Here in Barcelona, people don't necessarily celebrate Halloween... it is more of a fall festivities holiday. The streets are lined with high school students roasting chestnuts and selling panallets ("pan-uh-yets"). The family and I made a bunch of panallets last night, which is a very fun tradition. The main ingredients in the panallets are a bunch of sugar, ground almonds (ground so fine that it looks like flour), mashed potatoes, and eggs. We mixed it all together into a sticky batter and made different types of panallets (coconut, chocolate, almond, and another nut) in a few different shapes. The panallets are pretty small... about the same size as truffles. I haven't tried them yet, but the batter tastes pretty good if you like almonds.
Another random thing that caught me off guard about Barcelona is the fact that the crosswalk signal only flashes for about two seconds before switching to red and immediately telling the cars to go. Haha, so if you ever come to Barcelona, don't cross when the light is flashing... you definitely don't have enough time to get across. Hmmm... also, a cultural thing here is that people don't walk barefoot in the house, or really in socks either. Shoes and slippers are a must in the house. I'm discovering more and more random things that are different between here and the US... it is very interesting. :)
I've been a little under the weather the last couple days. I'm pretty sure I caught this head cold from the kids... achy, stuffy, soar throat, headache. I'm feeling a little better now and I'm hoping that a good sleep tonight will make it all go away since I want to go exploring tomorrow. I'm definitely looking forward to this weekend (I get weekends off). Tomorrow (Saturday), I'm going to tour Barcelona and try to find La Segrada Familia, Las Ramblas, la playa (the beach), and maybe make a stop in the Barcelona Starbucks. Sunday, I'm going to church for the first time here. In the next couple weeks, I'm going to check out two Spanish speaking churches and one English speaking church. I think that will be a great way to meet people... though I'm definitely hoping to make connections in this town since it is quite the hassle to take the train all the way to Barcelona to hang out for only a couple hours.
Class is going well. The Castellano Spanish is a little different from the Mexican Spanish that most of us learned in the States. There are different words and phrases, they use a different tense, and they have a lisp. I've found myself starting to lisp when I speak Spanish... I'm even corrected by my teacher when I don't. Haha.
Anyways, I hope you have a fabulous Halloween! Know that I'm jealous of the jack-o-lanterns, candy corn, baked pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, costumes, and trick-or-treating. They don't do that here. Haha, and I don't remember who told me that there are no pumpkins in Europe, but my host mom laughed her head off when I asked her about that. There are pumpkin farms here... they just aren't as popular as in the States. Eat some pumpkin bread and baked pumpkin seeds for me! :)
Take care,
Linnell
Not the best picture, but this is a beautiful Catholic church that I get to walk by every day.
Crazy graffiti that I also walk by every day. Haha. Quite different from the church, eh?
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