The essentials

For any of you who have seen me in the past few months, you probably heard about my main worry for Spain - the food (sorry about talking about that so much, by the way). I haven't eaten red meat for 4 years (except for the trip to Germany two years ago), and I am more than content to keep it that way. However, all that I heard going into this program was that you'd need to be flexible about red meat - especially if you're in a homestay. For me, it's a personal choice, so if it's a question of survival and not offending my host by refusing their food, I'll eat it.  I was mostly just scared that it was going to be a repeat of the meals we ate in Germany: three servings of meat a day. Needless to say, I was a little scared.


Fortunately, then, the food has actually worked out really well.  Basa, our señora, makes really good food for my vegetarian roommate and me. I don't even mind the meat when we have it. Spanish meals work as such:

• El desayuno (breakfast): for us, coffee, toast and jam, and if we're lucky, a piece of fruit. 
• La comida (lunch): huuuuuuuuge meal, around 2:30 or 3, often with bread, a salad-type course, a meat-based course, and a piece of fruit
• La cena (dinner): a much smaller meal no earlier than 9 pm. For some people, it might even be optional, if you're still full from the comida.

So, essentially, the method is filling yourself up to the point of exploding and then starving. Sometimes people eat a bocadillo (a sandwich) in between meals, but not as much here. I'm sure it's fun to see us American students adjust. We will be in the middle of our orientation activities, and then by 11 am, we're all falling asleep and ravenous with hunger. We're a really pleasant bunch to be around then, I'm sure.


Oh, and then there's the siesta, which is both the most wonderful and the most terrible way to recover. After la comida, there's really no option but to fall into a deep food coma, and given that Spain really seems to dislike sleeping, you're gonna be tired enough from the night before that you will nap, even if you normally have issues falling asleep.


"Why on earth would a nap be so terrible?" you might ask. Well, it's fantastic until that night, when you're trying to sleep, but you're well-rested and energetic, and know that you're in Spain and that you could go do something at this hour, but no, you have a five-hour intensive Spanish class in the mañana. It becomes somewhat of a vicious cycle because then you really need the siesta the next day. But it's worth it. And anyways, there's always coffee in the morning - good coffee.


Honestly, the hardest thing for me to adjust to has been the dehydration factor. You may well know that there is a particular item that I will always have with me - my precious Camelbak water bottle which I can completely empty in a matter of seconds. This works out fine for me in the US, where water fountains are aplenty and the water in them is more or less drinkable. However, in Spain, the tap water is on par with pond water (not that I've tried it; it's just what other IES students told me - then some of them got sick), and Spaniards just don't drink water all that much (thus far, I don't believe there is such a thing as a reusable water bottle here). Instead, when we do have it at meals, we drink bottled water, which is expensive. I feel super guilty about drinking poor Basa out of house and home. Therefore, I try to limit it, but still - it's warm here. And I don't want to shrivel up and turn into dust. That's not what this studying abroad program's all about.


Update: Victory. Basa just got filtered water literally today. So happy right now.