Day Off

Wednesday was a national holiday here in good old España, which is usually nothing too exciting because there are national/regional/local holidays around here just about all the time. This one, however, was kind of a bigger deal than the normal ones, it was the Día de la Hispanidad, otherwise known as Columbus Day. Yes I see the irony here. I in fact added to it by spending the day doing incredibly un-Hispanic things.


First off, I slept instead of going to the parade. Ahem. But I heard it was nothing special. So there.


Secondly, my roommate and I ate Indian food in the "multicultural" neighborhood of Madrid, Lavapiés. First spicy food I've had in this country, and quite delicious at that.

Thirdly, we went to the least Spanish museum in Madrid, the Thyssen. It was free! Most museums are free for students at least one day a week, but not this one, so that made it pretty sweet. What made it not so sweet was the long line and early closing time. I'll just have to go back another time...

Lastly, and most Americanly, we made brownies for a girl in our group whose birthday is this weekend. Yes, I said brownies. We had to go to the more upscale grocery store, El Corte Inglés, to find brownie mix. Yes, we made them out of a box. Later that night we realized we didn't have butter. So we went to the grocery store in the middle of the night. I happened to be wearing a pajama shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, with my hair unbrushed and looking rather unkempt. No, I could not have looked more American. No Spanish woman would be caught dead in that outfit. No Spanish woman would even own that outfit as a matter of fact!

We did make the brownies in the most Spanish way possible, though. That is, in a cardboard "mold" because brownie pans don't exist here, in a toaster oven because our real oven doesn't work. Too ridiculous? Proof:

I actually ended up quite thankful that we didn't have a real brownie pan, because it wouldn't have fit in the toaster oven. The sides of the cardboard one had to give a little as it was... In the end they actually tasted quite nice though! Since tupperware is also hard to come by, we put them in a big plastic container that formerly held crackers. Like one of these. Altogether a great experience I'd say. Happy Columbus Day.