Last Week

So I didn't give an update yesterday. I spent the majority of the day enjoying the first very sunny day outside. A friend and I wandered to a mercadillo- a clash of flea and farmer's markets. I love those kind of open-air, anything-goes, way-too-crowded outdoor fiestas. However, unlike in the States where sweaty people wearing too little (intentionally or not) wash down their corn dogs with a 72-ounce soda, appropriately (if not fashionably) dressed families snacked on small bags of nuts and dried fruit. Everything was for sale here, from cases of strawberries to baby bunnies (8 Euros). I enjoyed browsing the cheap clothes. The English sayings on some of the t-shirts for sale are reason enough to make the trek to the outlying suburb where it was located. I don't know who translates or creates the sayings, but I don't think he or she passed English class. My favorite one was a hot pink shirt with a 400-pound half-naked wrestler on the front and a phrase underneath reading something like, "SMASHERRRR." A bright yellow messenger bag sported a picture of two kittens and a paragraph with odd word combinations like, "my friend me always with sometime seeing there and never gone being together forever." That must have been a phrase typed into one of those online translators that spits out the literal word-for-word meaning instead putting the words into context. Those crack me up, almost as much as the onesies for babies with a bold "sexy" emblazoned across the front. Clothes in non-English speaking countries are the best.
While on the subject of babies, or kids rather, there seems to be no universal bedtime here in Granada, and probably in Spain in general. The past two nights I have been joined by numerous families with toddlers and children on the streets of Granada in the wee hours of the morning. My friends and I get a kick out of seeing three year-olds pull a wagon in front of their parents and third-graders lick ice cream at 2 in the morning. I don't know the typical sleep schedule for a Spanish family on the weekend, but I do recall being in bed by 8:30 (whether or not it was still light outside!) as a kid. Even now, at the ripe old age of 19 and 11 months, I am struggling to adapt to the Spanish life schedule.Lunch at 3:45 and dinner at 11 is just flat out weird for me. Coming from an early to bed, early to rise kind of lifestyle, I really need that siesta to make it until dinnertime. I don't mind that the shops are open until 9 and closed for three hours in the afternoon (I only mind when the ice cream shop closes). My stomach, on the other hand, is still adjusting.
I eat most meals at home, which allows me to learn about Spanish food preparation and storage styles. If there has been one thing thus far that I have been most impressed with in this whole country, it's the lack of household waste, especially of electricity and water. Carmen, my host madre, has a small oven, but she never uses it. She washes the plates in one sink full, instead of letting the water run. Lights, if not on a timer, are off in every room except the one we are in. And, laundry is always done in a full load before clothes are line-dried. I love how green it is, but then there is the refrigeration aspect. In Thailand, the only foodstuffs I recall my family storing in the fridge were water and cut fruit. Here, similar food storage rules apply. Eggs and all cooked food are left out, as is milk and sometimes yogurt. Our small fridge, which is kept at a higher temperature than I'm used to in the States, holds raw meat, open jars and cans of things, and cheese. Everything else is out on the counter. Refrigeration is one of those luxuries I rarely think about, yet I am glad to be a part of a living style that is less wasteful!
OK, I am now realizing that the past few entries have been less a log of my adventures and more a ramble of my thoughts at 1 in the morning. This will change! My next post will be an organized list of the fun activities I did this past week, with commentary of course. For a preview, check out this Wikipedia link to the Alhambra, the giant red fortress on a mountain in walking distance from me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra Also, Google Image "El Albayzin" to see some pix of the Arab neighborhood of Granada, the last city in Spain to be under Arab rule. I will also give info about the food I'm eating. To give a brief summary: you can fry anything