dough following the recipe, and it’s definitely an interesting process. The order that the ingredients are added makes it a lot different than any cookie recipe I’ve ever made. It also doesn’t use any vanilla, which was interesting.

Anyway, I mixed it all together, and formed it into 6 oz balls. I got 8 cookies in total. I had slightly more dough, so I made some balls slightly bigger than 6 oz.

I had to let the dough chill before I could bake them. I refrigerated for an hour and a half, baked one, and froze the rest. The refrigerated cookie spread more than the frozen ones. The refrigerated one looked like this:

In contrast, the same dough frozen for a couple days looked like this:

But I would definitely say to make this recipe. These cookies are fantastic.

A couple days later, I made the double chocolate dough. Instead of adding the leftover dough to the ones I made, I just made a smaller one. I got 6 1/2 out of this recipe: https://www.hijabsandaprons.com/food/levain-bakery-double-chocolate

At first I thought I overbaked it, but then I saw the interior and it was perfect. These cookies make better brownies than when I attempted to genuinely make brownies. They’re also wonderful.

I’m writing this blog post as a draft about a week before I post it, because I bought my parents a Christmas gift of each of the four Levain cookies from Levain Bakery itself. So, in keeping that secret, you’re reading this after the gift was already given.

But yeah, make these cookies. They’re amazing.

[frommainetospain2020]

Photos from previous post.

[frommainetospain2020]

Flashbacks to Oktoberfest... -shudders-

I’m gonna post the photos for this post separately because Tumblr doesn’t want to post it properly...

I actually ventured out today. I don’t normally do that… But it was a process. So where do I begin? I intended to meet up with a friend in Puerta del Sol to see the Christmas lights around Madrid. It didn’t quite work like that.

When I got to the Orcasitas train station (the train station in my municipality), I realized that I needed to recharge my phone data, because my data wasn’t actually working. I wasn’t tremendously worried about it at that point, because I gave myself enough time. That should’ve been my first clue.

I got on the train and went from Orcasitas to Atocha station. This was where I needed to change trains in order to get to Sol. Cue PTSD flashbacks. 

For those that haven’t followed my Italy blogs, I, along with a couple people in my program, attempted to go to Oktoberfest, but we were unable to get there. The day we were going to leave, it was an absolute downpour. That day, we were really early so that we’d catch our flight on time. That day, the train was like 45 minutes late, took almost an hour to depart, and we had to switch trains 3 times at the next station, inevitably leading us back to our city, and not to the Rome Airport. Well… today’s adventure kind of simulated that.

The first train headed towards Sol got there. Everyone got on, and the conductor made an announcement saying “Este tren no es para Sol”. Everyone proceeded to sigh and disembark. The second train came. Same thing. Apparently the third time’s the charm, because the third train went to Sol.

Getting to Sol was interesting. The way for people headed in the opposite direction was blocked off. By this point, I was almost a half an hour late, and without data. I tried to find my friend in the crowd, to no success. I managed to leech off of Vodafone’s free wifi, but ironically, it didn’t work to actually recharge my Vodafone data… But it functioned with Messenger, which was close enough for me.

My friend apparently headed in the direction that I had just come from. Since my only wifi was the one I was leeching, once I left, I was unable to communicate. That being said, I left, after taking the following pictures:

Because the way back from Sol was blocked off, I needed a different route. I took the metro to Embajadores, which then allowed me to take the train back to Orcasitas. Once I got home, I topped off my data, and explained my situation to my friend.

So the process to get those 4 pictures was definitely a sight to behold.

On the bright side, it’s been a very productive baking week!

On Wednesday, I made bagels!

On Thursday, I made oatmeal cookies!

On Friday, I made tortilla de patatas! (Spanish omelette)

On Saturday and Sunday, I went through the long process of making another sourdough loaf.

On Monday, I made Peanut Blossoms again! And I actually got my other roommate to try a cookie without the Hershey Kiss! So, progress?

Aaaaaand today I made scones.

Overall, pretty productive week. Might take an off day tomorrow… Who knows?....

[frommainetospain2020]

The long, tedious process of creating my Kryptonite

If you haven’t been following my abroad rantings since Italy, I’ll give you a bit of a flashback. I developed a Kryptonite while I was there. Italian cornetti with European Nutella, and a specific brand of blood orange juice. If I could eat that for every meal of my life, I would gladly do so. Cornetti are basically an Italian croissant, but are more on the side of a sweet bread as opposed to buttery, although I can assure you that they have A LOT of butter added.

When I came to Spain, I saw regular croissants in the grocery store, and was partially reintroduced to my Kryptonite. I bought European Nutella (which, as I’ve previously said, is miles better than the sludge that is American Nutella). The unfortunate problem is that my surgery has made this a much less pleasant process. I can’t digest fats as well as I normally could before surgery. However, did this stop me? What do you think? I don’t call it my Kryptonite for nothing...

Let me fast forward to yesterday. I attempted to make Italian cornetti myself, and I’ve made two observations. The first is that the process is tremendously long and tedious. The dough and butter has to chill for over 6 hours. I began this process at a little after noon and finished at around 11 PM. The second observation is that these things include A LOT of butter. I’m gonna get into that.

The recipe and video I used can be found here: https://www.cookingitalianwithjoe.com/worlds-best-cornetti-italian-croissant-brioche/

What you’ll notice about that recipe’s directions is that there are 54 steps. Granted, some of them are just added information and could be added to prior steps with 25a instead of 26, as an example.

The beginning went perfectly fine. I followed directions to a T. I didn’t guesstimate on anything. I wanted these to turn out correctly. After mixing the dough and kneading it, it looked almost professional. It was a gorgeous ball of dough. I had to refrigerate it for 3 hours, knock it down, form it into a rough square, and refrigerate for another 3 hours. An interesting phenomenon happened. There was an interesting layer that formed on the outside of the dough. It wasn’t ice, but pressing the dough had a similar satisfaction to stepping on a frozen puddle. It’s a weird thing to explain, but trust me when I say, it happened.

The amount of butter in this thing made me assured that these would be a very difficult thing for me to eat in my present condition. The recipe calls for essentially 4 sticks of butter, where, 3/4 of a stick goes into the dough itself. I had to form the rest of it into a thin rectangle and chill it. The tricky part of the whole process was taking the chilled dough and butter, and folding the butter in to properly make it into layers.

After chilling the dough and butter for 6 hours, I started the aforementioned difficult process. I thought I did it rather successfully, aside from the dough tearing a little bit at the end. After it was folded in, I had to refrigerate it again for another 40 minutes. Then I could roll and cut the thing. This wasn’t as exact as the recipe because I don’t have a ruler, but I eyeballed them. You basically roll the dough into a thin rectangle and cut triangles. You then roll those triangles and there is your croissant or cornetto. The recipe said that it would make 20, but I got 14 of various sizes, so close enough I guess...

After you roll your cornetti, you brush them with an egg wash and let them rise at room temperature for 2 hours. Ultimately, I might not have let them rise enough, for a reason I’ll talk about in a second. Once they rise, you brush them again with the egg wash, sprinkle sugar on them, and bake them.

Knowing my demon oven, there’s a process in the recipe of starting them at 425º F for 6 minutes, and going down to 375º for about 15 minutes. I proceeded to set it at about 330-340º F and watched them like a hawk. Ultimately, demon oven might also have been another downfall. These pastries leaked butter like nobody’s business. These cornetti were basically frying in butter on the bottom. I’m not sure if I failed in the folding process, underproofed, have a terrible oven (which is a confirmable fact), but it worried me.

I watched them like a hawk and took them out when they looked decently browned. I had two trays. I took the first tray out, and transferred it to a different pan so it wasn’t sitting in butter. I cooked tray 2, with the same thing happening. After taking out tray 2 and transferring it to a different tray, I then put tray 1′s onto a clean tray to give a little more time in the oven. Ultimately, they look really decent.

They’re very doughy, and not as light as they should be, but that’s to be expected on a first attempt. At least they weren’t burnt... 🤷‍♂️  I can tell that I can’t eat these with the ferocity that I did in Italy. I had one and could tell that I was probably gonna have a bad time after, but hey... I “successfully” made Italian cornetti.

[frommainetospain2020]

The Quest for Peanut Butter

Anyone who has been to the parts of Europe that I’ve been in probably knows that peanut butter is a hard commodity to come by. Not impossible, but still pretty difficult. This blog post talks about my experiences with locating the ingredients to make Peanut Blossoms.

It all started last Saturday, November 14. I knew that I was lacking three things for the Peanut Blossom recipe I wanted to use: shortening, peanut butter, and Hershey Kisses. Luckily for me, Madrid has a store called “Taste of America” that sells imported American foods and other things at extremely high prices. For the sake of wanting the cookies to come out as close as I’m familiar with, I ventured to this store.

The experience with public transport is relatively easy for this case, thankfully. I got on the train in Orcasitas, where I live, and got off at Embajadores, where the store was. Only one train ride, and no switching, so that was nice.

When I got to Embajadores, I didn’t know which street exit I should take, and I ended up taking the wrong one, but it wasn’t too difficult to correct. The Taste of America store isn’t tremendously far from the station which was also nice.

Eventually, I made it to the store.

I didn’t take a tremendous amount of pictures in the store, except this one to show the extremely high import prices. I later learned that this is a relatively expensive brand anyway, so it was a bad example, but there were plenty of others to choose from. For example, a regular sized box of Lucky Charms for 10 euro a box. Oof...

If you want to see more of inside the store, Google has plenty of images, and you can browse their website at tasteofamerica.es

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?pb=!1s0xd4227d3c53f2cd1%3A0xae5c78b4ecb7ebcc!3m1!7e115!4shttps%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipPXB5mjPJkNBE2cjSm4DKKGx5GnTzj1YuAkpoo3%3Dw213-h160-k-no!5sembajadores%20taste%20of%20america%20-%20Google%20Search!15sCgIgAQ&imagekey=!1e10!2sAF1QipPXB5mjPJkNBE2cjSm4DKKGx5GnTzj1YuAkpoo3&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjl2bGDk4_tAhVEZMAKHZeCDLwQoiowCnoECBIQAw

So anyway, I ended up getting a small can of shortening, 2 small (30 kisses) bags of Hershey’s Kisses, and some pumpkin pie spice, just in case, you know? My total for these items came to almost 20 euros. I’ve also previously mentioned that pureed pumpkin is difficult to find here. The pumpkin for my past pumpkin chip cookies came from this store.

I didn’t end up getting peanut butter, because the kind that the store had was just a generic brand that was priced at like 9 euro for a regular sized jar, so I thought against it...

So, because I didn’t buy peanut butter, I still needed that to accomplish my cookies. I checked at Mercadona (the local grocery store), who normally does sell peanut butter, but wouldn’t you know it, when I need it, it’s sold out. I then checked the “chinos”, which in itself is probably a super racist name for these stores, but they’re corner stores normally run by people from China. Here’s an article about the messed up nature of the name. https://medium.com/@jannyle/why-i-dont-call-corner-stores-chinos-in-spain-21ee3b5d60d

But anyway, there are 4 of these within a stone’s throw from me, but only one had peanut butter and they were only really small containers. I went to another store around the corner from me, and they told me to check a place that I wouldn’t have thought to check. The fruit store. There are fruit and vegetable stores literally everywhere. The store I went to was the same one that I purchased the strawberries for my strawberry jam from. Wouldn’t you know it, they had a normal sized jar of peanut butter for a reasonable price. Around 3 and a half euros.

The name of peanut butter has taken a journey in my knowledge of the Spanish language. First, I called it mantequilla de cacahuetes, which literally translates to “butter of peanuts”. Then I saw that Mercadona called it “crema de cacahuetes”. When I asked the lady at the fruit store for “crema de cacahuetes” she asked me if I meant “pasta de maní” which means exactly the same thing. The things you experience while being immersed in a language that you’re learning, I tell you...

So, fast forward to like, an hour and a half ago. Finally I can make peanut blossoms. I had all of the ingredients and I could finally attempt these cookies. I used the recipe directly from Hershey. I saved it as a PDF because it’s apparently region locked and I had to use a VPN to get it, so if you want it, just search Hershey’s Peanut Blossom recipe

It went fairly according to plan. Part of the egg missed the bowl when I cracked it, so I compensated by adding a splash more milk. I was questioning the consistency of the dough, but when I formed it into balls, I knew that the consistency was right. I rolled them into balls, and then rolled the balls in sugar. I made 18 cookies in total, and thank the Lord up above, they turned out right.

In contrast to the pumpkin chip cookies, I think these ones actually got better as they progressed instead of the other way around. The best part? Parchment paper made the trays super easy to clean.

So, I guess the moral of the story is that if you’re in a different country, don’t expect everything available in stores that you’re used to, to be available in a different country. You may have to buy things from an overpriced import shop.

[frommainetospain2020]

I ate like normal people today? That’s new...

So, as most of you that are reading this know, I had a gastric bypass back in June. A number of factors have made me stray from the path that I’ve been intended to take.

Before I came to Spain, I was keeping relatively small. My days consisted mainly of string cheese, peanut butter, deli meats, sugar free popsicles, sugar free pudding, and water mixed with Mio Water Enhancer. Sounds captivating doesn’t it?

Well... coming to Spain introduced a number of different factors that made my overall new diet a tad trickier. If you aren’t aware, and I think I explained this in my first post, but a gastric bypass changes the size of a person’s stomach by like 85-90%. The stomach is normally about the size of a football. Now, my stomach is roughly the size of an egg. That being said, I clearly can’t eat very much. Today I was given maybe an egg’s worth of a Spanish omelette, and I was out for the count.

I’m getting slightly ahead of myself here. Anyway, as this blog has shown, I’ve developed a baking hobby. For someone in my current condition, this is a dangerous hobby to develop. For someone who is not supposed to have things with a lot of sugar or fat, I make an awful lot of things with a lot of sugar and fat.

The other tricky factor is the overall difference in available food products. I’ll start with peanut butter. It’s not impossible to get. Mind you, the available options are much more limited than in the U.S. I purchased a jar when I first arrived in Spain to indulge in at my AirBNB. As I took the first spoonful, I looked at the nutrition facts and proceeded to put it right back in the cupboard. The fat content was through the roof. Not to mention, the PB itself was super oily as well. Not a fan...

I have not seen sugar free popsicles since I’ve been here. Those were basically my life this past summer. I felt withdrawals at first, but I’m getting used to it. But I sure miss them though. The Popsicle brand ones though. Generic brands taste like cough syrup. You can’t change my mind.

String cheese and deli meats are probably the closest thing to normal that I can find. I can’t necessarily find “string cheese” but I’ve gotten mozzarella cheese, and honestly, that’s basically all string cheese is, right? Spain is famous for its “jamon” or ham. Being the timid tourist that I am, I often opt for “jamon cocida” or cooked ham. The kind most similar to the ham that I’m used to.

I have a predisposition to throwing food away prematurely. If I feel in my mind that I’ve had it for too long, even if it’s not the case, I throw it away. I know the main reason this is, but I’m not discussing that here.

Europe, in addition to introducing a baking hobby, also reintroduced me to my Kryptonite. Croissants and European Nutella. 

So, two things to note about this. First of all, it isn’t my EXACT Kryptonite. My exact Kryptonite is Italian cornetti and European Nutella. “What’s the difference?” you may ask. When one thinks of a croissant, you think of the buttery, flaky French pastry that you see everywhere. Italy went above and beyond this, and developed a croissant of their own. It’s a sweet bread that is flavored with lemon and/or orange zest, and it’s incredible. If you ever have the chance to try a panetteria cornetto (one made and sold from a bakery), I’d highly recommend it. I’m not a fan of mass produced ones. It doesn’t have the right kick to it. We’re supposed to be getting a bigger refrigerator pretty soon. Once that happens, I might try to make them. So potentially stay tuned for that.

The second thing to note about this is that European Nutella and American Nutella are most assuredly not the same thing. Before I had ever stepped foot on European soil, I loved Nutella. Correction: American Nutella. But then I tried European Nutella. Now American Nutella tastes horrible to me. It’s genuinely a difficult difference to explain. I had European Nutella imported to the US and had people try it, and they had the same phenomenon. “It’s hard to explain, but I see what you mean.” So yeah, if you’ve only ever had American Nutella, you’re missing out.

After my little hospital excursion a while ago, along with the deficiency of Vitamin K, I’ve realized that I need to have more of a normal people diet. Because of the aforementioned small refrigerator, this proves to be a difficult thing to shop for. I’ve strayed towards baking over cooking because the results can be stored at room temperature. A normal person diet also needs to consist of a lot of refrigerator and freezer foods, which are currently difficult to accommodate for. So in my last shopping adventure, I got ground beef to attempt taco meat, and small filets called “Solomillo”, as well as a bunch of things that I COULD actually store at room temperature.

Well, the ultimate reason I wanted to write this blog post stems from those Solomillo things. I cooked one tonight, and it was fantastic. Before you translate, I already did. They’re filet mignons. But anyway, I need to eat more protein and add things of that nature into my diet, so I cooked one. I only added salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and I can honestly say that it was probably the best beef product I’ve ever cooked in my life. It was juicy and flavorful. Aside from being basic as all hell, I don’t think Gordon Ramsay would have much bad to say about it. It was a beautiful medium rare and it was a 10/10, would most definitely recommend.

Side note: I ordered Vitamin K supplements, and I’m already starting to feel semi-normal and not like I’m falling apart at the seams, so that’s nice. I’m still sore because I’m still bruised, but yeah...

[frommainetospain2020]

This is why you follow a recipe, kids.

The best thing about baking experiments, is that when they go worse than planned, it’s not as crushing. I wanted to try to swirl a regular yeast bread with a cinnamon concoction. This was the ultimate result:

So, as you can see, it sunk in the middle. I’ll talk more about the finished product in a bit, but let’s talk about the process.

Normally, when things are cinnamon swirled, they come from an enriched dough. Mainly, a dough that contains things other than flour, salt, water, and yeast. Things such as eggs, sugar, butter, milk, etc. I wanted to attempt to do the same thing with a standard yeast bread. Honestly, the actual bread part turned out pretty bomb.

If you’ve never attempted to make a standard yeast bread before, I’ve basically gotten it down to the science that it is. Combine 500 g of flour with 10 g of salt. In a separate container, get about 340 ml of water. Microwave it until it is body temperature (You can stick your finger in and not feel the water). Into the water, mix a US size standard packet of yeast and a pinch of sugar. I use this wording because the packets I have have about twice as much as a US packet usually does.

When the yeast water starts to froth, mix it with the flour and salt mixture. I mixed this bread by hand until it formed a shaggy dough. Once incorporated, let it sit for about a half an hour. After this, begin to knead the dough. I went for about 10 minutes. You want the dough to be able to stretch without breaking, and you want to be able to stretch it thin enough to see through it.

Once you finish kneading, put the dough in a clean floured bowl and let it rise for a couple hours, or until doubled in size. After this rise was when I put in my mixture which compromised the structural integrity of the bread. If you’re so inclined to see if you can manage it better than me, which you very well probably could, it’s the following mixture. Half of a cup of brown sugar, half of a cup of white sugar, a splash of vanilla (capful? tablespoon? I’m not sure which measurement tbh...), enough cinnamon for the mixture to start to smell like cinnamon, and 110 grams of butter. I mixed that all together, flattened my dough into a long piece, spread the butter, and rolled it up into a loaf.

Anyway, once you have that loaf (with or without my experimentation), put it in a bread pan and let it rise again until it rises over the pan. Then, in the case of this bread, I used an egg wash. Because I was making this cinnamon based, this egg wash consisted of 1 egg, a splash of tap water, a spoonful of white sugar, and a couple shakes of cinnamon.

The oven is theoretically supposed to be at a high heat, but if you’ve been following this blog this far, you know my oven, and I just kind of eyeball it at this point.

I know that my blog is more of a way for me to remember these things, but I’m adding this so that if anybody reading this wanted to actually learn something, there you go...

When my experiment went into the oven, the butter immediately began to drip out. I put a baking sheet under the bread to catch the butter. It smelled amazing as it cooked. It cooked for about 25 minutes, and the best part? It didn’t burn! So that was nice...

It cooled, but stuck to the pan a bit and the result was that sunken mess above. Looks can be deceiving though, because it looked horrible, but smelled and tasted amazing.

If I hadn’t done the cinnamon thing, it would’ve been an amazing loaf of bread. It rose wonderfully and cooked extremely well. But hey, you live and you learn, right?

[frommainetospain2020]

Well.... I experienced the Spain healthcare system.

Let me preface this by saying, no, I’m not dying. I jokingly asked myself that yesterday, even though I knew that I wasn’t. 

Let me backtrack a little bit. A few weeks ago, my roommate pointed out that my elbow was bruised, and boy was it bruised something wicked... I had noticed that it was occasionally hurting every so often, but I had deduced that I was losing muscle mass because of decreased intake of protein. Yesterday, my realizations were like a chain reaction. Last night, I noticed that my left thigh had a very large bruise on it. I genuinely thought it was a trick of the light at first. Then I noticed that my right thigh was the same way. One of two things was happening to me. Either I was becoming a Smurf, or something was wrong with me. I then looked in the mirror and saw that my left arm, right next to my tattoo (on the arm with the aforementioned bruised elbow), was also quite bruised. I didn’t remember hitting them on anything. When I had the bruised elbow, I thought it had to do with my previous mattress, which was thankfully recently replaced.

The interesting thing about health realizations at this point in my life, is that I can calm myself down by relating them to my gastric bypass. My immediate thought was “Is this a vitamin deficiency?”, so ultimately I knew I had to find out.

I Googled what vitamin deficiencies caused easy bruising, and I got the result of Vitamins B12, C, and K. I also contemplated whether I was vitamin deficient anemia, but more on that later.

I was going to attempt to find a place to get my blood tested once I had my long weekend, but about an hour into the school day, and I was extremely fatigued. I told some of the teachers my situation, and showed them the large bruise on my arm. They told me that I need to go to a doctor. So, I did. And boy was it a journey to do it too...

At first, I tried to go to the doctor in Orcasitas, which is the municipality in which I live. I went in, showed my translated message from Google Translate (props to Google Translate), which read: 

“Creo que tengo una deficiencia de vitaminas, pero no estoy seguro de QUÉ vitaminas. Estoy fatigado y recientemente noté que me salen moretones con mucha facilidad. No tengo un médico español designado. ¿Qué tengo que hacer? Creo que necesito un análisis de sangre.”

And for those of you that don’t speak Spanish, it reads: 

“I think I have a vitamin deficiency, I'm just not sure WHICH vitamins. I'm fatigued and I've recently noticed that I bruise extremely easily. I don't have a designated Spanish doctor. What should I do? I think I need blood work.”

The lady at the Orcasitas doctor, along with the security guard told me that since I don’t have a designated Spanish doctor, that I would have to go to the hospital, to the “Urgencias”, which, if you couldn’t tell, is basically the ER. So I did. I walked from the Orcasitas doctor to the Hospital Doce de Octubre, which was about a 20 minute walk in the rain, so that was a time. The hospital is named after the 12th of October, which is Indigenous People’s Day in the US, but the Fiesta Nacional de España in Spain. It’s a big thing... Anyway...

I get to the main entrance, show my message to the information desk, and they tell me to go to the Urgencias which was next door. I was hoping I could get away with it just being there, but that clearly wasn’t the case. So, I made it to the Urgencias and went to the registration desk.

The woman at the desk held out a container, into which I put my insurance card and my drivers license. I realized when I got there that I probably should have gotten my passport, but it turned out fine.

She took my details and handed me a hospital bracelet. I sat in the first waiting room, until I was called it when they took my temperature and blood pressure. I was struggling to understand, but it made enough sense for me to make sense of it.

After this happened, they took me to the main waiting room. I gotta say, while the whole affordable healthcare thing is better than basically any complaint I could make, that hospital had a lot of people. My first initial wait wasn’t too long though, but the second was a different story. The first wait was probably like 10 minutes.... maybe....

I got an email once I got to this waiting room from the principal of my school. She told me to come back to the school to get insurance information. I told her I was already at the hospital and checked in. She said that I shouldn’t have gone to the hospital, and that my insurance probably wouldn’t cover it. Eventually, I told her that if it costs like 100 euros, I don’t mind paying it. I then affirmed to her how expensive medical care is in the United States, to which she conceded by basically saying “Fair enough...”

So when I was brought into the examination room, the guy asked me questions, I showed him the bruises on my arm and legs, and my message on my phone. He checked my heart and breathing, and all that fun stuff. He then brought me to the lab, where they took three vials of blood. They kept the needle thing in that they initially inserted to get the blood.

The lady then told me to sit in the waiting room, and this took ages... I’m not a newbie when it comes to waiting. Waited 5 hours in a line for a COVID test, waited an hour in a line to get fingerprinted for my residency card, and now waited 2 hours in a waiting room. At least this one was inside...

My one observation of note during this wait, was that one of the nurses is a guy that looks like a cross of Dr. Now from My 600 LB Life, and Bob Hoskins’ character from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but Spanish.

Eventually, the same guy that called me into the ER the first time, was the one to call me in again. He said that everything looked fine. I wasn’t anemic, but my main issue was............. Vitamin K deficiency. For those keeping score at home, that was the second time that my attempts of guessing my ailment were correct. The first time being my appendix.

It was interesting though, because he said that my fatigue was from other factors. I’ve basically always been fatigued. That’s like... my natural state of being. To hear it from a medical professional was kind of funny though.

He handed me my results sheet, and told me to go back to the lab to get the needle removed. When I was waiting, there was a woman that was -GROSS WARNING- puking into a container. It was definitely unexpected...

After this, I left the hospital, and get this.... paid absolutely nothing. Love it. I was going to take the train back to Orcasitas because I didn’t want to walk, but I learned once I got to the station, that the Doce de Octubre metro station, is not the same place as the train station. So, walking it is.

I walked home, got money out of the ATM to pay my rent, and now here I am. So I can officially say that I have, in some capacity, navigated the Spanish healthcare system.

And I need to get Vitamin K supplements, and eat more leafy greens. So yeah...

[frommainetospain2020]

Is this an actual Spain-oriented blog post? (With some secondary baking blog thrown in, because look at who is writing this... Honestly...)

I’ll just out and say it. After experiencing bureaucracy from just a short-term residency perspective, I see where illegal immigrants are coming from. I’m not saying that I agree with it, I’m just saying that I get it...

You’ll recall last week that I talked about my T.I.E., or Tarjeta de Identidad de Extrañero (my residency card) has been a major pain in the ass. The documents are not THAT horrible. I’ve collected documents for processes like this numerous times before. I’ve applied for, and gotten two visas. I’ve filled out the mountain of study abroad paperwork for my first trip abroad. I’ve gotten a residency card (With the help of my program) in Italy. So I’m no stranger to paperwork. But the friggin’ appointments.... Boy let me tell you...

I mentioned this in my last blog post and honestly it bears mentioning again. Getting the appointment to get my TIE was awful. The website is notorious for not having appointments available. This is country-wide (or at least Madrid-wide, I’m not really sure about elsewhere tbh...). There are thousands of auxiliares (language assistants like myself) who are trying to make this appointment, and the Communidad de Madrid only puts a couple on at a time, and at completely random times.

In maneuvering the website, I got pretty good at entering my information. A lot of it was easily autofilled or found in a dropdown menu by typing a letter. Normally, if you were lucky enough to get an option for a location at the end of the process, you’d put in your email and phone number, and then get the dreaded “No Appointments Available” message.

Others in my program that got appointments before me, said that they spent 1-2 hours of free time just constantly reentering their information, eventually to get lucky and get an appointment. I tried that... Spent about an hour just reentering information and getting nowhere. The site has a CAPTCHA, which starts off as a simple “Check this box”, but after entering information as quickly as I did, it evolved into a “Click each picture that contains this thing”.

So that was a no-go. On Tuesday of last week, as you probably know from my previous blog post, I got my empadronamiento, which was the last document I needed for this appointment, aside from the appointment itself. After I had this document, I logged onto the TIE appointment website, and got an appointment. On the first try. It’s like they knew...

I said most of this in my last post, so I’m going to get to the point. I had the appointment yesterday. It was a dreary and rainy day. The police station where I had it done was quite a ways away, and I didn’t want to miss it, so I took an Uber. This was the second and third experiences with Uber that I’ve ever had, and I’m quite pleased tbh.

The first Uber drove what seemed like really fast. When I got to the police station, I wasn’t 100% sure where to go. I got in the line that led into a super long line past a security checkpoint. I was apparently in the correct place. I stood in this line, eventually went through the metal detector, and then got in the main line I had to wait in. This was confusing as well, because there was a tent, where the line looped around through. I figured it out eventually, but it took a second. This process gave me COVID test vibes from the 5 hour line that I stood in at the end of September. However, this line moved much faster.

When I was towards the front of the line, I saw a couple of people that had the same CIEE folder that I did. They proceeded to go into the wrong line. I sent a message to our group chat saying which line to get into, and the girls that were in the wrong line came to my line, and waved to me.

When I was towards the front, it was already about 20 minutes past my appointment time, so I was freaking out a little bit, but it was fine. I was let into the office, and eventually sat down with an officer. I handed him my stack of documents. He took what he needed and handed the rest to me. I knew I had to be fingerprinted, but he only took the fingerprints of my pointer fingers on both hands. So that was strange. He had me take a paper to a different cubicle, and the other guy said I was all set, and to make an appointment to get my TIE in about a month.

When I left the police station, the line for the metal detector was super long, so I wanted to get as far away from this mess as I could. Before I summoned my Uber, I went to a place that was more suitable for an Uber pickup. I got picked up and got driven back to my apartment.

Also, one of my original roommates moved out, because her classes went online and she went to live with her dad. Our new roommate is nice. She’s an older lady from Colombia. There’s more of a language barrier, because she doesn’t speak English, but I’m adapting fairly well. She also convinced our landlords that our fridge is too small, so we’re theoretically getting a new one that is bigger, which is nice.

So, let’s get to the baking part shall we? On November 2nd, I made Pan de Muertos (Bread of the Dead) for Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). The results were.... interesting...

The design is supposed to look like bones. This is what the video’s bread looked like, so I at least did that correctly. Knowing the unpredictability of my oven, you can probably guess my problem by looking at the picture. The bread under the designed part didn’t cook. At least at first...

This is the recipe I followed if you are so inclined:

The bread dough was actually quite nice when it came together. It wasn’t tremendously sticky. It didn’t rise as much as it should have either though. The video didn’t show any kneading, so I’m wondering if that would have changed the consistency of the dough and helped it to rise.

I haven’t used orange zest with anything before, so that was a new experience. If I ever attempt Italian Cornetti, that’s definitely a good skill to know. I didn’t actually have an orange, so my roommate let me have a mandarin.

The bread ended up rather doughy and underdone. I ended up putting it back in after the above picture to cook more. The top got darker than I wanted it to, but the rest just wasn’t done. The end result wasn’t HORRIBLE, but it wasn’t great either...

I also got a new mattress. My original mattress was super uncomfortable, and you could constantly feel the springs pressing on you. I told my landlords, and they full-on bought me a new mattress. The reason I’m mentioning this is because when they came to switch them out, my landlord told me that I was using an overly powerful setting on the oven. Since my landlords actually lived here at one point, I figure they know the intricacies of this oven better than I do.

So today, I made brownies. I used the setting recommended by my landlord. It turned out MOSTLY alright. It burned a little, but that’s due to a number of factors. I’ve determined that for each thing that I’ve baked while abroad, the first attempt at any given project is bound to be a disaster. And honestly, this wasn’t much of an exception. Since I usually cooked on the initial setting that I used, and was using the different normalized setting, it was a different vibe. Since it didn’t cook as fast and seemed to be on par with what it should’ve been, I wanted to cook it for the full amount of time, 30 minutes. It isn’t the worst results I’ve had with this oven. It is a bit more burned than I initially thought when I posted it on Facebook, but the inside is gooey and what it’s supposed to be, so meh.... It’ll go better next time...

Also, I scraped the burnt crumbly part on top off, in order to make it look less burnt. It kind of helped, but was still burned. Most of this was user error on my part, and getting used to the proper oven setting. But hey, you live and you learn...

This was the video I followed for the brownies: 

So yeah, I’m on the way to short-term Spanish residency, and figuring out how to work this infernal oven...