Tapas and the art of eating

When you ask most normal people what they enjoy doing, they will tell you they like to run, rock climb, play soccer, paint, play guitar, or sing. They might enjoy rollarblading, skiing, or if you are my dad spending excessive amounts of your time doing "physical activity." I would really like to act like I work out or participate in a sport. I can say that I did a spin class twice a week this past summer, although can't fail to mention the excessive amount of very loud moaning, groaning and grunting that occured with that. The man who owns the Pilates studio gave us a discount on our next session of spin classes, which seems suspiciously similar to a "I really feel bad for you because you trying to get in shape sounds like a woman giving birth to quituplets" pity present. I could tell you that I like to write, but until this blog I have started about eleven "journals" in the past four years all of which say "I am going to start writing down something every day" and all of which are blankly naked beyond the first day of random inspiration.

My diary from when I was nine should have been a hint that I was going to be a lazy writer. It is full of entries sporadically written when I hated my mom, hated my dad, hated Emma, thought only my dog loved me, and was determined that I wanted to grow up immediately and move out. At nine, I was sure that moving out involved moving into a pre-furnished house with a full refrigerator and full bank account, and a nice cute husband sitting around waiting to tell me I was great. I think the full fridge part should have been another warning, not of my lazy writing habits but of my mental obsession with food.

I could spend hours explaining that I love food but I'll break it down to a few key points:

1. I eat all day. Normally five meals and constant snacking.

2. If given unlimited money, I would buy every cook book possible, would eat at every type of restaurant I could find, and would buy a cheese plantation.

3. When deciding where to study abroad, my key goal was somewhere with great cheese. Studying abroad in Spain therefore had to rotate around the best dairy region, which, apparently is Cantabria but to be honest, I think that's a huge lie.

4. My number one hobby and favorite way to spend my time is eating.

5. My top favorite things in life are: cows, eating, cheese, love and my family.

The only problem that comes with eating is that if you spend hours in bed taking siestas, it starts to have "negative" effects or as I am determined to believe you start putting on padding for winter. Yesterday I ate:

three pieces of toast

two crissounts

a cup of hot chocolate

two clementines

a sobao (these cakey bready things that are kind of like a sweet bread that you sad on and sucked the air out of)

a package of crackers (the peanut butter and toasted cracker ones that I brought from the States. I came with eight boxes, am down to three packs in the final box.)

two bowls of potato soup and churrizo(traiditonal Rioja region soup, hmm)

a salad with corn (hm)

a yogurt

a tapa with: toasted bread, zucchini, bacon, Brie cheese and tomato

a tapa with: toasted bread, grilled and crumbled fish covered in melted cheese and tomatoe

a class of Rioja wine

an egg omelette

another bowl of the potato soup

half a plate of stir fried green peppers

and last but not least

a chocolate pudding.

In my ideal world, there would be a way to preserve smells and tastes and put them into other people's memories. If I was able to do so, I would bet a very large quantity of Swedish cheese that all of you would immediately make it your new life goal to study abroad in Spain, regardless of your age. (A side note, there is a 57 year old man studying in Salamanca. Think what you want.) However, until I find some way to make it possible to provide you all with a vivid enough description to do the tapas justice, I just have to beg that if ever given the chance, you will pop to Spain and eat as many tapas as is humanly possible in however much time it is that you stay for.