Rat tails, Dogs and the Mediterranean Diet

So I think the thing that most disgusts me about Spain is the men's hairstyles. Nobody wears a beard but a lot of guys, especially more in the teenage years, insist on having these nasty growths on the back of their head. I mean, really, the first guy I had a crush on in FIRST GRADE had a rat tail. Just snip it off and get it over with. Especially the little strings of hair, not in the center of their neck, but on the side, by the ear. Ugh, gross. And what's worse is their friends who have the mullet going on. No, not like slight mullage, I mean fully out head shaved everywhere but a bundle of flowing locks down the back. How can their girlfriends tolerate, or heaven forbid, even enjoy that?

The other thing that I hate are these nasty little dogs here. Everyone has one. I walk down the street and see little hairy rats being literally dragged by their owners because their legs are too small to keep up. I shudder at the thought. A couple of times I've seen beautiful Labradors and huskies and I long to scratch behind their ears (is that weird?) but most of the time it's just little yippy goblins with saggy eyes and hair all over the place.

Anyway, enough about what I don't like, what I do like is the food. It is said the mediterranean diet is one of the healthiest in the world and I believe it. One girl in the program commented "When I see something I've never eaten before, I'm not afraid to try it because I know it's totally organic, not like the artificial chemicals in the U.S." and she was totally right. There are all kinds of weird looking meats in my food but almost all taste wonderful. So far there has been nothing I absolutely hate to eat, although when Alicia (my madre) makes stew there's always this big hunk of unknown meat in it that is mushy and odd...but it's not too bad so I eat it with chunks of potatoes.

But although I like everything I've eaten, it seems like my madre only cycles through maybe 10 or 15 different meals almost all involving white rice that changes colors. Actually now that I think of it, the rice dishes are probably paella...
-white rice with a fried egg and tomato sauce (it's actually really good)
-yellow rice with chicken or other type of meat
-black rice with some type of black sausage
-Sanjacobo (a pre-prepared patty with ham and cheese in the middle)
-Grilled sandwhiches with meat and cheese
-stew, or close to stew, with potatoes & carrots
-chicken noodle soup, brocolli puree, mashed potato puree, some kind of bean soup
-rice with chicken broth

So you can see why I like the food. It's basically meat and rice! And she uses olive oil on everything, as it is the custom here. With every meal I get a plate of salad and for dressing she adds olive oil and salt. I've grown used to it but at first I forced myself to eat it. But besides the entree, salad, and an occasional soup, there's no other side. Oh how I long for actual green beans or broccoli or even squash! What's more, is that my madre makes just enough for each of us. We can't have seconds because she didn't make enough for seconds and there's never leftovers. It's not a big problem because I'm always pretty full after meals.

A couple weeks ago it was Paco's birthday (my padre). The entire family came over: Paquito (the son), his son (Fran, also named Paco but being the 3rd Paco they had to call him something else), Alicia (my madre), and Alicia (the daughter, yes they named their children after themselves). Macarena (Paquito's daughter) came later. Anway, the point is that my madre went all out and did a Spanish meal like it should be. She brought out 5 or 6 plates filled with different types of seafood, put them on the table, and we all reached in the middle and picked our own food with our hands or forks. It was pretty authentic. Enough about food!

What does bother me, by the way, is that whenever I finish a meal and my madre asks me if I want a piece of fruit I almost always do. But the few times I decline an apple, she stops clearing the table and asks me why not. And she says it in a way that's like "What, my apples aren't good enough for you, huh?" and the only reason there is to give is that I'm full, it's after a meal, for goodness' sake! What does she want me to say, "I don't want an apple because I'm afraid I may sprout another head"??? Ridiculous...

I feel like I need to explain the Paco thing real fast, as it is confusing. Francisco is the real name and Paco is a nickname (i forgot why but it has some kind of origin that makes sense). So practically everyone here is named Francisco and we just call them Fran, Paco, or Paquito, as is the case with my family. Other really common names are Jose, Juan, Javier, and Carlos. I just walk around meeting people going "Ohh another Jose. Joy!"

So I ended up going to the Medieval Fair on Sunday. It was pretty cool. There were tons of booths lining the tiny walkways selling jewelry and toys for the most part. I saw some interesting stands that were selling grains for different ailments "asthma, fertility, laryngitis, etc" and I was at a loss of what you would do with it and why you would want to buy it.

They also had these interesting characters that would walk around on stilts and scare people. They wore ogre or devil masks or something and I was thinking "How is that medieval??" There was also this little street parade thing where these men with little elf ears walked around beating drums while a hooded man in black dragged along "prisoners" in chains and pretended to beat them with his whip. Once again I was like "um...relevance? Last time I checked elves didn't populate the earth in the Medieval times..." Haha, even though it was kinda dinky it was pretty funny and it felt like America with all the greasy foods, hehe.

This blog took a long time to write (maybe because I stopped to watch an episode of Private Practice in between). It's almost 1am and I'm ready for bed!!