A Purim service led by nuns and other cultural mash-ups

Palabra del día: constipado
Translation: congested
This is an example of a "false friend," or a Spanish word that sounds like an English word but has a different meaning.  However, every time I use the word "constipado" to describe the cold I am currently suffering from, I start laughing just a little bit... I've decided to stick to the synonym "resfriado" instead.

Comida del día: Hummus
Last week, my Moroccan housemate Nabil and his sister Mariam decided to host a Moroccan dinner in our piso.  The menu included chicken topped with olives and dates that almost made me break my vegetarianism (I resisted, but afterwards wondered why).  It was accompanied by salad, bread, and homemade hummus.  I made sure to watch Mariam as she made the hummus, and now I'm going to share her recipe with you!

Ingredients:
Lots of chickpeas
A little bit of tahini, but since tahini is hard to come by in Spain she substituted a spoonful of Greek yogurt instead
A clove of garlic
A squirt of fresh lemon juice
Salt
Paprika (she used the sweet kind, but if you like spicy things you can use the spicy kind)
Olive oil

Instructions: Combine chickpeas, tahini/ Greek yogurt, garlic, salt and lemon and blend together (in Spain they use handheld blenders to mix pretty much everything, but a food processor would work as well).  Spread hummus on a serving plate and cover with paprika, then drizzle olive oil on top.  The paprika and olive oil are the trick: not only do they make it taste good, they also make it beautiful.

Foto del día:

A view of beautiful Toledo from the tower of one of its many historical churches.

The Moroccan dinner was just one example of the many multi-cultural events with my housemates and other friends that have continued to overwhelm my social life.  At that dinner there were four countries represented: Spain, Morocco, the US and Mexico.  I use the word "overwhelm" because recently this highly active social life has been a bit too much of a good thing.  After getting sick with two colds in the past three weeks, I've decided it's necessary to slow things down a bit and I'm planning to hide in my bedroom with only the company of my four instruments for the next week (I'm still elated to have a bedroom after living without one for six weeks!).  I keep making a joke with my friends that without fail, I always get home six hours after I think I will.  For example, last weekend I went to play in a band concert on Sunday morning (our third band concert in three weeks!).  I was planning to come home afterwards, but instead ended up going out for tapas, going on a walk to enjoy the beautiful weather and discover some of Granada's secret spots, going out for more tapas, and finally going to my friend Silvia's house to celebrate her birthday.  So instead of getting home at 3 pm, I got home exhausted at 11 after a very fun, busy day.  For this reason I need to hide in my room for a while, because once I leave there's a high chance that Spain's social culture and my many new friends will never let me return.

Speaking of instruments, I'm still loving living in an apartment with other musical people.  My friend Silvia's birthday was last week and we surprised her with a serenade that involved four instruments: piano, French horn, clarinet and cello.

In other news, I've just returned from a trip to Madrid and Toledo.  The purpose of the trip was two pronged: first I went to see two friends from WashU, one who is studying in Madrid this semester and the other who was visiting from studying abroad in Florence.  The other purpose was to see Toledo, since it is right next to Madrid and I had heard that it's worth seeing (it definitely was!)

Madrid was a lot of fun and it was nice to see people from home and talk about WashU to people who know what I'm talking about: it's been such a long time since I've seen anyone from home!  We ended up doing many of the same things that I did the last time I was in Madrid, including going to three of the same restaurants.  This wasn't on purpose and it probably would have been good to try some new places, but they were all good the first time and the second time as well.  Here is the only photo I took in Madrid, with my friends Emily and Caroline in front of this great vintage cafe that I went to last time and had to go back to:

I only have one photo because I lost my camera on my winter break trip somewhere in between Budapest and Vienna, and although I've been taking photos on my iPhone, if someone else has a camera I usually let them do the honors and hope they will share them with me later.  The problem with this is that then I have to wait for my friends to upload the photos, so I promise to share more photos from Madrid whenever they get around to it!

In addition to eating, we also went to the Caixa Forum, a museum in which we saw a photography exhibit with the theme of conservation that contained beautiful black and white photos of nature from every continent.  We also rented row boats in Retiro Park (another fun repeat of my last trip) and went to the modern art museum to see Picasso's Guernica:

On Saturday morning I left Madrid and met Silvia to spend a day in Toledo.  We saw four churches, two synagogues, and a mosque, and had a lovely two hour picnic by this river:

 We lucked out with gorgeous weather for our day in a gorgeous historical city.

In the evening, we went to a Purim service in one of the ancient synagogues, since it just so happened to be Purim.  It was by far the most unique Jewish service I have ever been to.  Although it was in a synagogue, the building had been converted into a church after the inquisition, so the decorations included the ten commandment scrolls that are in all synagogues as well as a cross.  The service was also led by nuns, since a Christian organization is in charge of the preservation of the building.  During the service, they explained the story of Purim, sang one song in Hebrew, and then sang sad traditional Spanish songs with the theme of persecution for about an hour.  The service ended on an upbeat note though with an Israeli dance and triangular cookies that were trying hard to be hamentaschen. Although this wasn't your typical Purim celebration, it was nice to celebrate a Jewish holiday, since I've been struggling to do that while in Spain.  I've now seen all three synagogues that remain in Spain from before the Inquisition: two are in Toledo and one is in Cordoba.  Although there are almost no Jewish people in Spain now, it means a lot that people care enough about Jewish culture to organize a service to celebrate a Jewish holiday.

By Sunday morning, I had come down with a bad cold and was more than ready to come home to Granada.  Since being back, my credit card number was stolen, I've possibly broken a toe, and I've suffered all sorts of bureaucratic problems with my Visa, but the good news is that I'm alive!

One more thought about Granada: I had a conversation with a Spanish student a few weeks ago about how the fact that there are so many students (80,000) and specifically so many international students, affects a small city like Granada (240,000 people).  She complained a bit about how the presence of so many international students causes prices of everything to go up, while most Spanish people are struggling with the economic crisis.  She also said it brings a more international feeling to Granada and that parts of the traditional Spanish city are lost.  These comments came as a surprise to me because compared to a big city like Madrid, Granada feels very traditional.  I've also been loving the large student population and the opportunity to meet students from around the world.  I plan to continue to enjoy this opportunity, but at the same time I'm going to keep in mind how my presence affects my surroundings.

I'll leave you with a recording from one of the best-known flamenco guitarists Paco de Lucia, who died just a month ago.  If I keep up with the guitar lessons that I've been enjoying this semester, maybe someday I'll sound like him?  It doesn't hurt to dream about it.