30DC12: Picture of Me 3 Years Ago

Here I am nearly 3 years ago, literally having a gay, old time during Madrid’s Pride parade – Orgullo 2010 – which is also where I met my sweet and brilliant friend, Mateo. It was muscles, boobs, and glitter everywhere! Somehow,

NaBloPoMo Day 2: Why I'd Be A Great WAG

I'm still riding the high from Spain's big, history-making win yesterday!

Some of my favourite parts of championship soccer finals actually are not the matches themselves, but the bits preceding and following the game - namely, when the footballers stroll onto the pitch holding the hands of little kids, and afterwards, when the winning team members bring their babies/young relatives onto the field.

If you follow my Twitter, you may recall some of my tweets about how, um, happy I feel when I see footballers with young children.  I squealed internally when the sportscaster commented on how Fernando Torres "had his hands full" walking around with little Nora & Leo on each arm.  I had to suppress a high-pitched awww at the photo Sergio Ramos tweeted of him holding the Euro Cup and hugging his niece, who he described as the world's most beautiful.

Consequently, I was reminded yesterday of my deep-seated desire to be a soccer WAG (Wife And Girlfriend).  I really, really want to.  And I am absolutely certain I would make an excellent one.  So I thought I would list all the reasons why I'd make a great WAG, in case any prospective FHABs (Footballer Husbands and Boyfriends) ever decide to look on the internet for candidates.

This list was created chiefly with Spanish footies in mind, but I wouldn't say no to some notable exceptions, such as Yoann Gourcuff, Robin van Persie, Marco Borriello, Olivier Giroud, or Pablo Osvaldo, for example.

So! My dear, prospective FHABs, this is why I'd make a great WAG (in no particular order):

Tasty Tuesday: La Boquería

Colourful spice stand with sundried tomatoes!

Do you guys know how many times you’ve saved me?

Art & Travel

I put me in one of my all-time favourite pieces of art - Edvard Munch's The Scream :P

“Why do I have to go to the Louvre? What’s so important about the Mona Lisa, anyway?” a friend asked me a month or so ago, when she was planning her big post-graduation Euro-Tour trip.

I couldn’t answer her beyond vague mutterings about

Tasty Tuesday/Cupcake Chronicles: Cosmen y Keiless

Early on in my stint in Madrid, I was desperately craving cupcakes, so I did an exhaustive Google search of cupcakeries in the city and Cosmen y Keiless turned up. There were a ton of gorgeous pictures of this quaint, little bakery (little did I know that it's actually a chain), where France seemed to meet the States, so I made the pilgrimmage to the location near Salamanca district on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Tasty Tuesday: Pita & Company

In this week's edition of Tasty Tuesday, I'm going to introduce you to the only eatery in Madrid that I've been to more than five times, besides La Mallorquina.

The Haves, The Have-Nots and The Have-Not-Muches

Since coming home I've been swamped with lust for material things.  I don't know if it's the much more prevalent product placement, the fact that I watch (a little bit of) TV again or masterful marketing aimed at my demographic, but I find myself suddenly wanting everything, like this, this and this.  And, oh Cosmos, especially this!

Tasty Tuesday: Curry's

Tasty Tuesday is back, featuring my favourite restaurant in Madrid!  Ironically, it doesn't serve Spanish food, but Indian.

Like any red-blooded Canadian girl, I have regular cravings for all kinds of ethnic foods - Indian, Levantine-based (I prefer the Lebanese interpretation), Japanese, Italian (if that counts - it's pretty mainstream in Canada), Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Malaysian, Greek...

Entitled to Happiness

Something finally managed to kick my butt out of my self-pitying jag.

Tasty Tuesday: Orio

Superwoman and I just got back from Barcelona, which has become one of my absolute favourite places in the world - it is so beautiful, so charming, so welcoming, so huge, so...so all kinds of good things!  Superwoman also mentioned that I was behaving as if I'd never been there before when in reality it was my third trip to the city - and it was true.

You see, my first time there, I was only 12 years old, on one of those super rushed tours where you see, like, 10 countries in two weeks.  The second time I was there I was 18, on a really quick class trip with the modern languages department of my high school, and that trip was a blur.

So this time, everything was really fresh and new to me, in a slightly familiar way, except this time I could communicate perfectly with the locals and I had my mum with me, which was awesome. :D

Superwoman and I have started a tradition of watching travel shows while we go on trips to get inspiration for what to see/do/try and then doing them right away.  It worked wonderfully when we were in Tokyo (we watched Helen To's Tokyo Walker, which was awesome!) so this time my mum brought TVB's Lost in Spain with us, hosted by Vincent Wong.

Apparently they filmed this show back in the summer, when I was already in Spain, and I so, so wish they had contacted me so I could have shown them around Madrid!!!

Anyway, most of the show so far has centered around Barcelona, which was perfect for us, and we kept a keen eye out for what we wanted to do.  One of the most attractive things we saw on the show was this Basque restaurant called Orio, in the Gothic District...

Best of 2010: Spain

So recently a very, very good friend asked me if coming to Spain was as amazing as I'd hoped.  She's one of the people in my life who gets all my firsthand observances first, one of the ones I totally don't censor myself with, one of the ones who just knows me really well.  And I've had my share of complaints about being here - my hellish first month, about my living environment, about feeling alienated sometimes, for example.

My conclusion is that it was...

Tasty Tuesday/Cupcake Chronicles: Happy Day

 (*Sorry this post is late - better late than never, right?  I thought I published this yesterday, but as it turns out, I only saved it. XP  Apparently I'm still recovering from the massive brain cell massacre I suffered in Sororityland.)

Oh, Happy Day!
(Oh, Happy Day...)
Oh, Happy Daaay!!!
(Oh Happy Day...)

As promised, I have lots to tell you about Spanish cupcakes!

Representing

I get approached for advice every so often by people who are going to study or work abroad, and there's one main piece of advice that I always pass on no matter where the person is going, no matter why they're going there ...

What I'll Miss About Madrid

As per tradition, I'm doing my nails on a Saturday morning early afternoon after waking up and munching on chocolate-topped butter cookies, while David Tao is making love to my ears.  I can listen to Just Friends (普通朋友) on repeat for hours on end while I do other things - paint my nails, knit, fold laundry, read... Youtube it if you've never heard it before.  You don't even need to understand the lyrics (it's about a guy's sadness that the girl he loves only wants to be "just friends" with him) - the melody is so beautiful.

As I step into the second half of my second last month here, I'm starting to feel a little sentimental.  It was the same situation last time, when I went to live in Nice - I have a love-hate relationship with living in Europe.  On the one hand...

Working in Europe

This sign needs some Spanish on it!

So this is what working in a European office is like.

A couple days ago the head of HR brought around a new colleague to sort of orient him and introduce him to everyone quickly.  She does that from time to time so we're used to it.

My department also happens to be the most gregarious one in the company, so we were trying to talk to him a little bit.  One of the opening questions was, "¿Qué idiomas hablas?" ("What languages do you speak?")

Language Hubris

One of the things I love most about Spain is how welcoming people are, and, most notably, how there is no language hubris among them, unlike in France. 

The Chocolate Rhythm

When most people say that they are addicted to chocolate, other people just think that they just must really, really like to eat it.  It's goes further than that with me...I think I might really have a problem.  I'm surprised that I haven't written about it more here, actually.  I'd inject Nutella if I could, although I suppose that would defeat the purpose of tasting it. 

Just like at home, Commercial Land is kind of hyperactive here.  Several days after Todos los Santos (November 1st, which is a holiday here), stores start getting stocked with Christmas things.  Now that December is getting closer and closer, all the supermarkets here are getting filled to bursting with chocolate sweets, most notably an absolute ton of turrón, which is basically nougat, and all kinds of chocolates.

All kinds!  And it's all the good stuff from Europe that I love to eat at home, but it's cheaper because Spain is closer to Belgium and Switzerland and Germany and Italy than Canada is.  I just bought a 16-piece box of Ferrero Rocher for 3.90 €, which would retail at home between $6-8.  ¡Olé!

But that was when I started missing the Chocolate Rhythm at home.  Did you know that chocolate has a rhythm in Canada?  Because there is.  And it's a beautiful one, with its graceful ebbs and flows of brown, creamy deliciousness.

Tasty Tuesday: El Brillante

Calamari sandwich with World Cup special edition Spain-coloured peanut M&Ms :D

Cholesterolly foods are delicious. Don't lie, because I won't believe you.

And one of my favourite forms of it is seafood - clams, mussels, crabs, shrimps, lobsters - especially calamari!

Seafood plays a big role in Spanish cuisine because they have a lot of access to the sea, being a peninsula. There are all kinds of seafood tapas, appetizers and main dishes here, and I LOVE them.

So when I was doing my research before coming to Spain, I read up on (affordable) must-try foods in Madrid, and one of them happened to be calamari sandwiches (bocadillos de calamares) from El Brillante.

Person --> Alien

Hi guys!

First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who participated in my mini-giveaway - the winners have been contacted by e-mail and the postcards were sent out on Friday, as promised!  It was awesome hearing from you guys and seeing who reads my blog.  :D  Thank you all so much for the support - you mean the world to me!

Next thing I want to address is - it's November, which means it's NaBloPoMo!  

In my...2?+ years of keeping this blog (and another 2, 3 years before that using LiveJournal) I've never participated in NaBloPoMo before, so I'm really excited to try my hand at it this year.   That means I'm going to be posting every day this month, and so I really hope you guys will keep up with me and come back here every day to see what I've been up to. :)

So last night was Halloween!  

Tasty Tuesday: Casa Julio

a.k.a. I Eat Where U2 Eats
a.k.a. If It's Good Enough for Bono, It's Good Enough for Me

What happens when three girls are left with enough money to feed themselves for a week and are told to enjoy “a nice dinner”? They go out for drinks, of course!