Holidays in New Homes

I celebrated Christmas with Anna in her apartment this year. It was the most low-key Christmas I’ve ever had, which was in some ways depressing but in some ways DELICIOUS because we made stuffed bell peppers and persimmon crisp. I will say that Christmas Eve was probably the first day I felt actually homesick since being in Spain, but that’s expected around the holidays.

The day after Christmas I forced myself out of bed at 8:30—four hours earlier than usual on my vacation days—and caught a bus to Partaloa, where my friend Amalia and her family spend their holidays. Partaloa is a tiny town of about 400 people in the very Eastern part of Andalucía. I spent two days there doing the very best things—eating, sleeping in, lounging, baking, and spending time with various members of her very large and extended Spanish family. Since I couldn’t be with my own family during the holidays, I enjoyed my time with hers even more. Amalia and her mom, dad, sister, and all sorts of uncles and aunts and cousins are so welcoming and generous, and I felt so lucky to be taken in by such fun and friendly people! (And I’m not just sucking up here because Amalia reads my blog.)

In Partaloa everyone lives within a five minutes walk of each other. There is one tiny convenience store, one bread shop (instead of one on every corner, like in Granada), and everyone greets each other when they’re walking down the street. As Amalia says, Partaloa is “España profunda” (deep Spain, i.e. the middle of nowhere), and it was so great to see this side of the country because as a tourist you normally only hit big cities or beach towns.

On the second day her dad took us to the town’s olive-oil plant. Here everyone can bring their harvested olives and make their own olive oil. The smell in there is amazing, and seeing as olive oil has become my new favorite food here—I might even consider it it’s own very important food group—I felt right at home there. I wanted to whip out a baguette and have a tostada picnic right there on the factory floor.

Straight FAT!! 

After Amalia’s it was on to Neivar’s house for New Years. The minute we got there we went to a huge barbecue at her friend Juan’s house, and all the friends I met on my previous visit were there. Fourteen hours of eating, drinking, dancing, and merriment—yep, sounds like Spain. On New Years Eve her family prepared a huge dinner and at midnight I participated in Spain’s version of the countdown—eating a grape with the twelve strikes of the clock. Eating twelve grapes in twelve seconds is no easy feat, but I’m happy to say I completed the task and should have luck in the New Year. If the grapes failed, though, I had some back-up luck: earlier that day Neivar’s mom passed me some bright red panties to wear under my dress! Apparently everyone must wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve, or else who knows what sort of horrible luck can strike in the coming year. . . .We then went out to Neivar’s friend Victor’s house to continue the celebrations, and later to a huge New Years Party in town.

Toasting my twelve grapes.

It was such a privilege to be able to spend the holidays with two amazing families, but after a week of cultural assimilation, partying, and speaking only in Spanish I was physically and mentally exhausted (In fact, I had my first definite dream in Spanish on New Year’s Eve—a sign that my brain was churning in Spanish way more than normal this trip), so I spent the last part of break enjoying Granada before school starts again. On one of these days Katie and I went to three towns in Las Alpujarras, which are tiny villages in the Sierra Nevada foothills. We hiked between three of them—sort of like  Granada’s version of Cinque Terre! They are beautiful rural villages, a nice break from a city feel, and we lucked out with 75 degree weather in January. As terrifying as climate change is, it’s helping me survive the Granada winter, that’s for sure.

  

Happy New Year everybody! My two resolutions: become fluent in Spanish and eat less bread here. We’ll see which is more easily attainable.