Wednesday, September 8th

me, Mikaela, Antonia, Sina,
and Katy for Sina's going away party :(

Today I woke up a little extra early and made myself some hot chocolate with a little instant coffee in it. Best decision ever! Thank you Abuelita for FORCING me to drink it! It was so so so good! :) Between the hot chocolate and the sugar cookies.. I started the day off right!

Between classes I had my normal mid-morning snack; apple, granola bar, muffin, and juice box.

Antonia, Mikaela, Sina
and I goofing around

After class, Mikaela, Katy, Antonia, Sina, and I walked to the Plaza de Santa Ana to our favorite 100 Montaditos restaurant to get one last tinto de verano before Sina left the country. :( Since it was Wednesday everything was 1 euro so we were super excited! We all totally pigged out on sandwiches and french fries and of course plenty of wine! :) Since Sina starts school on Monday, she has to go back to Germany. I'm so sad because even though we had to speak in Spanish to each other, we got along so well! She was a great friend, even though I only got to know her for a week. Hopefully more wonderful people will join our class for a few weeks!! :)

learning how to cook paella

salad!

When I got home, even though I told my Abuelita I had already eaten a rather large snack, she insisted that I stuff myself another time. So for lunch I had ham, potato and cheese casserolle, meatballs, salad, and bread. After lunch i was STUFFED and took a little siesta before our evening cultural program.

me, Juilian, Mikaela, and Katy at dinner

At 6, we met at a metro stop on the other side of town to go to a restaurant and learn how to make paella with people from school. I seriously doubt that I could make paella as good as the rice dish he served us, but it was fun to be in the kitchen and watch him make our food in front of us. We ate and awesome salad that had a sweet fruit dressing and diced mangoes and apples in it!

Group from Tandem. I'm in the smack middle :)

The cook made two types of paella. One that was just vegetables while the other had all sorts of meat (shrimp calamari, chicken, etc). They were both absolutely delicious! But we had a full skillet of each for the 4 of us, plus bread, plus lots of sangria. Needless to say, I think I gained 50 lbs at dinner!!!