La Hispanidad!

Feliz dia de la Hispanidad, a todos!!  Or, more well known to all of you would be, Happy Columbus Day!  Since 1987 Spain has celebrated the arrival of Columbus in the Americas as it’s Fiesta Nacional or it’s National Holiday.  Honestly, there isn’t  much going on here in Spain in celebration of their national holiday. However, October 12th is also a day of recognition for Spain’s Armed Forces. Today in Madrid there was a grand parade, where impressive tanks and 4,000 members of the country’s Navy, Air Force, Marines and Infantry walked with pride down el Paseo de la Castellana Boulevard.  King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia presided over the magnificent spectacle, undoubtedly waving with ease and generously giving their best smiles to the thousands of people that were lined on the sidewalks waving their spanish flags.  

Translation: In homage to teacher Quino.  Don't believe that I forgot the Argentine flag, it's just that Mafalda is the best flag that any country could have.

I am sorry to report that I wasn’t actually standing amongst the crowds witnessing all of this first hand.  My original plan was to be there, but going through a shooting workout with my coach and a couple teammates ended up taking precedence.  My roommate Sara Castrillo cheered for me, though, since she attended the parade due to the fact that her sister was one of the 4,000 military members.  My coach filled me in on a few more tid-bits of the parade, one of which was the presence of Air-Force jets that sliced back and forth through the air leaving behind expansive streaks of yellow and red that made up the shape of the Spanish flag.

This past week was pretty low key.  On wednesday I accompanied Pablo to his house so that I could spend some time with his children.  I helped Juan with his science homework, which was in English since he attends a bilingual school.  I spoke with Maria about her family’s plans for the 3 day weekend and she successfully put together sentences such as “We are going to visit my grandparents in Cartegena” and “my grandfathers name is Juan Carlo.”  Her brain soaks up english so quickly, no Bounty commercial could ever compete!  I walked Juan and Maria to their church for Catechism and returned home to see 4 year old Luis playing with his Wii.  He was playing tennis and afterwards he moved onto baseball, meanwhile I sat on the couch and all I could think about was the fact that the game was talking to him in English.  Ace, OUT, strike, safe, HOME RUN!  Which one of us, at the age of 4 played games in a different language? 

The rest of the week unfolded calmly with practices and individual workouts during the day.  Friday, however, was a bit more busy.  Today is a holiday for everyone, I guess, because in Canada today is their Thanks Giving.  So, Ms. Crooks invited the whole team over for dinner on Friday night after practice which meant that her and I were on a quest during the day to find all of the necessary ingredients.  After browsing through 3 different grocery stores we were ready to start cooking.  I was in charge of the appetizers.  So, I made two large dishes of Tortilla.  Each one contained 7 eggs and when I went to flip it so that it could cook on the opposite side my heart raced into hyper drive for fear that the whole thing would rip, collapse or ooze all over the stovetop, but to my utter delight, none of the above occurred!  After both tortillas were sitting safely on their plates with tin foil hugging their sides helping to keep in their warmth, I started on my cheese and meat platters.  

There were so many different types of Chorizo (kind of like Salami) and cheese at the store that I ended up closing my eyes, waving my pointer finger back and forth and buying whichever lucky product was sitting at the end of the invisible arrow that stretched from my finger to the shelf.  The search for bread was a bit easier since the variety of hearty, wheat breads were few and far between.  

While I finished assembling my plates, Sarah was in the midst of hers.  She made a Thai chicken pasta and for dessert, apple crisp with vanilla ice cream!  We arranged our living room so that there were enough makeshift tables and chairs to allow us to all sit together.  Everyone LOVED the dinner, especially Sarah’s dessert.  None of my teammates had ever eaten anything like apple crisp.  So now we will be making not only apple crisp but cherry, peach and possibly blueberry crisp in the future.  I am also proud to tell you that I have learned the words to that forever long song/dance that we all love so much...the Macarena!  My teammates taught me the words on the bus last weekend and throughout this past week I downloaded the song and worked on my pronunciation.  So, when everyone was all fat and happy after our meal I snuck my computer into the room, cranked up the volume and serenaded them! Ha, maybe it wasn’t the most beautiful rendition that they’ve ever heard, but at least they burned off some dinner calories as they laughed with me or perhaps at me;) 

Saturday’s game started at 8pm and man, did we ever start that game off with a BANG!  We scored 25pts in the first quarter and our defense was creating absolute havoc in the back court.  The second quarter was very much like the first and we were on our way to scoring 100pts, but they were slowly inching their way back into action trailing by a modest, 12pts.  Third quarter came and went and as the story always goes, we were just barely holding onto a lead of 3pts.  4th quarter was a long and exhausting game of tug o’ war.  Back and forth the lead changed on numerous occasions.  After a technical foul and a dagger of a 3pt shot, Alcobendas had taken the lead with 1 minute remaining.  The final score was 79-71.  After shaking hands, Charly rounded all of us up at center court where we proceeded to bob in unison back and forth, arms draped over shoulders, yelling something like “HO HO HO HO HO!”  After we had calmed down a bit and stretched our tired muscles, we trooped back into the locker room only to get all riled up once more by Charly.  Someone had turned on the music and a song proceed to ricochet off the tiled walls.  Lyrics were passed out and once again we were standing arm in arm, this time singing a song by Luis Fonsi http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG7k9fSYDvA

 Life is always so much better when you win. 

Leslie’s Loose Ends

-You won’t find Cherry Coke in the aisles of the grocery store, not because Spain is behind the times, but because Spaniards don’t like it, plain and simple.  When Coca Cola inserted it into the market people tried it, but they didn’t go back for more.

-I shared a piece of carrot cake yesterday that was so rich, fluffy and melt in your mouth heavenly that it just might be better than my previously favorite carrot cake from Zenos dessert bar in Uptown.  If you’ve never been to Zenos, this is an order, GO.  

-Yesterday as we sat in a plaza enjoying our cake and coffee, my friend let her dog wander around without a leash.  The dog then took the liberty of investigating every square inch of the plaza looking for scrumptious morsels of food.  She scooted under chairs, wandered under tables and brushed up against many unsuspecting legs.  I can’t even imagine the uproar that something like this might cause in the U.S, but yesterday nobody even batted an eye.

The happy and content Carrot Cake eaters;)

Signing off for this week.  I would imagine that those gopher games are starting to get a bit chilly! It’s still shorts and t-shirt weather here in Spain;)

besitos,

Leslie  

oh, and here is the website to follow stats.  www.feb.es  once you are here, scroll down the page a bit until you see a table with the word Competicion and next to that a search window.  Click the arrows of the search window and look for liga feminina 2b, click on that.  Then you will see a table with a bunch of names, look for Alcobendas, then click on the score next to the team name.  This weeks score was 79-71.  Good luck!